How long does it take to watch a movie?

The subject above is an interesting one and the obvious answer is actually another question, “well how long is the movie?”  The real answer is, “how many kids do you have?”

So the other day Kristy and I decide that after a long vacation of fitting in many things that we would take the Sunday before (me) going back to work and just relax around the house.  Laundry would get done, the pile of dishes would get washed and we would, should the stars be aligned with both kids taking a nap at the same time, we would get a nap in too.  The goal was to make breakfast and sit down and start watching a movie that we had gotten in the mail from Netflix.  Rango was the title.  Breakfast was late that morning because we all slept in and so we were all in our seats at 10:30 am.  Like all good intentions they are thwarted by the unexpected moments of changing diapers, feeding babies and the occasional crying because Grace, the older of the two (now almost 14 months) goes too far and bangs her head on the coffee table, or floor or any of the other various surfaces that are harder than her head.

Just pause it I will be right back turns in to the screen saver mode and on two occasions timing out and actually shutting down.  Of course after taking 3 hours to watch 20 minutes, lunch needs to be made and more diapers changed and bottles administered.  I am not sure what happened after lunch, but there was a long period of time when we switched over to TV and abandoned the movie because we had been watching it in 5 minute increments and was too much work to manage rewinding and playing the same scene over and over.

Late in the afternoon we had a good go at it but then the most amazing and unlikely thing happened.  WE GOT A NAP.  The question asked after we were all up and conscious again was, “did you finish the movie without me?”  My usual answer would be yes, because I tend to stay up later and movies keep my interest longer than my wife’s, but this time I was good.  I knew that the goal was to watch it, together, by the end of the day and so I was patient.  And it is not like we were trying to beat the clock because of late fees.  This was Netflix.  No late fees.  In fact, the movies that we had before these two were received in May.  We had them for three months.

After the craziness that surrounds every meal with having to spoon feed Grace, bottle feed Abby, change the girls’ diapers, feed the dog and make our own meal (you notice we are last on the list) we committed once again.

We finished watching the movie around 9:30 pm.  No one fell asleep at the end, and it turned out to be a fantastic flick.  So how long does it take to watch a movie?  The answer is simple: 11 hours.