Confessions of a Deprived Mother

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It's been three years since my last trip to the movie theater. Way back when we only had five kids, I talked my hubby into taking us to the theater. Our youngest kid at that time was our infant, E. I figured she would blissfully sleep through our viewing of "Monsters University". The price to get it should have been our red flag. We should have walked away at that moment. But the foolish hope in our hearts...that desire to go out like other "normal" families do... spurred us onward. Hubby slapped down roughly $50 in cash and we were in. We ignored the kids pleas for candy as it would have cost us an arm or a leg for a bag of M&M's. I needed those extremities to chase and hold onto our kids. We found seats, laughing as our then 2-year-old struggled to sit without her seat folding in half. The lights dimmed. The trailers rolled. The horror began. Our son, C, who was 4 at that time, kept talking. Loudly. Despite our many attempts to hush him and explain that he had to be quiet, he didn't seem to "get" that our fellow seat-mates did not WANT to hear his questions and comments about the movie. Then D, the 2-year-old, started crying. We weren't 10 minutes into the movie and she was bored and wanted Mama. Hubby passed D to me and took infant E who had almost, but not quite, fallen asleep. As soon as we finished swapping kids, baby E started crying. Back she came to me. Back D begrudgingly went, to daddy. A, B, and C were riveted on the movie while hubby and I went back and forth and back and forth, playing our own version of Musical Chairs with the babies. And then it happened. C had to pee. Hubby used the opportunity as an escape, bounding out the door with our son and leaving me to deal with two screaming, little girls. I hissed at the older kids to stay in their seats and took the criers outside the doors. My foot tapped impatiently as I waited for hubby to return from the men's room. I peeked every 5 seconds at my oldest kids, to make sure they weren't being kidnapped. I bounced the shrieking baby on my shoulder and tried to keep the 2-year-old, happy now that she was out of the dark, from taking off down the long, red-carpeted hallway. I may have been a bit snippy when hubby came back. C slipped into the theater, next to his big brother and sister. I had just gotten into a good, hissing argument with hubby when things took a turn for the worse. E suddenly, and with great force, projectile vomited all over the floor. That's one way to get your parents to stop fighting in public! We sighed. We counted to ten. And then we agreed one of us would wait in the car with the two young cry-babies. As the only one, um, "equipped" to nurse our child, I exiled myself and the two trouble-makers to our van. Lesson learned: Our large family CANNOT go to the movie theater without going crazy. And it only cost us $50 to figure that out!