What I Remember of Eclipse

Last night was a night of penance.

Oldest Daughter and a friend of hers spent an entire day last week cleaning to prepare for my open house, so I promised I would take them to the midnight showing of Eclipse last night.  I know.  The sacrifices I make for my children are enormous.  

I think a hallmark of really good parenting is creating rewards for your children that actually benefit you.  It's the ultimate in multitasking - they're happy, you're happy, everybody's happy.  Some examples of this method are:

1. "If everyone does a good job with their chores, we'll get Dairy Queen Blizzards."
2. "If you're all really good, we'll let you go to Grandma's for a couple of nights."
3. "If you clean my house for the Open House, I'll take you to Eclipse."

I'm a hero, and I get ice cream, a night alone, and some Edward time.  I'll put that in the WIN column.

To prepare for our Eclipse night, OD and her friend decided to make t-shirts to commemorate the occasion.  Everyone there would have Team Edward or Team Jacob shirts.  At the tender age of 13, young women want to feel like they are participating in a Pop Culture moment while equally shunning it at the same time.  What's an angsty teen to do?  My daughter and her friend decided to make Team Billy t-shirts.  Billy, for the non-Twilighters, is Jacob's father, and one of the Quileute elders.  He is in a wheelchair and says he is "Down with the kids" and Charlie, Bella's dad, says, "Yeah Dude, you're the bomb".  He's a pretty minor character.  Their shirt choice was the perfect non-conformist, "I'm involved yet above all of this" solution.

 And?  They put fuchsia streaks in their hair.  

Because Team Billy is just that crazy.

Leaving for the show at 11 p.m.  I vetoed my Team Billy shirt.

We left for the midnight movie, located five minutes away from my house, at 11 p.m., thinking we had plenty of time.  Wrong.  The entire parking lot was jammed with cars, and there were Twilighters everywhere.  The theater had five midnight shows going, and all were sold out.  The lines to wait to get into the theater to sit were snaked down the hallways, and I was surrounded by texting teens.  There were moms there, yes, but the predominant audience member was a teenager wearing a tight t-shirt, short shorts, flip flops, and a glowing phone with their fingers flying over the keyboard.

Much to my chagrin, we had to sit in the third row of the theater, and the girls behind me kept putting their feet up on the back of my seat.  I thought about yelling at them, but instead, I took a bag of contraband candy out of my purse and said, "Hey, I have an extra bag of candy, and my girls don't want it...do you?"  They took it, and didn't put their feet up on my seat again.  I literally caught more flies with honey.   The movie began, and every girl in the theater started screaming, including the ones over 40.  

Edward.  It's been too long.

The movie was pretty good.  Edward's makeup has greatly improved since the first movie, and Jacob never disappoints.  The sex talk between Charlie and Bella was funny, and the Cullens got to go all badass, which was great.  In New Moon, my big distraction was Spot, the ring of hair around Rob Pattinson's nipple.  In this movie, it had to be Jasper's hair.  WTF?  Did a stylist really do that on PURPOSE?  He looks like Jack White from the White Stripes, which is great if you are actually Jack White.  Otherwise, you look a bit like a cross between Johnny Depp as Willie Wonka and the pedophile that lives down the street.  

My angsty teens said Eclipse was the best Twilight yet, but it was late, and I'm old.  I'm going to have to see it a few more times before I can make that kind of judgement.