gypsymom

As promised yesterday, here’s my update on going to the movies yesterday.  We went to see Bedtime Stories with Adam Sandler.  There were about five or six, maybe more, families there besides us.  “Us” included me, Zach, Thing 1 and Thing 2, L and A.

The movie itself, Bedtime Stories, was a pretty decent movie.  It wasn’t quite as magical as I imagined when seeing the trailers.  I kept expecting Adam Sandler to go off on someone and begin yelling and cursing.  He did not, though, and that was nice.  PG actually meant PG.

To my pleasant surprise also, Thing 2 sat next to me and (mostly) just watched the movie.  He was only as fidgety as any kid during a two hour long movie would be, and there was one kid in the theatre making much more noise.

Being able to take one’s five year old child to a movie, a two hour movie like Bedtime Stories with Adam Sandler,  is (I think?) something that many parents don’t think anything about.  It seems like most parents I know can just decide one day to go see a movie.  I can not do that.  I have always had to plan something at least a week ahead of time (two for optimum benefit), start telling him every day or two about it, prepare him by going over rules, and do this every single day until the day comes, and do it four or five more times each day.  After that, we might make it through half an actual movie before having to leave.  I do it more for his benefit than everyone else’s.

Don’t get me wrong, I know that everyone who goes to a kids’ movie should expect there to be some noise (giggling, questions, etc) in the audience.  I also know that anyone will get irritated and downright mad at a kid who yells, screams, is very loud, and downright disruptive.  Being in that situation is not fair to everyone else, or to Thing 2.  He’s an extremely intelligent kid, and he knows, he can tell when people are upset by him, and it just frustrates him more and he can’t really handle that.  So until now, I have not often taken him into situations like that, where he’ll not be able to handle the overstimulation.

But yesterday, I was just in awe.  He was just like any other kid, if not a very well-mannered one.  This medicine is actually helping him.  I know so many people are skeptical of putting small kids on medicines like adderall, and I was too.  I thought that it would make him a zombie, or even make him worse.  It’s not that way at all with Thing 2.  He’s still himself, with his very unique and pronounced personality…but he can actually make better choices.  He’s been able to stop and think about consequences before he does something.  So many parents take that for granted in a child.

Seeing my son struggling with wanting to make good choices, wanting to “be good,” wanting to keep his friends and not hurt them is really, truly heartbreaking.  Seeing how happy, and how much less tense and anxious he is now…it’s just awesome.

So, anyway, I didn’t mean to get off track.  I was so impressed that after Bedtime Stories with Adam Sandler was over, we went for a drive down by the river.   We parked, and walked along the river.  No one ran out into the road.  Thing 1 was able to have a good time without having to keep up with me chasing his brother.  We even saw a little bookstore, and went and checked it out.  It was so …bookstore-ish.  It had the different aisles with old bookcases stuffed with books, and different rooms and it was dark and there was even the older lady at the counter.

And then we went and had Chinese food again.  All in all, not a bad day.

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