Rango...

... will go down as the first movie (in a theater at least) that Gabriel ever saw. Rango? you might be wondering, that's a bit of an odd choice for a 22 month old. This is true. But, we had free tickets and an expiration date, so we decided there wasn't much to lose. We could always just get up and leave if Gabriel didn't take to the movie experience. 

We decided to make a morning of it, so we headed out around 9am to walk down to a really great playground at 64th and Riverside; the theater is at Broadway and 68th so the convenient location was nice too. Gabriel loves this particular playground, and we had it all to ourselves for most of the time we were there. It's over by the Hudson River, so as the wind picked up, we decided to seek refuge and go get a snack at Whole Foods before the movie.

Gabriel enjoyed one of his favs, a cinnamon raisin bagel :). Andy and I got some coffee, and we all headed up to the movie. I was hoping to get into the theater before the previews so Gabriel could get adjusted to his surroundings before the lights went dim. We don't allow him to watch tv, so we wondered how well he would do in front of a huge screen flashing images with booming loud accompaniment. It took all of about 30 seconds of being unsure before he was saying and signing "more more big tv" ... and that was just the previews (which of course were all kids movies since we were in a quasi-kids movie...there was a documentary  type film narrated by Morgan Freeman that he liked the best, probably because it had real monkeys and elephants in it).

Gabriel actually only made it through about the first 20 minutes of the movie before falling asleep on my lap...I mean out cold. Even with all of the loud dialog and music, he didn't stir for a solid 45 minutes. Once he woke up, with about half an hour to go, he just resumed watching the movie like he had never fallen asleep. He had some snacks too, like any good movie goer! 

All in all, a success. I can't say we will necessarily be frequenting the movie theater, but it was a fun activity for the morning and Gabriel got to experience something new. Yay for milestones. 

Now, to chronicle the day: