I love Fridays.  I like to do special things on Fridays to mark the beginning of the weekend:  on the way home from school, Benjamin is allowed to pick out a treat to have with his lunch; we try and do something special or easy (or both) for dinner; I go easy on the housework (even easier than the other days).  But I’m always happy to add something new to our repertoire.

I’ve been hearing (mostly on Facebook) from friends of mine who do a family movie night.  It sounds lovely — the whole family, curled up in bed, or on the couch, to watch a movie and snuggle together.  Sign me up!  But I wondered if my boys were too little — do they really have the attention span for an entire movie?  Then, I realized that it doesn’t matter.  It doesn’t have to be an entire movie.  I don’t care what we watch, and it’s unlikely to be something I won’t be able to tear myself away from if they lose interest.

So, last night, we  had our first movie night.  After the boys’ bath, instead of story time, we popped some (microwave) popcorn (Benjamin LOVES listening for the popping sounds), curled up in our “big chair” and watched Cars (which we’ve all seen about 100 times, but I’d never had the chance to actually sit down and watch — both Dan & I saw parts of it we’d never seen before).  It was exactly what I’d hoped for.  The boys took turns snuggling with Dan & I.  We all shared a bowl of popcorn (even Bailey — Liam would not be dissuaded from throwing it to him).  Benjamin fed everyone popcorn (it was particularly sweet to see him feed Liam).  Liam even managed to say something close to “popcorn” and his own version of “please”:  “eeeee?”

We made it through less than an hour of the movie, but I don’t care.  We all got to snuggle and relax together.  Dan & I even got to hold hands for a few minutes.  Calle family movie night will happen again.  Probably soon.