I looked up Monkey Kingdom and after watching a preview for it I got really excited because I knew Alivia would love to see it and it would make a great first trip to the movie theater! I showed it to Dustin and he agreed.
I made sure to make a big deal about it. About 2 weeks before the movie was set to release I explained to her what a movie theater is; the big screen, the people, the dark room, the movie, the noise. She seems to do best when not just thrown into a new situation. The only thing I forgot to mention was the previews and it was noticeable. She didn't quite understand what the heck was going on and about cried when some animated character was on fire and running through a house...
But leading up to the movie we would tell her we were taking her on a "Movie Date". She was ecstatic. Anytime I mentioned it she'd say "today?". We ended up marking it on the calendar and counting down the days until we went out. She knew that Grandma Susu was coming to watch her baby sister and that it would just be mommy, daddy and Alivia. That day when I put her down for her nap I reminded her that we were going to see the movie when she woke up.
True to fashion these days I ended up being stuck in her room during her entire nap with Juliana sleeping on me. The second she woke up she looked at me and said "MOVIE DATE NOW!".
I still think 2 is very young to be taking a child to a movie theater. Not only does it require a little kid to sit still and be quite for 60+ minutes but most "kids" movies aren't actually geared towards, or appropriate for, toddlers. With that in mind we knew not to expect much. I was fully prepared to watch 30 mins or so before she got tired of it.
She did great! She loves monkeys,..it's the first place she wants to visit when we go to the zoo, she likes walking and sounding like a monkey and we've even called her our "little monkey" since she was a newborn. She's also really into mommy's and babies, daddy's and big sisters. Every time we play any game at all she has to make sure there is a mommy and a baby. If we see an ant crawling across the side walk she has to find it's mommy...so the fact that this movie had monkeys and mommies and babies and a daddy, she was pretty excited.
She certainly didn't sit in her chair the whole time. She would stand, walk, sit on my lap, sit in her chair, tried to stand on her chair and play with the chair in front of her...talk. I had to remind her a couple times that we had to whisper and not play with other people's chairs. She caught on pretty quick. The best part was during the previews (which she didn't understand or like) she saw some people walking in the very front row at the bottom of the theater;
Alivia: "What those things?"
Me: "People...they are walking by the screen"
Alivia: "Alivia want to touch them"
HA! Because of the distance, dark theater and the fact that she's two years old she didn't have the depth perception to understand that they were full grown people walking by. It was also sweet when she would start laughing at the monkeys and she didn't care how loud she was laughing.
It really was a great movie and we had a really good time taking her. Disney did good at keeping it real but also not showing up close scenes that would be disturbing to young children (a monkey fight, a dead monkey, etc). I think Alivia's favorite part was when baby monkey "Kip" would nurse. She actually crawled up on my lap and asked for mommy milk.
After the movie we took a few pictures in front of the theater to document the occasion, she walked around the water fountain and then we grabbed a cupcake. Which turned out to be a big mistake and she had a full on meltdown in the middle of the sidewalk when I tried to take a bite. Apparently she forgot we were sharing it...but who can blame her? She's 2.
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