Is it over?

Zboy came home today with NO Ns!!!! Hurray!!! Hurray!!! He also brought home test papers with 100% all over them. Wow. Has he finally decided that it really is worth it to make an effort?

Before I knew this though, I'd already planned to take him to see the Transformers movie after school. It's at the dollar movie house (which is actually $1.25 now, but will forever be known as the Dollar Movie). I left work early, went and bought the tickets, then waited in line for ZBoy to emerge from the school. When we left, we went in the opposite direction from the usual - which made him sit up and notice. He then tried to guess where we were going. It wasn't until we'd parked the car and I handed him his ticket that he got it.

Oh, the excitement! Oh, the joy!

"I've been wanting to see this, Mom! I thought I'd have to wait for the DVD. I can't believe you're taking me! Wow!"

We went in and chose seats in the very back row. There was a baby crying and being held by a man in a wheelchair, who looked around helplessly begging us to be understanding... Thankfully, Mama and her milk supply arrived with snacks and baby was silent the rest of the time.

Of course, maybe he was just drowned out. Transformers is one loud movie. ZBoy is pretty sensitive - always has been. He's got extremely accute hearing and spent the whole movie with his fingers in his ears. Must remember to bring earplugs next time. He's also easily overwhelmed by large action. He kept getting up and walking around behind the divider so that he couldn't see the screen. A couple of times he actually walked out of the theater. First he was scared.. Then he started seeing similarities between what was on the screen and his brother's video game. And he got into it. Then he abruptly got up and STALKED out of the movie. I followed him, asking if he was scared or if it was too loud. He turned around, grabbed my hand and dragged me out into the lobby and told me to sit down... he had something to say.

Now what? I wondered...

You see, there are the good guys - Autobots, bad guys - Decepticons, and then there were these little robots that seemed really mean. They were working with the Decepticons.

I am not very familiar with Transformers other than knowing that they exist, that little boys love them and that they turn into robots from various other things. That is pretty much the extent of my knowledge. Up until today, I had no idea about Decepticons, Autobots, Optimus Prime or Megatron. Or Minicons. Minicons are apparently small, good-guy robots. Which don't appear in this movie, incidently.

In fact, the only reason I know that Minicons exist is because ZBoy was very concerned that the Minicons were betraying the Autobots and working for the Decepticons. In fact, it made him so angry that they would do that, that he wasn't sure he wanted to see the rest of the movie.

He sets a great store by loyalty, apparently.

I convinced him to go back in, and once he realized that the little ones weren't actually Minicons, he was finally enthusiastic about watching the movie. When it was over, he happily bounced along beside me as we left the theater saying what a great movie that was.

Kids...