Sitting in the darkness, baby on your knee*

Last week I went to see a movie** with Adriana for the first time with Diaper Days, and that went fairly well, so I informed Brian that I was going to go see the most recent Harry Potter while I still could. I figured that if I went to a matinée of a kids' movie during the school year two months after it came out, I could get away with bringing an infant in. Brian was instantly jealous (he was already envious that I'd gotten to go to Diaper Days last week), and decided he could leave work a bit early to join us.

Adriana handled it pretty well. Last week when she wanted to babble and giggle at the screen I could let her, because other babies were crying. Then if she wanted to blow raspberries during quiet moments in the movie, I could handle the fact that other moms were turning to look and smile. But yesterday, as Harry and Mr. Weasley entered the Ministry of Magic, Adriana started waving and cooing in her highest pitched voice (I think she's noticed that when people wave and say "hello" or "bye-bye" their voices go up an octave, so she tries to imitate this) (or maybe I am giving her too much credit), I realized that, given where we were, it wasn't actually cute and quickly whisked her away. We spent a lot of time bouncing at the back of the theater until she was ready to nurse to sleep, and then she stayed asleep even though the loudest scenes at the end of the movie.

While I'm glad I saw the movie, because I love all things Harry Potter (I just finished rereading the entire series; you would think I would have better things to do with my time), I was more disappointed in this movie than in any of the others. I mean, the second one sucked, but the book wasn't very good in that case either. I realized afterwards that my imaginings of the book were so vivid that it was almost as though I had seen the movie before. Except the movie that I'd seen was totally different from what was on the screen yesterday, and I honestly think that my version of the Weasley twins' grand finale and the scenes in the Ministry at the end of the movie were better--more colorful and spectacular. I understand that adapting such a long book for the screen is difficult and there were some bits of the story that had to go, but you would think they would have at least done a better job with what they had left. And they could have given Bellatrix Lestrange more time on screen.

At any rate, it's nice to know I can go to a movie now and then (although I will likely stick with Diaper Days--much less anxiety that way). We were going to see a fair number of movies back in December, despite the fact that sitting still for so long was rather uncomfortable (and near impossible given the fact that I needed to run to the bathroom every half hour), and I'd missed that.



*Name that (slightly modified) tune!

**2 Days in Paris, which was absolutely fantastic, with people talking a lot and absolutely nothing happening. And Julie Delpy. I think I might be a little in love with Julie Delpy, for reasons that I cannot explain.