Daddy Days: Going to the movies for the first time

I took some of the boys to see their first movie in a theater recently. I worked at a movie theater in high school and have fond memories of watching movies on the big screen. I had been keeping an eye out for a movie that would be a good introduction to the experience, which mainly meant looking out for one that for sure wouldn’t scare them.

I know my kids, and the large screen and extra loud volume definitely needed a non-threatening feature for the first experience. Then I saw that "Paw Patrol: The Mighty Movie" was playing.

I don’t know much about "Paw Patrol" other than the youngest boys love it, the younger boys like it, and the older boys used to love it. Plus, tickets were half off. The oldest said he didn’t want to see "Paw Patrol," and I decided to make age 5 the cutoff so the 3-year-old wasn’t in on the plan either.

The boys who were going were super excited and I realized I needed to prep them for movie theater etiquette. On the way to the theater, we reviewed how they would need to be quiet when they’re watching the movie since other people would be watching too. We also talked about how they would need to stay in their seats and that we wouldn’t be geting anything from the concession stand.

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As we entered the cavernous lobby filled with the scent of fresh popcorn, you could actually hear the boys’ heads empty of all those pre-movie instructions. “Can we get popcorn?” someone shouted immediately. I gave the boy a look and we picked up our tickets from an automated ticket machine. Apparently gone are the days where you have to speak to an awkward teenager eclosed in a glass box to get your tickets. Sad.

As we walked down the hallway and passed several other auditoriums, the boys were stunned to know so many movies were playing at the same time. When we got inside the theater in which "Paw Patrol" was playing, they couldn’t believe the size of the screen or the number of seats in the auditorium. There were two things I noticed immediately: the seats were leather and comfortable, and they were all empty.

This was a good thing though, because I found out I had looked at the seating diagram upside down when I (completely unnecessarily) reserved our seats online and we were in the absolute front row of the theater. Since no one was there though we moved to the upper middle section.

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While I marveled at how different these cushy recliners were from the fold-down seats I knew as a kid, the boys literally ran laps up and down the stairs and played tag cutting between the seats. I reminded them about that whole needing to stay in their seats thing, but even I had to admit that part of movie theatre etiquette seemed less important when we had the entire auditorium to ourselves.

There were a lot of previews (like 28 minutes of them) and the younger boys started asking, “is "Paw Patrol" going to start now?” When the movie started, the boys were pointing and exclaiming and talking excitedly about everything that happened.

I told them this isn’t really the movie theater experience since typically there are other people watching the show, too, and you have to be quiet. But since there weren’t other people, I let them treat it like a movie at home. Which means they talked through the whole thing. I was able to keep up with the plot anyway.

At the end of the movie they wanted to run around the auditorium some more and I let them go crazy. I’m pretty sure the running up and down the stairs in the auditorium is what they’re going to remember most about their first movie-going experience. And you know what? I think that’s a win.

Harris and his wife live in Pflugerville with their seven children. Please email comments or suggestions for future columns to thoughtsforcaleb@gmail.com.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Daddy Days: Going to the movies