Chimpanzee

I like to read articles about motherhood.  I read that when babies are this little they can sleep through just about anything, including movies.  I also read that a theater is a great place to practice nursing in public.

Put those two together and I had a pretty fabulous outing when PDG was 7 weeks old.  After dropping off his West Coast Grandma at the airport, we strolled around the Reston Town Center by J-Man's work.  The stores weren't our style, but the weather was, and who could pass up a chance to have lunch as a family?  We fit right in with other SAHMs with strollers meeting sharp-looking men in ties.

The nearby theater boasted $6 admission on Tuesdays and had a 1pm showing of Chimpanzee.

I'm not really a nature girl, and despite my good friend having just completed a major graduate project on an orangutan, I still don't know the difference between monkeys and apes.  But Jane Goodall had caught my attention, the movie would be short, and I had nothing else on the books for the day.

The theater was under construction so we had to maneuver through a work zone to get to the elevator, only to find a theater full of five senior citizens.  Yep, just those five and us.

Nursing publicly was a breeze in the dark without fear of accidentally flashing anyone.  To be honest, with that crowd, I'm not sure their vision would have seen much even without the dimmed lighting.  The noise only got to be too much during the heated territory battles, and otherwise PDG was perfectly content to sleep and eat his way through the film, much as he does through life.

The only time it was apparent I was a brand new mom was when my hormones (that I thought would've been calmer by seven weeks) made me cry like my pregnant self as Oscar searched hopelessly for his fallen mother.  Where could she be?  How could he go on without her?  What is life without one's mother when you need her just to eat and survive?

How would my PDG fare if that happened to me?  Would he search endlessly?  Would there be a constant hole, even if an alpha male was there to let him ride on his back and crack open his dinner in the nut grove?

Yes, I definitely cried.  I held my PDG close and said a silent prayer that by the time I leave my baby behind, he won't be a baby anymore and he will be strong and able.

My tears aside, it was a great film.  And a great experience.  And maybe when he's old enough to have a clue what is happening on screens, I'll show it to him again, and tell him stories about when he needed me like Oscar needed his mama.