During the long Hari Raya weekend, almost on a whim, we brought Little Foot to the cinema for the first time in her life.

Little Foot is 3.5 years young now, and I did begin to wonder if she would be considered rather suaku to not have gone to the cinemas before. After all, she has become quite acquainted with the watching Disney movies on your home TV, and her deft fingers find the spots to touch, swipe and press when she’s having a dose of PJ Masks on her tablet phone.

It was not entirely a whim, as I have seeded the idea to her some days before, and mentally prepared her for what a cinema experience was like. The last thing we needed to her to freak out when the lights all went out!
So here’s how we got it to work out:

P.S. you may not agree with all that’s on this list, but hey, sometimes we should just loosen up really.

a) Choose the right movie

At her age, children in her class are carrying all kinds of cartoon characters on their bags and water bottles. She has a classmate who is a fan of The Incredibles, and so she has heard of it and recently watched the first version and told us she liked Violet (oh well, because she’s a girl with long hair). So this June, it was a no brainer that we went with The Incredibles II, considering that there weren’t other Disney options.

b) Choose the right day

Toddlers have moods, and boy oh boy, does mine have a temper to reckon with. There are just some of those days when they wake up incredibly grouchy remain disagreeable for the better part of the day. Well, those are not the good days that’s for sure. Hence I said we went on a whim, because I assessed that it was definitely a good mood day for her and we thus have a higher chance of having a good time, so let’s just go now, now, now!

c) Helping the little one visualize and imagine what is a cinema

Days before, when I first seeded the idea of going to the cinema, Little Foot asked “What’s a cinema?” and so I pulled a photo from Google images, showed her this is how it looks like, and what people do. We go through questions like “Can you talk loudly in a cinema?”, “Can you cry and say you want to leave halfway through the show of want to change to other cartoons?” and I explained that only the best behaved children get to go watch the cartoons on the giant screen. She was all excited and fascinated at the idea of going to the cinema filled with other people.

d) Getting the right ammo

Yes, indeed, I call that giant popcorn and large iced lemon tea my ammunition. Little Foot loves iced lemon tea, so much so that Pokka Green Tea has been relegated to 2^nd string on her choice of drinks whenever she has a chance to choose (Don’t worry, she still drinks a good dose of her Nan Pro 3 daily). The best part about the drink? There was an Incredibles II collectible cup and she got to choose one with a Violet figurine on top. Yeap, you can call me a carrot head, but it’s an outing and when you wanna have fun, just go all out for it! And she did in fact behave well throughout the show while sipping on the lemon tea which we shared.

e) Holding hands

In the dark, it is easy for us to get absorbed in the show, but we are also mindful that Little Foot may get anxious. And she does get scared whenever there is a villain or monster, or some fights going on in the shows she watches, so we held hands through the show. In fact, she hugged Papa’s arm throughout most of the movies (I’ve said many times, she’s just like his little lover!)

f) Preempting toilet emergencies

So proud that our little girl has started her toilet training this June, and she has more or less gotten the hang of it, but to prevent any mishaps, we got her to wear a pull-up pants anyway, so that we do not end up having an “accident” which will surely spark her cries. Anyhow, this brave little one sat throughout 95% of the movie and only towards the end kept telling us she’s gotta go, and dead firmly refused to do it in her diaper. So after the villain was defeated, Papa whizzed her off to the toilet.

All in all, we really had a good time. And I think this means that there will be more to come, when the stars align again 🙂