Annika saw her first movie a few weeks ago. It was a big deal because Annika loves the sound of her own voice. Loves it so much, that during the viewing of most any television program requiring more than 15 minutes of her attention, she asks question after question. Sometimes, I think she cares about the answer, but to be honest - I think she just likes asking. Maybe to get us to participate in the show with her? Maybe just so she can continue to babble? Who knows...but we never thought she'd make it through a movie.The movie in question was Kung Fu Panda. We were worried about this movie for two reasons: 1) It was longer than 15 minutes and 2) it had a scary subplot involving a snow leopard. Proving to us how much she's grown up, the length of the movie seemed to be of little consequence to her...but her fear of the danger that Kung Fu Panda and his friends encountered during the course of their journey was almost too much. She asked after the first "scary" scene, "Can I go home now?" And that quickly turned into "Can I leave?"
To paint a picture for you, Annika was sitting on Chris's lap for about 85% of the movie. Her little body is still too light for the 'old school' theater chairs, so she had to sit on one of us. During the height of her fear, I took her and cuddled her and promised her that it would be ok. She would settle for a bit, but then cry out in fear, "Please! I want to go home!"
It was too much for me to bear, so I told Chris that we needed to leave (having had earlier made the unholy parental pact of 'it's ok to leave if she freaks out even though we're wasting 40 bucks') and he shook his head. I said, "No..seriously." And he said, "No."
He went to the concession counter and purchased some "incentive." Every time the scary snow leopard came on screen, she was given a piece of candy. I thought it was genius...positive reinforcement to face her fears!
It was rightly pointed out to me later by a friend, "Yeah, now she'll turn to food whenever she needs comfort in the future."
Woops.
4 comments:
LOL Chris was commenting on this yesterday and I thought Annika was a very big girl for staying through the movie. From personal experience going for food in a pinch is not so bad just as long as the pinch doesn't last more than a day or two. :) Let Annika know that Edson & Felicia said Happy BIRTHDAY!!! :)
I'm impressed too. I didn't make it through the first scary scene in ET when *I* was 3. :) Secondly, those are some dang cute pyjamas Annika is wearing in this picture. What fabulous Auntie could possibly have bought those for her? And thirdly, this fabulous Auntie would like to apologize for missing Annika's birthday yesterday. Happy birthday (goody on the way)!!
Happy Birthday Annika! You are one brave little girl.
The first movie I saw was Popeye with Robin Williams...needless to say, I ate too much candy and threw-up. So you're incentive may get you into trouble...
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