Movie Night: Trial 2

I’m not officially a scientist, but I appreciate good science, so I did feel the need to collect more data on movie night before I decided that it wasn’t going to work out. This week had a couple of terrible cold and rainy days, just like last week.  (Seriously, January?  You’re not even trying to not be miserable.) So, I planned for another mid-week movie night with my 8 year old and 3 year olds. I thought that I was in pretty good shape to have a successfully smooth evening because I was armed with the important information of what went wrong last time.  I chalked it up to two major factors: 1) seeking consensus in choosing the movie and 2) starting the movie as soon as we got home from school, leaving everyone with the need to manage their daily bodily functions in the desperate half-hour before bedtime.

As any decent scientist would, I tried to make adjustments to those two variables.  I predicted that my outcome would be a peaceful, relaxing movie night with my kids.  

After driving through weather for 1.5 hours, doing the rounds of pick-up, we landed back home and I announced that everyone was having a bath before movie night.  Oldest would head to the upstairs bathroom and the little ones would use the downstairs bathroom in my bedroom.  There was some light complaining about taking a bath and about the location and about who was sharing the bath from 2/3rds of the kids, but I’ve heard bath complaints MANY times before so it was no deterrent to me.  

I set to work filling the tubs and re-distributing bath toys (which normally just stay in the designated “kids’” bathroom upstairs), when I heard my twins get into an argument in the living room.  Then I heard a door slam.  Hard.  

I hustled back downstairs to settle the fight and keep things moving forward.  Only.  The bedroom door was now locked.  With my 3 year old behind it.  And from the very muted sound of the running bathwater, I could also tell that the bathroom door was closed..and from the slight rattling sound I could hear, was also being locked.  My 3 year old son was behind TWO locked doors with a bathtub full of actively running water. 

Now let me pause to say this.  I have three children.  When I give instructions to them, one of them routinely says “Otay, Mama” and does what I say.  Two of them are very quick to give me a “no” as a first response, and one of those two FREQUENTLY ignores me altogether and requires quite a bit of work to earn his attention with pointed eye contact before he can mentally process my words and his necessary actions.  Guess which one was behind the two locked doors with the bathtub full of actively running water?

I honestly do not know if I panicked right away or if it took a few seconds, but I do know that my BEST, most authoritative “You open this door RIGHT NOW” did nothing to correct the situation.  The doors remained locked and the child was silent.  Was he ignoring me or was he already dead?  I had no way of knowing. Meanwhile, the other two kids were alerted to the excitement and whirled around me like satellites, one asking me questions that sounded like a wordless high pitched buzzing to my addled brain, the other trying to suggest things to use to open the door (they were all terrible suggestions; he’s never done this before).

I raced to the garage and returned with the skinniest, longest-handled screwdriver that we have and began jimmying the lock.  I was hoping for some magical “CLICK” or “POP,” but all I felt was the screwdriver mashing against little bits of immovable metal.  I gave up and tried to use my authoritative voice again.  Still no response from inside.  

I raced back to the garage and rifled through the tool drawer looking for the tiniest possible allen wrench that would allow me to remove the door handle completely.  Where was it?  Why wasn’t it easy to see?  Why do we have SO.MANY.FREAKING.TOOLS.IN.THIS.FARKING.DRAWER?!

There was no time for fumbling. I ran back upstairs and re-assessed.  Best case scenario:  there is water pouring all over my tiny bathroom and it will be a tragic mess.  Worst case scenario:  my preschooler has fallen into the bath and is struggling for life and I’m impotently standing outside two locked doors.

A quick mental calculation told me that I would, in fact, be able to break both doors down.  This would, of course, require an expensive repair from a hard-to-schedule handyperson, and could potentially injure my child.  But he could already be dying…So, I took a strong inhale to steady the inside parts of my body that were quavering with panic and delivered the last attempt of my best, most authoritative voice.  “First Name Middle Name!  If you do not open this door NOW, I will have to break it open and then we will have a broken door.”  I was planting my feet to get ready to use my (delicate) shoulder as a battering ram, when I heard it… The slightest sound of rattling.  He was unlocking the bathroom door.  I froze.  And he shuffled over to the bedroom door and unlocked it too.  Then he casually shuffled back into the living room WITH HIS HANDS IN HIS JACKET POCKETS.  (There is no greater sign for being totally chill than having your hands in your pockets.)

I flew into the bathroom, thankfully, finding that the water was still about two inches away from cresting the tub. I went back out to my kid, got very low and close to his face and reminded him “You are not allowed to lock doors.  That was not a safe choice.”  

And, unfortunately, even though my entire brain and body was still offline from the absolute trauma of that fear, I was still home alone with 3 kids for the next 5 to 6 hours, so I had no choice but to carry on as if we were all totally cool.  I sent everyone into their respective baths, thwarting some protests from the oldest with the aggressive whisper, accompanied by crazymommy eyes, “My stress level is at an absolute maximum right now and I really need you to just do what you can do to help me get it back to a normal level.  So, just do what I say.”  And he did.  Thank you, brain development, for giving my child the ability to empathize and shift his behavior.

I headed back downstairs to get the twins started in their bath, which quickly dissolved into another round of fights, leaving Twin B being repeatedly doused with water right over her head by her door-locking brother.  My nervous system still a wreck, I had no other response, but to reach into the recesses of subconscious memory as a person who was raised in the 1980s and, in retaliation, pry the pitcher out of his hand, refill it, and pour it over his head.  He gasped in surprise and I said, “It doesn’t feel good, does it?  Please don’t pour water on your sister.” 

I don’t know if I was horrified with myself…or proud of how efficient I was.  A little of both?  I dried both of their faces before deciding that sitting in water counted as enough of a bath for tonight, and took them both out.

Now, here’s the important part:  During the time that everyone was drying off and putting on pajamas to prepare for movie night, 2/3rds of the kids did stop to poop.   This was what I was hoping for, so, all drama aside…maybe my plan was a success?

Let’s jump forward to the actual movie, which I picked out and put on without any conversation.  “We’re watching Lilo and Stitch, so we can compare it to Home to see how it’s similar and different and decide which one we like better.”  I won’t bore you with the details here:  that move is terrifying.  I remember it as a cute story about a little girl and a naughty alien becoming family.  But, actually, it is about a mentally unstable alien scientist who intentionally created a destruction monster being forced to hunt and capture that monster after it’s escape to Earth.  The little girl, who is severely trauma-impacted from losing her parents, is intended to be the collateral damage. I’m not even kidding, 80% of this movie is just aliens running around, shouting, and shooting blasters.  We could have watched Star Wars and it would have gone down easier.

We made it through an hour of the movie, with only 30 minutes of conclusion left, when I decided to pull the plug.  No one was eating their smorgasbord because they were all too stunned by the violence on-screen and the twins had each said, at least 5 times, “I don’t like this one.  It’s too scawy.”

So, there you go.  Movie night began with trauma and ended with trauma.  We put on an episode of Gabby’s Dollhouse while everyone finished eating and then someone had the idea to call my mom.  They enjoyed a lengthy, very animated video chat with Mimi and watched another episode of Gabby’s Dollhouse before going to bed. 

Now, it seems like a second failed movie night would deter me.  But, no!  A bad movie choice and a near-death-experience were simply two variables.  I can control for that next time!