Anna's first movie in the theater: Brave

On Monday we took Anna to her first movie in the theater with mixed results. She is able to watch full length features at home so we figured it would be a fun thing for her. Brave is out and we love Pixar and it all seemed like a fit. We got to the theater and loaded up on popcorn and candy then went in:

The first bummer is that there were tons of commercials and then tons of previews. The whole preview/commercial thing lasted for 30 minutes and Anna asked if we could go home when all that was over. Even with her own bag of popcorn and a ridiculously large bag of skittles. However, we were determined to see a movie!

The next thing that was not awesome was the sound. Holy cow I think movies have gotten louder. I mean really, they must have. The last movie Uri and I saw in the theater was Slum Dog Millionaire and I don't remember it being so loud. Maybe it was. But gosh, the sound was almost painful. There were many times during previews and the movie that Anna would put her hands over her ears.

Spoiler alert for Brave.......

Then there was the movie. I guess I should have done a little research on Brave before we went and maybe I would have found out that there was a VERY SCARY DEMON BEAR that appears in the very beginning and then throughout the movie. Or that Merida's MOTHER turns into a BEAR that is SOMETIMES VERY SCARY and TRIES TO ATTACK HER DAUGHTER. Poor Anna. I held her on my lap and I could feel her tense up for the bear attacks. On the whole, she did really well. She's watched other scary movies and is actually really into getting a thrill off of ghosts and mysteries right now. But man, those bears were scary.

I didn't know that the plot of the movie revolves around a mother-daughter relationship, which was really neat. I was blinking back tears towards the end and it was especially poignant to be holding Anna for those special moments. Anna clued in to all the mother-daughter stuff too so it was special. After the movie she asked if I was going to turn into a bear.

It is fun that she's seen the big picture out right now - I got her a Brave sticker book at the grocery store and she knew the characters so that was neat. I guess if I had it to do over I'd have probably picked Ice Age III. I haven't researched that either but I'm thinking the scary demon bear attack probability is lower. But hey, we did it. Add another milestone to the list.