Why I won't be named "Mother of the Year" anytime soon.

We did something bad, Chris and I. Well. Not really bad, I guess. Stupid may be a better word. Definitely not smart. Or I guess it depends on who you ask. Some people may consider it bad.

We had promised to take the boys to the movies on Friday evening. Shrek, of course. They'd been looking forward to it all week. Chris picked up some movie passes from work, and we made our plans. Friday also happened to be our friend Ronnie's birthday. So we invited him along. We had planned to eat dinner at Chilli's and then go to the 8:30 movie.

Everything went according to our plans until it was dessert time. I had taken the boys to the restroom thinking we were ready to head to the theater. When we returned to the table, the (big) boys had ordered dessert. Okay, I thought. Whatever. We all shared some of the white chocolate cake and ice cream. And it was delicious!

We made it to the theater just in time. Chris went up to the window to trade our passes in for tickets and received the blow....turns out the movie passes were not valid on 3D movies. And the 8:30 show of Shrek was, in fact, 3D. The last showing of the regular Shrek had started playing 45 minutes before we arrived. So there we were.

We found ourselves in the midst of a dilemma. The only other kid-appropriate movie showing that night was "Marmaduke". Even if we had wanted to see that, (which we didn't--not only does it look utterly ridiculous to me, we will be taking the kids to see this movie at church camp this week) it was a new release. And the passes we had were discount passes, which means that we could only see movies that had been in theaters for two weeks. Sigh.

We tried to explain to the kids. I tried to talk them into coming back the very next day to see Shrek. They weren't having it. Shaun was on the verge of tears and Jordan was on the verge of a tantrum. That's when my Hubs had his bright idea. He proposed to take the children to see Robin Hood. Of course he blurted out this idea before he discussed it with me. And of course the kids agreed wholeheartedly. After all, they just wanted to see a movie. They really didn't care which one.

For the record, I tried to reason with Chris. I told him that the kids were tired. The movie didn't start until 9:45, and they'd never last that long. I told him that we knew nothing about this movie and, since it was rated PG-13, it probably wasn't appropriate for Shaun to see, let alone Jordan. I tried to remind him of the time my mother had taken my sister and I to see Titanic, also rated PG-13, and about how shocked and mortified we all were when we discovered that there was nudity in the movie.

But no. He wouldn't listen. His argument? And I quote, "You wouldn't have a problem with it if I wanted to see Eclipse". Um. Well, yes I would. Its true that my kids have seen some PG-13 movies. But- only movies that we've seen first. I tried to bring up this little detail, but he didn't want to hear it. So off we went. Me, my 32 year old husband, our 29 year old friend, and our children, ages 10 and 4. Into a PG-13 movie about warriors and thieves that began at 9:45.

We were about fifteen minutes early walking into the theater. When we were all inside, I thought previews were already playing. I turned around and whispered, "Is this right? Are we in the right theater?" To which a woman behind us, after catching a glimpse of Jordan, retorted "I don't know. This is Robin Hood". It turns out the previews weren't playing at all, it was just the "First Look" they play before the previews. So we all settled into our seats in the back row.

We had barely sat down when Jordan asked for a drink. And Ronnie wanted popcorn. So off they went. Chris soon followed, saying that he wanted some popcorn for himself. They came back in one piece, Jordan clutching a drink that was almost as big as his whole body. He sat back and began to sip. The real previews began. When the "Eclipse" trailer played, Jordan turned to me and said "Oh, mom! Its Twilight!" Which resulted in holier-than-thou-look-number-2 from the same lady who had walked in behind us. I tried to ignore it.

Half-way through the trailers, I heard a big SPLASH. Of course. Jordan's huge drink. All in the floor. Chris left to get a refill. Jordan saw him leave and jumped up, running after him. I ran after Jordan, in case Chris had already gotten outside the theater door. We got another drink and when we came back to our seats, Ronnie was laughing. Hard. I wasn't sure why until I saw the theater employee on our aisle, setting up a cone around the mess Jordan had made. We all sat down on each side of the cone and the movie began.

In all honesty, it was a great movie! Just totally inapropriate for the children to see! Lots of violence. And let's not forget the scene in which Prince John and his French girlfriend were in the bed, making tons of noise, until John's mother walked in to give him a "talking to". And then John proceeds to stand up butt-naked in front of his mother. Ew. Yeah, Chris was getting some evil looks from me.

Aside from that...it wasn't that bad. Jordan actually feel asleep halfway though. And we didn't get anymore "looks". And, after we made it back home, Chris actually admitted that we probably shouldn't have taken the kids to a movie like that before we had seen it for ourselves. Um, yes. Haven't we heard that before?

The next morning, we had a meeting at church. Since we were all out unitl almost 1 a.m., we were tired. A friend asked me why I was yawning, and I told her we were out late at a movie. She asked me what we saw, and the whole story came out. There was a pause of semi-awkward silence and then she hit me with, "What? Didn't you know there was that R-rated movie playing that they both wanted to see?" Followed by laughter. The funny kind of laughter, but mixed in with the I-can't-believe-you-really-took-your-kids-to-see-that-movie kind of laughter.

So there you have it. Why I won't be named "Mother of the Year" anytime soon.