FOR THE VERY FIRST TIME, folks…RRL makes an appearance as a guest blogger on DRRF. It only makes sense. The idea was all his, and the women of the house were sound asleep while this fun was taking place so I could not possibly do the details justice.
So, without further ado… the grand debut.
This past summer was one of the biggest highlights in our little 5 & 3-year-olds’ lives. KJ and Cbug had both been waiting forever for their new favorite movie to come out…Cars 2. They were so excited to get to go see it in Nashville with Nonna and Papa J as well as aunts and uncles but that wasn’t enough. They had to take their cousin to see it too. BUT that was just the precursor to the biggest highlight for the fall.
On November 1, 2011 Cars 2 came out on DVD which meant the boys could watch it anytime they wanted. So to make it a memorable experience I decided the best thing to do would be to get the boys up at midnight and take a trip to Walmart in search of this important movie release.
So at about 11:30, I woke the boys up. They had no idea what was going on. This is the first time we have done anything like this (the next closest is getting up at like 4 AM to go to Nonna’s house). As they struggled to open their eyes I repeated 3 or 4 times that we needed to get up to go get the Cars 2 DVD as soon as it came out. Once their ears started working they both got very excited and could hardly get up fast enough.
We loaded in the van and headed down the road to Super Walmart. Now on the way I wanted to make sure they didn’t get any wild ideas in their head that we were going to watch the movie when we got back so I started planting the seed early so I had plenty of time to repeat it just to make sure it sunk in. “Now boys, we are just going to get the DVD tonight. We won’t be watching it when we get home. Since it’s the middle of the night we need to go right back to bed when we get back.” and some variation of this as many times as I could slip it in.
As we arrived at SWM I realized that I had become one of “those parents” that I often looked down on for having their kids out that late walking around Walmart and I got a few looks that I assume were pretty good reflections of ones I’ve given. I realized rather quickly it didn’t stop me from continuing on and in turn my future idea of what people were doing with their kids out that late would very much be clouded by the thought that I have NO clue why they are there and the circumstances that led to that. Maybe, just maybe, it is a dad (or mom) just trying to create memories for their kids.
Moving quickly to the back of the store the boys were on the hunt. They knew exactly what to look for, or so they thought, but after a few minutes we literally couldn’t find the movie anywhere. Then I noticed a lady unpacking movies from boxes. I hadn’t thought about the fact that they would start unpacking them at midnight and we might have gotten there a little early. However, she noticed us wandering around and asked what movie we were trying to find. Once the boys excitedly told her, she was more than happy to search the boxes to find just what we needed.
With our movie in hand, we checked out and headed back home. In the car on the way home I was just about to give my little reminder when KJ spoke up and said “Dad, when we get home we are going back to bed right?” and Cbug agreed. I smiled and said yes but that we would for sure watch the movie the next day. “Good” KJ said “I’m tired”. I’m so glad both our boys like their sleep.
If you’ve made it to this point in the post you will be happy to know this is about way more than a movie. It’s about making memories and spending time and sacrificing sleep to make sure that these brothers know without a doubt how much they are loved and, I pray, learn how much they can rely on each other on the journey they will share.
RRL
Isn’t he amazing? Best part- he was quite willing to make this memory with the boys WHILE I stayed in bed. Thanks, Babe, for being so intentional about making sweet memories for us all!
ABL
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