Keeping busy & the movies!

Anytime that Daddy has to go out of town, Hope and I try to keep extra busy. Even though it wears me out, it passes the time and prevents the "what do we do until bedtime?" problem. We've been having all sorts of fun this time!

Believe it or not, the girl who previously had to wear hairclips unknowingly (lest she rip them out) is now a fan of ponytails. Not only so, but she let me play with her hair for quite a while resulting in her first ever "two po-nee-tails" style. And she was very proud of it!


After naptime, we planted some wildflower seeds in a flowerpot with the new shovel Hope recently got in a kid's meal. Don't ask me why a shovel is in a kid's meal, I only know that it thrilled my particular child - she's weird. Again, we took advantage of the half hour it wasn't raining this week to play outside for a bit. That playtime included stomping in puddles, and the lake on my back patio. Since she was a little messy anyway, we broke out the new fingerpaint when we got inside (and the rain started up again). Thanks Grandmom and Grandad!

By then it was too late for the trip to Target I had planned, so I tried to think of something fun for the evening. Lo, Hope's first ever trip to the movie theater!

Picture me, a smuggled picnic dinner, an over-full over-priced bag of popcorn, two raincoats, a diaper bag, and a 2-year-old clumsily making our way through the theater. Happily, there were only four other people who came to see Monsters vs. Aliens, and they were mom/kid combos just like us.

We finally got settled in just in time for the movie to start. And, oh man, I didn't realize this was a 3D movie. Now imagine pregnant me with one foot trying to keep Hope's seat from eating her, one foot keeping our popcorn bag from falling over, one hand holding her 3D glasses in place (they were adult size glasses for a kid movie - duh!), one hand juggling sippy cup/cheese/hot dog, and mouth occupied with the mantra "No honey, the movie will look fuzzy if you take the glasses off." Phew.

But after 5-10 minutes she was in the zone, then it was fun! She pointed to lots of characters and asked "what's dat?" a bunch of times. She laughed at the "mean optopus ... have four eyeballs!" And she scarfed her smuggled picnic and popcorn.

The glasses gave us trouble, but I guess I should have realized it was a 3D movie that would come with that particular challenge. I must have cleaned popcorn greasy fingerprints off her glasses 50 times, put them back on her face 150 times, and wondered if letting her watch the movie without them would damage her eyesight a few times too :)

But really, even with all the parts that were messy/hectic/acrobatic, it was a sweet little outing. She enjoyed the movie, I enjoyed whispering to her about what was going on, she played with my hair and cuddled me after she ate, and someone else cleaned up the spilled popcorn :)