The Day Being a Mommy Sucked.

I have never been more humiliated & embarrassed in my entire Mommy Life. Or, quite possibly, my entire life in general. What would make me feel this way? Taking Emmalyn to the movie theatre.

Whoever thought taking a two-and-a-half-year-old to the movies must be out of their damn mind. Oh wait–that idiotic person was me. Yep. I thought it would be adorable to take her to see Monsters University since she loves watching Monsters, Inc. (aka “Silly Monsters”) at GG & BopBop’s (my parents) house.

I have to commend my little girl because she did sit through the entire previews plus the ‘short’ they played before the movie even actually began. I became so confident that she was enjoying the movie–she was sitting on my lap and laughing. Up until about half-way through. Then everything changed….

We were sitting in the very top row, at the aisle. The theatre was completely packed. Well, Emmalyn decided she was going to watch the movie from the stairs. At first I didn’t like this idea–I wanted her to sit like a Big Girl in her seat (aka Mommy’s lap) but decided it wasn’t worth fighting over. Have you ever read the book, If You Give a Mouse a Cookie? Yeah, well that was the story of my life. If You Give Emmalyn a Stair … She’s going to want the stair below it …. and below that one … and the next one… I kept pulling her back up to our row, but she threw a fit! That’s when the few glances started. Whatevs. I could handle that.

But after several times of this “stair game”, I’d had enough, and carried Emmalyn out into the hallway, leaving my dear parents to hold our seats. I sternly explained to her that if she wanted to watch the movie, she needed to sit in her seat, NOT the stairs. So we tried it again. She listened for a good while, then the same thing happened. She would sit nicely on the top stair for a few minutes, then creep down one, then another, and another…

I took her back out AGAIN and AGAIN explained the situation to her. So AGAIN we went back to our seats.

Well…

Fool me once, shame on you… Fool me twice shame on me… Fool me three times and it’s time to get the eff out of the theatre.

Even with just minutes left of the movie, I carried a crying and kicking 24-pounder down the entire flight of stairs, out of the theatre. She was NOT happy. But there was someone who was even UNhappier than she. Care to take a guess? That’s right… ME!!

I was utterly embarrassed to be holding a kicking, hitting, and screaming 2.5 year-old while everyone was filing out of the theatre. I felt as if every single person’s eyes were burning into me. Judging me. It was awful. & I was furious.

I didn’t talk to Emmalyn the entire car ride home. The strength and effort it took to put her in her car seat should have awarded me an Olympic Gold medal in and of itself. Conveniently it was nap time, so I swiftly changed a (still) crying toddler into her jammies, and set her into bed.

That’s when I lost it. I try not to cry in front of my daughter, but I just couldn’t help it. With Blake currently being 1,300 miles away, I just couldn’t hold it together any longer. Emmalyn looked at me with those big, brown eyes of hers, and a big pouty lower lip, and said, “Don’t cry Mommy. What’s wrong?” I explained to her that I was very upset with her behavior at the theatre. That it made me very sad that she was kicking, hitting, and screaming.

She leaned over, told me she was sorry, and gave me a kiss.

Suddenly, it doesn’t suck so much to be a Mommy.

loyally,
katie

* So, anyone else have a similar experience? Tell me I’m not the only one! What did you do in this situation? *