Ice Age 4 - Continental Drift - and the ensuing night of bad dreams

So we took the kids to see Ice-Age 4 - Continental Drift yesterday afternoon. The above pics pretty much sum up Aisha (2)'s mood for the entire experience. She went from excited to sad to angry to grumpy. But I couldn't fault her - it's pretty much how I've been feeling lately.

She loves the Ice Age movies. However, we did not anticipate how watching the villains on such a large screen and hearing their fearsome growling booming from powerful speakers would affect her. There is no age restriction to this movie, but parental guidance is advised, which was perhaps not the best call for parents lacking in judgement (such as ourselves).

She spent the entire movie holding my hands over her eyes. Then she spent last night tossing and turning restlessly in her sleep. I think I've learned my lesson.

While the rest of us enjoyed the movie, both Tharaa (10) and Nuha (7) also found certain parts to be a bit scary. They were particularly freaked out by 'The song of the Sirens' where devious creatures attempted to lure Manny, Diego, Sid and Sid's granny to shipwreck by portraying themselves as the people they loved/desired. Tharaa has been calling ''Die-e-e-e-go!!!'' in the sweet creepy voice of the evil creature disguised as the female sabre-toothed cat, Shira, in order to scare Nuha.

The movie, like its predecessors, was hilarious. It also had us on the edge of our seats from beginning to end.

The kids were disappointed that Peaches, who had been the cute baby mammoth in the Ice Age 3 - Dawn of the Dinosaurs, was now a rebellious teenager to whom they no longer can relate ( or should I say, can not yet relate).  I could not resist the temptation to turn this into a life lesson, in which I got in a short lecture on the embarrassingly stupid decisions made by teenagers. But they reminded me that, in the end, she had regained her common sense when she stopped succumbing to peer pressure. All's well that ends well, I suppose.

This trip to the movies with Aisha has highlighted the fact that Mo and I should be more stringent with our screening process when it comes to the movies we let our kids watch. After all, we know our kids best, so instead of being guided by age restrictions alone, we should perhaps read reviews and speak to people who have seen the movies, in order to help us decide if our kids, with their sensitive personalities, will be able to handle it.

And then perhaps we should take the kids into the movie theatre after the movie trailers are over. In that way we can avoid exposing them to terrifying trailers like the forthcoming nightmare-inducing ParaNorman.

Or perhaps, we should just leave them at home with Elizabeth while we enjoy a night out at the movies alone. Aaah, if only.