We tried to see a movie last night.

Actually, we tried to see it on Friday too, but it didn’t work out. On Friday, our anniversary, we were going to go our for dinner and a movie. Tammy and Chris came over to babysit for us around 7:30, and by ten past eight, we had the boy down in his crib and on the way to slumberland. We walked to Granville Street and hopped a bus downtown to find somewhere to eat. The plan was to find something near the new theatre near Robson and Burrard. There are lots of restaurants downtown, and Robson is one of the areas of concentration. However, every place we went had substantial line ups. Estimates of how long we had to wait varied, but were typically in the neighbourhood of 30 minutes. Now, I realize that this is partly our fault — reservations would have been a good idea — but with The Boy, we planned to expect the unexpected. At any rate, we didn’t have reservations, and I absolutely (perhaps pig-headedly) refuse to wait for any substantial amount of time outside a restaurant, basically *begging* to give them money. It doesn’t seem right.

So, we wandered up and down Robson. By quarter past nine, we decided it was unlikely that we were going to eat dinner and see the movie (which started around 10:30). However, we knew that it (Pirates of the Carribean II) and Cars were playing at the Aldergrove drive-in this weekend, so we decided that we’d go to the drive in on Saturday and just have dinner on Friday. Having given up on the movie, then, we headed down to Gastown where we had an OK, if expensive, dinner at Steamworks.

So, last night, we tried to see the movie, again.

The idea was sound. Pack up The Boy and all his accoutrements, clear out the trunk to make it babyproof, grab some fast-food dinner, and hit the drive-in. The Boy could crawl around the trunk (before you get too upset, recall that we have an SUV, so the “trunk” is open to the passenger cabin) to play, and sit in his car seat to see Cars if he wished. We brought along the play-pen pad to put down in the trunk, and put a sheet over it so that when he got tired, he could sleep back there. That, at least, was the idea.

The movie started at 9:30-ish. Aidan’s typical bed time is 8-ish, so we knew we were messing with the schedule, but for the prize of being able to see a movie (or two!), we were willing to do it. We arrived as planned, with all our gear and food, around 8:45 and pulled into a spot at the already reasonably full drive-in.

We released Aidan from his car seat, put the “40” in the 60/40 seatback down, and let him go. Actually, Gwen crawled back there to keep an eye on him, and to feed him a bit more supper since he had eaten quite sparsely before we left. Aidan thought this was great fun — he got to explore around the trunk, stand up and bang on the windows, and watch all the other cars and the ton of kids that were around. It was all quite new and very exciting.

Right. So, it got dark, and the movie started. We put Aidan into his car seat, and he sat, transfixed, while we watched the traditional short film that preludes all Pixar’s movies. This one was “One Man Band”, and I’d give it about 3 stars. The short ended and the feature started, and Aidan was still watching.

Sooner or later, he lost interest in Cars, and wanted out of his car seat. I’ll spare you the rest of the details, but what followed was an exercise in frustration. I mean, Aidan has historically been difficult to get to sleep. But, we figured that it was going to be late enough that he would collapse and we could leave him sleeping blissfully in the trunk while we settled into our Hollywood-induced escapism. We figured wrong.

For the duration of Cars, he alternately cried, screamed, played with his car seat, drank from a bottle, breastfed, cried and screamed somemore, and generally fought going to sleep with every gram of his little body. Gwen spent most of the movie in the back trying to convince him that sleep was a good thing.

The movie ended around quarter to midnight, and he was still going. Not one minute of sleep; he didn’t give any ground. We made the decision then to cede the loss, and packed up and left. I made the prediction that he’d be asleep by the time we hit the highway (about a 5 minute drive) and sure enough, he was. Strapped into a moving car is sleep inducing. Being loose (or strapped) in a parked car is not.

So, we didn’t see the movie again. We’ve used up our baby-sitting card for a few weeks, and the drive-in option doesn’t seem like much of an option. I guess we’re not meant to see this movie at this point in time.

The only saving grace is that he didn’t wake up during the thunderstorm last night, and it’s ten to ten right now and he’s still not awake. If he had woken at his usual time this morning — I might have been cranky.

Today, Aidan had his first real haircut.

We weren’t thinking the clearest, so we don’t have a good “before” picture, but as a reminder, here’s what he looked like a week ago:

We brought him to the same barber I’ve been going to since I’ve lived in Vancouver. I needed a hair cut, and Aidan needed a hair cut, so it seemed like a good idea.

We brought Aidan into the barber’s, which looked busy, but it turns out there were a number of people waiting for others getting their hair cut, and those in the chairs were soon finished too. So, in short order, we had Aidan sitting on a booster seat in the chair. Not how I thought it was going to go down … I though I would have to hold him in my lap, and I wasn’t too sure as to how that was going to work for cutting the back of his head.

Aidan, of course, likes his new vantage point, since there are tons of mirrors, and there’s almost nothing Aidan likes doing more than looking in mirrors. I’m not saying he’s vain, I’m sure he just appreciates the physics of light.

Anyway, Aidan’s happiness starts to wane when the biggest bib he’s ever seen is placed over him. Then, with the boy clutching Daddy’s hand, and with Mommy trying to capture his attention, the barber goes to work.

We’ve had several discussions about how to get his hair cut, and so when asked by the barber, we meekly say, “Well, you know, it has to be out of his eyes, and those wings over the ears have to go, and it *is* too long in the back …”. He looks appraisingly at us, and sets out, doing some cutting and trimming with his scissors.

After a short while (Aidan hasn’t minded this, so far, despite his proximity to a man he doesn’t know … usually a recipe for the biggest case of shyness you’ve ever seen) the barber stops, looks at us, and asks if it’s short enough. We look at each other and murmur that well, perhaps it should be shorter.

At which point, the barber pulls out his electric clippers and really sets to work. He wets Aidan’s hair down by spraying his own hand with a water bottle and then rubbing it through Aidan’s hair. The scissors are going, the clippers are going, and slowly, Aidan is becoming less thrilled with the whole procedure. It’s not panic stations yet, but there are some tentative cries of discomfort. It helps to have Mommy taking most of the boy’s attention, and the boy even lets her manipulate his head so that the barber can get at his neck. It took longer than I expected, but in the end, it went much better than I expected. Both Mommy and Boy made it through without too many tears.

And, well. I dare say he cleans up pretty good.

I knew that we were getting close, but then I look and it is already gone. So without further ado.

WOOO-HOOO, 100!!! Yeah!!

More cat humour from creation robot:

Laws applying to Cats

1 – Law of Cat Inertia
A cat at rest will tend to remain at rest, unless acted upon by some outside force – such as the opening of cat food, or a nearby mouse.

2 – Law of Cat Motion
A cat will move in a straight line, unless there is a really, really, really good reason to change direction.

3 – Law of Cat Magnetism
All blue blazers and black sweaters attract cat hair in direct proportion to the darkness of the fabric.

4 – Law of Cat Thermodynamics
Heat flows from a warmer to a cooler body, except in the case of a cat. All heat flows to a cat.

5 – Law of Cat Stretching
A cat will stretch to a distance proportional to the length of the nap just taken. This could be up to half a mile.

6 – Law of Cat Sleeping
All cats must sleep with people whenever possible, in a position as uncomfortable for the people involved as possible.

7 – Law of Cat Jumping
A cat can make her body springy enough to reach just about any counter top that has anything remotely interesting on it.

8 – Law of Cat Acceleration
A cat will accelerate at a constant rate, until he gets good and ready to stop dead instantly.

9 – Law of Dinner Table Attendance
Cats must attend all meals when anything good is served.

10 – Law of Rug Configuration
No rug may remain in its naturally flat state, for very long.

11 – Law of Obedience Resistance
A cat’s resistance varies in proportion to a human’s desire for her to do something.

12 – First Law of Energy Conservation
Cats know that energy can neither be created nor destroyed and will, therefore, use as little energy as possible.

13 – Second Law of Energy Conservation
Cats also know that energy can only be stored by a lot of napping.

14 – Law of Refrigerator Observation
If a cat watches a refrigerator long enough, someone will come along and take out something good to eat.

15 – Law of Electric Blanket Attraction
Turn on an electric blanket and a cat will jump into bed at the speed of light, or even faster at the speed of cat.

16 – Law of Random Comfort Seeking
A cat will always seek, find and take over the most comfortable spot in any given room.

17 – Law of Bag / Box Occupancy
All bags and boxes in a given room must contain a cat within the earliest possible nanosecond or catosecond.

18 – Law of Cat Embarrassment
A cat’s irritation rises in direct proportion to her embarrassment times the amount of human laughter. A cat does not forgive you laughing at it.

19 – Law of Milk Consumption
A cat will drink his weight in milk, squared, just to show you he can.

20 – Law of Furniture Replacement
A cat’s desire to scratch furniture is directly proportional to the cost of the furniture.

21 – Law of Cat Landing
A cat will always land in the softest place possible. Human stomaches are ideal for this.

22 – Law of Fluid Displacement
A cat immersed in milk will displace her own volume, minus the amount of milk consumed.

23 – Law of Cat Disinterest
A cats interest level will vary in inverse proportion to the amount of effort a human expends in trying to interest him.

24 – Law of Pill Rejection
Any pill given to a cat has the potential energy to reach escape velocity.

25 – Law of Cat Composition
A cat is composed of Matter + Anti-Matter + It Doesn’t Matter.

26 – Law of Selective Listening
Although a cat can hear a can of tuna being opened a mile away, she can’t hear a simple command three feet away.

27 – Law of Equidistant Separation
All cats in a given room will locate at points equidistant from each other, and equidistant from the center of the room.

28 – Law of Cat Invisibility
Cats think that if they can’t see you, then you can’t see them.

29 – Law of Space-Time Continuum
Given enough time, a cat will land in just about any space.

30 – Law of Concentration of Mass
A cat’s mass increases in direct proportion to the comfort of the lap she occupies or the need to lift them up.

31 – Law of Cat Probability, a Cat’s Uncertainty Principle
It is not possible to predict where a cat actually is, only the probability of where she “might” be.

32 – Law of Cat Obedience
As yet undiscovered