John David and I went to see Cars this morning. We've been planning to go for a long time, but as June 9th drew closer, I started to have my doubts about whether this was the right time to take JD to a movie. It's hard to gauge if he's too young to endure all the environmental stimulation of a cinema experience. Although he loves watching movies (especially Pixar), he can usually flop around, play with toys, talk to us, etc. while he's watching. And, at home, we don't have a surround-sound set up. To the contrary, the volume's usually pretty low. Movie's at home don't overload his senses because he's pretty much in control (He could operate the DVD player by the time he was about 15 month. It was really pretty ridiculous.)

As I mentioned before, we tried out the movie thing with Curious George on a whim one afternoon several months ago, and JD just couldn't focus on the movie. Instead he wanted to play in the chairs and on the stairs, so we left after about 20 minutes. But, we thought Cars could be different because he knows all about it. We've been watching previews for over a year, and you could go out in public without seeing some sort of advertisment, which JD always points out. Still, I knew watching the whole movie would be tough, and, this morning, I had about decided to wait a couple months when JD came up to me and said "Cars?" At that point, I knew that he knew that today was the day. So we gave it shot.

We stopped by Krispy Kreme (or "Nummy") on the way. I got JD four donut holes, and handed the little bag back to him in his carseat. Normally, he consumes them ravenously. Today, however, he very deliberately saved them, clutching the little Krispy Bag close to him with both hands. He wanted to take them to the movie, which wasn't a bad idea at all.

The movie experience was definitely better than Curious George. For the first 15 minutes he watched in a trance. Then, when he started getting restless, I reminded him about his nummies. That bought another 15 minutes. We sat on a short row, so it was okay for him to try out all the seats. He went up and down the aisle for a while, taking peeks at the movie while he moved from chair to chair. Soon enough, however, he'd had it. Overstimulation. He was ready to go. With the help of some Skittles and the appearance of Mater (the animated Tow Truck played by Larry the Cable Guy), we stayed for another ten minutes or so. But, then we left.

John David behaved pretty well this time. He's still just too little for the Movie Theater experience. I wasn't disappointed when we left. JD did pretty good, all things considered. He got a good dose of a movie that he and I had both been anticipating for quite some time. He was gratified just to see the characters he recognized. He's not all that into that ancillary "plot" crap.

We'll get Cars when it comes out on DVD, and I'm sure JD will watch it many, many times. This morning, we set our sites on a new Pixar movie, Ratatouille, which will come out next summer. He'll be four, and, hopefully, ready for the movie theatre experience.

After our 45 minutes at Cars, we came home, went swimming, at chicken, and JD went to sleep, while I watched a few episodes of Six Feet Under. (This fifth season is pretty emotional. We'll probably finish the whole series tonight! We only have two or three episodes left. I'm gonna miss the Fisher's and company. Well, everyone except Ruth.)