Every Sunday night our ultimate goal is to pull off a family movie night. We aim to finish dinner and showers and the set up for the next day, early enough so that we can watch a movie and still get to bed by 8:30pm. It doesn't always work out perfectly, but when it does it is such an absolute delight and a perfect end to the weekend.
We snuggle up on the couch with a giant vat of popcorn and we watch our movie. This weeks movie was the result of the girls constant begging to see Twilight for the last few weeks. They have been lobbying for this movie and laying on thick the stories about how every other kid at school has already seen it. They knew main characters, story-lines and most of the movies events anyway, so we figured, ok why not?
I normally would not allow a PG-13 movie but figured if Drew and I were watching with them with the remote control held firmly in our hands, poised and ready should the need arise to fast forward quickly, what could be really be the harm.
I kept checking in with Belle as she has from time to time been prone to some minor flinching at episodes of Grey's Anatomy. She kept reassuring me that she was fine and just seemed very taken with the love story that was unfolding before us.
There was a scary scene toward the end of the film or what I imagine was the end of the film which I don't know since we turned it off to get the girls to bed. I am sure that I have mentioned it here before, but I freak out if we stay up past our bedtime. I mostly freak out because every time I try to test the waters of a later bedtime, we totally pay for it.
We pay for it in different ways each time. Sometimes it's the opening of the floodgates and out come simultaneously cries of how tired they are, or the next morning they wake up even earlier than normal when it should be later, or the whole day they are ridiculously grumpy...whatever the form it takes, if I keep them up past their normal bedtime everything falls to shit.
Bedtime in our house is usually 8:30pm. Last night because they were well rested from the weekend I was willing to accept a 9pm bedtime. So promptly at 9pm, we turned off the movie and made our way upstairs to brush our teeth and head to bed.
And sure enough that is when it ALL headed south. Belle started talking about this and that, all in an attempt to NOT go to bed. After many slammed doors because as I have already stated, I completely freak out when the clock strikes bedtime and my little angels are still running the nightly pea parade.
We were now looking at 50 minutes past the already generous bedtime of 9pm. This is where we finally figure out that our little Belle who has been quite literally shitting in her pants running from her bed to the pot, was scared to death by that final scene in the movie, and oh my goodness, what have we done?
Drew takes Belle downstairs to have a snack as she can not get herself to stop shaking and we try to convince her that she probably just has low blood sugar because we ate an early dinner, IN PREPARATION for our big movie night of course.
As they make their way back upstairs at what is now 10:30pm and I take my turn of laying in bed with her and rubbing her head until she falls asleep, I realize I have learned a few things.
I learned that as big as she thinks she is, I am bigger and as much as she thinks she knows, I know more. I know that no matter what she tells me she is ready for, it is still my job to decide what I think she is ready for and not to rush it even if she wants me too.
