Movie night at the Jacobs' house

Meaghan and I decided we would watch a movie—a real life, big-boy movie. You know, the kind that's not animated? At the suggestion of Peter and Marie (our friends in St. Paul), we decided to rent Lars and the Real Girl. It's a movie with a, uh, strange premise: In order to deal with his many problems, Lars falls in love with a mannequin, and in order to help him deal with his many problems, the community goes along with his delusion and pretends the mannequin is a real girlfriend.

Emmie Jane got sick yesterday, so at about 7:45 last night we put Elmo in the DVD player and I laid down on the couch with her. She fell asleep a little while later, and I put her to bed. Meaghan and I got ready to watch the movie while Gregory played with his toys before bedtime. But the DVD case had the wrong movie in it! So I had to go Blockbuster to get the right movie. Movie delayed.

As I was getting ready to go, Meaghan casually asked if I wanted to take Gregory with me. No, I said, he seems fine playing by himself. Slightly less casually, Meaghan asked if I was sure I didn't want to take Gregory with me. I don't know, I said. Should I? Why don't you take him, Meaghan suggested.

Ok, I get it. So Gregory and I left Meaghan to herself and went to Blockbusters. We came back with the right movie, plus, uh, five movies for Gregory. This is why Meaghan should never send me and the kid somewhere with the goal of spending money.

So we put one of Gregory's movies on the laptop and popped Lars into the DVD and snuggled on the couch—at about 9:45pm. After the movie previews, which I love watching but Meaghan would rather skip, the DVD menu came up, but I didn't have the remote. "I guess I have to get up and actually push play," I said. "Yes," Meaghan replies, "I guess that's the only option, isn't it?" So up I go to push play.

We watched the movie for a few minutes. Gregory interrupts to inform us that he MUST. HAVE. A. COOKIE.

So we pause the movie and Meaghan and I look at each other, waiting for the other one to say no. Neither of us budge, so finally I tell Gregory he can have a cookie, but then he has to go to bed. What Gregory heard: "You can have a cookie."

So I hang out with Gregory while he eats his cookie, and then we watch a little of his movie together. After a few minutes, I take him upstairs to brush his teeth, but Gregory barges into his and Emmie's room—did we tell you that we put them in the same room together a few weeks ago to prepare for the new baby?—and Emmie wakes up. It's about 10:15.

Meaghan takes Emmie downstairs and gives her some juice, hoping that she'll actually hold it down this time. With Emmie downstairs, I figure I can probably get Gregory to bed. Instead, he has a meltdown. I quickly tell Gregory a story about Wall-E (from the recent Pixar movie). He stops crying, but now we have to find the Wall-E toy that I bought him the last time we went to Blockbuster. So we search the house and find it downstairs. Upstairs we go, and I finish the story and say goodnight to Gregory.

Meaghan and I start the movie again, but this time Meaghan's holding Emmie. Gregory comes back downstairs. We decide not to push too hard to get him back upstairs because we want to watch the movie. In fact, Meaghan decides she'll put Emmie to bed and let Gregory stay up. So we pause the movie again.

Meaghan takes Emmie upstairs and Emmie barfs up all the juice she just drank, plus some of the popsicles she ate earlier. So Meaghan and Emmie need new clothes and I have to clean up the orange flavored barf from the floor.

Now, of course, Emmie is wide awake, so it's back downstairs with both kids. We put Gregory's movie on the laptop, Meaghan holds Emmie on the couch, and I push play again. It's about 11:30.

This time, we actually finish the movie! It was a quirky, at times fun, at times just weird, movie. But it was also an interesting exploration of the nature of community. The only part I didn't like was the real girl that has a crush on Lars. It just doesn't seem plausible that she'd be taken by such a disturbed guy. Ok, the whole movie is implausible, but that's ok. Once you grant the premise that the town is going to go along with Lars' delusion, it all fits together really well. All of it except the inexplicable crush that this normal girl has on this crazy guy. It reminds me in that way like a lot of other movies (As Good As It Gets, anyone?). Still, on the whole it was definitely worth the, uh, four hours we spent watching it.

We finally put the kids to bed at about 1:30am.