Smurfs

Is it Murphy’s Law that it rains all school holidays? I’m fairly new to it so only noticed a pattern this year but come mid-Monday morning the house had been trashed well and truly and one bored five-year-old had been sent to the corner umpteen times for ganging up on his siblings alternately.

As part of country living my new-found pledge was to stay home as much as possible so by Wednesday – my ‘town day’ – we were itching to get out.

I’d promised Cade to take him to The Smurfs on this day - if he behaved - and I’d been unashamedly bribing him with it all week.

So finally the day came. I dropped the twins at their nana’s and we continued on our way. That was when Cade turned to me and said “Mum, I’m so excited!”

We arrived at the cinema and I began to have a bad feeling - the place was teeming with holiday program kids.

We joined the end of the long, windy queue with Cade practically hopping from one foot to the other in excitement when my fears came to fruition: an announcement was made that tickets to The Smurfs had sold out.

I looked down at Cade, who had spotted a couple of girls from his class, also eagerly queuing and oblivious to the news. We still had a long way to the ticket counter so I stayed in line to buy time to form plan B. With the other kids’ movies now showing likely to send me into a boredom-induced coma, I decided a dvd would have to cut it. By now the trio from room 5 had all spotted each other and were giggling in the silly manner children of this age do so I took the opportunity to break it to him.

The showing off abruptly stopped and he deflated before my eyes. His disappointment was inner and it was intense.

“But how about we go and look for a Smurf dvd instead?” I coaxed on our way back to the car.

“I don’t want a dvd, I really wanted to see the Smurf movie,” he mumbled, head down.

I felt terrible and badly wanted to make it up to him. “Well how about we go to The Warehouse and see if they’ve got a Smurf’s dvd? That way you get to keep it and then Mummy will take you to see the movie next week and I promise I’ll buy the tickets the day before.”

“Ok, but only if you promise,” he eventually agreed.

After being made to repeat my promise all the way there we arrived at our destination while I silently prayed they held the goods.

My prayers were answered when we were pointed to a display of Smurf dvds, including a complimentary Smurf. All for far less than the exorbitant price I’d been expecting to pay.

Cade was stoked … almost enough to forgive me … so I threw in a lollypop on the way to the check out – just for good measure.