Pizza Mooooooovie Night
Hooray for Friday and Pizza Mooooooooovie night! Perhaps you took one look at the title of my post today and thought that I was going to talk about NuVal scores for milk again. No, it’s Friday. I’ll give you all a break. The reason for the plethora of “o’s” in “movie” is that it is exactly how my 4 1/2 year old says it. It’s one of the things about her that I will be so sad to see go as she grows older. That and the way she runs. She truly prances like a fairy. It’s almost superhuman.
My kids are big on Pizza Moooovie night on Fridays. And this week, we are too! We have several tools to organize our family’s schedule (monthly calendars, Blackberry calendars, filing cabinets) but one of the most important is my little weekly planner from the Dollar Bin at Michael’s craft store that is on the front of the refrigerator. Every Sunday night, I sit down and plan out the activities, events, dinners and daily to dos. It’s where I remember that Thursday is Show ‘n’ Tell Day or that the school library book is due this Wednesday. This week, all of the “stuff” almost didn’t fit. I’m not usually a “cross the day off” kind of girl. But this week, getting through each day was an accomplishment.
So, we are excited for Friday night: Take-out pizza followed by home-made popcorn and the original Disney’s Peter Pan. We took the kids to the Foxboro Orpheum to see the theater version the night after Thanksgiving and they loved it. So it made sense to make it this week’s Netflix pick.
Even though it’s Pizza Moooovie night, and it’s my time to kick back and relax, I can’t help but try to make it a little healthier. My kids (only 6 and 4, mind you) can put away an entire cheese pizza, if I let them. So, I make them these “Kooky Faces” as we like to call them with whatever vegetables I still have left in the refrigerator before grocery shopping day.
I would like to take the credit for this creative idea, but really it comes from one of my daughter’s favorite books, Elmo’s First Babysitter. In the book, Elmo and his babysitter make these Kooky Faces for dinner.
Giving the kids some vegetables keeps their pizza intake down. As for my DH and I, we both have a couple of slices of veggie pizza with salad. In case you’re wondering, regular popcorn gets a great score: 91 for Orville Redenbacher plain. If you air-popped it, the score would stay the same. I admit, I make it the old fashioned way – in a big pan with a little vegetable oil in the bottom. And yes, we put some butter on it. Hey, it’s Friday. We never eat microwave popcorn. Yuck! I am not a fan. And the scores hover in the 20′s and below.
The best part of Pizza Moooooooovie night is the family togetherness. Joanna Weiss, one of my favorite Boston Globe columnists, wrote an Op-Ed piece last weekend entitled “Family Fusion: Generation Gap Shrinks.” In it, she cites a Nickelodeon study that found that across various demographics “parents want to hang out with their kids, and kids want to hang out with their parents.” She goes on to describe how many families spend their “together-time” watching television or movies as a family. Shows like “American Idol” have brought many families together in front of the TV. You know, when I bought the theater tickets last week for Peter Pan, I worried that I would regret that decision. Even though the tickets were relatively inexpensive (it was a community theater), anything for four people adds up. I worried that the kids would be tired from Thanksgiving and maybe we were pushing it by attending an evening performance. On the contrary, it was a magical night. We dressed up, we went to TGIFriday’s for dinner, the kids were completetly mesmerized throughout the performance and we were thoroughly entertained. I remember sitting there thinking, “This is almost better than a date with my husband!” I am loving that we can all enjoy the same entertainment together. The time spent together – just the four of us – is what memories are made of.
The Day Care that we’ve used since the birth of our son has a semi-annual tradition. Near Mother’s Day and again near Christmas, you can drop your child off from 5:30 – 9:30 pm for “Pizza Movie Night”. The kids have a pizza dinner, they all put on their pajamas and have a huge “slumber party” as they watch a movie together. Parents have a chance to go out to dinner or finish their Christmas shopping. Our kids attended last spring and they loved it. And we enjoyed a dinner out, sans guilt, knowing that our kids were having such a good time. Next Friday, our Day Care is having this Pizza Movie Night and I was all set to sign the kids up again. But this time, they said, “No, thanks. We want to spend Pizza Movie Night here at home – with you and Daddy.” Awwwwwwww! My daughter will soon lose her cute pronounciation of double-o’s and her baby-girl prance will become a sprint, but I’m cherishing that we are beginning a whole new chapter of enjoying the same things and the same entertainment - together.
Posted by: Melissa 7 comments
Tags: kooky faces, Pizza, Popcorn
