Vegas, Baby: First Film

Totally unnecessary.

A couple of weeks ago, we took Xander and the girls to see an outdoor presentation of the musical Footloose by a local theater troupe. It was a poor production, and if they ever do make the movie-based-on-the-musical-based-on-the-movie, whether Zach Ephron is in it or not, I hope they don't include the song about Willard's mother.

Nevetheless, Xander was rapt. He stared at the clumsy dancing and listened intently to the off-key singing. But it was nothing compared to taking him into a movie theater.

(Now, if you haven't read the other posts about our recent trip to Las Vegas, you should go read about Xander's first time on an airplane and his first time in a swimming pool now.)

During our Vegas time-out last week, we met up with a couple of friends from home who were also taking advantage of a free Vegas stay, only they were comped at the Bellagio, a few lavish steps above the Red Rock resort, where we were. The second night, our friends met us at our place for dinner and a movie. We'd found out that the casino/hotel actually had daycare/babysitting service, but it would cost us something like 200.00$ for someone to watch the baby for the evening. So an actual show like The Lion King of Cirque du Soleil was out of the question.

Unnecessary, but still worth it.

The Red Rock has it's own movie theater (and a bowling alley) along with the usual variety of restaurants. We decided on X-Men: First Class at 7:50 and the Japanese place for dinner. I wasn't about to eat sushi or anything, but I like me some tempura. Unfortunately, they wanted reservations, and we were on a deadline, so we tried the Italian place. I enjoyed some good bread and spaghetti carbonara along with the company.

And then it was time to put Xander to sleep. (Not, you know, like a dog...) Anywho... You might be surprised at how strange most restaurant people think you are for requesting a glass of hot water to heat up a cold bottle of milk. They're usually like, "You need HOT water? How hot? Boiling? Just hot? Warm?" Then they bring it out in a glass or small teapot filled to the brim (one guy told us he thought the glass might crack because the water was so hot; he made us pour the water into an empty Starbucks cup) so that we have to then find another glass to pour the hot water into. We've taken to carrying a large plastic cup with us wherever we go for just such occasions.

Obviously this isn't Vegas. But he's in the BabyBjorn
for one of our first forays outside this Spring.

Okay, so the plan was for Xander to sleep stuffed into the BabyBjorn while the movie played. We even affixed his oxygen to his face so we wouldn't risk waking him by doing it when we got back to our room later. Of course, Xander had his own ideas. No warm milk. No dozing off. He accepted the oxygen cannula, but opted to stay wide awake and threaten the other people in the theaters.

Mommy tried facing him inward so he wouldn't be distracted by the movie screen; he could hide his face and go to sleep, never mind the loud noises. This, too, was not in the child's plans. So Mommy turned him around, thinking that she could lean back in these fancy, reclining stadium seats, and he could get comfortable and sleep the night away like that. Again, slumber was not in the stars.

In fact, once they turned down the lights and the trailer for Dragon Tattoo lit up the theater with that raucous version of "Immigrant Song"--which you should take time out to hear right now because, after The Social Network and Where the Wild Things Are and now this, Trent Reznor and Karen O should just spend the rest of their lives doing music for movies:

--this is what Xander looked like:

Not a great picture taken with my phone in the dark. But, still, he's mesmerized. 

Once the movie started and mutants were running rampant, he didn't care as much. He did finally go to sleep in his mother's arms, not in the carrying case, and with little fuss. The blaring explosions were just white noise to him. No one else in the theater even knew he was there.

And for good measure, outside of New York, New York on the Strip: