Knowing her dislike for sitting still for more than two minutes, we had resisted for quite some time, but after seeing dozens of adverts for Beverly Hills Chihuahua she had somehow managed to persuade us that it was a good idea to go.
She was so e
xcited that it got me thinking about my own early experiences of going to the cinema.
My most memorable outing was when my mum took my brother and I to see Pete's Dragon, a film about a young boy called Pete and his pet dragon, Elliott. During a particularly sad part of the film I suddenly became aware of a loud wailing noise coming from my brother's direction.
As I investigated, I was mortified to discover my brother crying his eyes out at the top of his voice, while all around us children asked: "Mummy, why is that boy crying?"
Thankfully, there were no real sad bits in Beverly Hills Chihuahua but we still had our share of drama.
First there was the ice cream. My daughter could not get used to the wooden spoon and ended up spilling most of it down her top. She borrowed her daddy's glove as a makeshift napkin, only to get that covered in ice cream too, before it finally disappeared down a crack in the seat, never to be seen again.
After that came the fascination with the chairs that refuse to stay down, no matter how hard they are bounced.
"Mummy, why don't these seats stay down?" she asked, at the same time banging them up and down as though her life depended on it.
Finally, she decided to sit down next to her daddy and I got a bit of peace to watch the rest of the movie.
Every so often I would look in their direction only to see my daughter using daddy as a climbing frame, tickling his chin, kicking his seat or asking him very loudly if it was time to go home yet.
As we left the cinema I looked over at my poor husband.
With ice cream in his hair, only one glove left and an ear that had been chewed off for the past hour, I had a nasty feeling that next time we go to the cinema, my daughter and I may be very much on our own.
