Usually, movie nights are something that I do with the kids without J. As I may have mentioned once before, even if she’s here, she usually doesn’t sit down and watch with us. Instead, she goes off and does her own thing. I’m not complaining about this, mind you, just letting you know the situation.

The other night, as we were getting the kids in their pajamas, I suggested that we all do a movie night. The kids were both excited but confused. They didn’t understand why we’d be doing a movie night when Momma was here. Once they realized that she would be joining us, of course, they were even more excited than usual.

The next problem, however, was what movie to watch. I generally reserve absolute control of the movie choice for myself. The boys make suggestions, but I make the final decision. We only have a movie night about once every 2 or 3 weeks, and I choose the movie both to make sure we don’t have lots of repeats and to make sure that both boys get to see what they like.

This has never sat well with C. Every movie night starts with him trying to convince me as to what movie to watch.

On this particular evening, I thought I’d try to skip that little discussion.

“And,” I said. “We’ll let momma choose the movie!”

To the boys, I’d just given momma the highest possible honor. They oohed appreciatively.

Then C realized what was going on. He pointed authoritatively at his momma. “Yeah,” he announced, “you can pick the movie – but I’m going to watch you pick.”

Hey, I understand. Sometimes, you just have to assert your authority. He didn’t have any more luck than I ever do, of course, but I admire him for trying.