BYO...What?

Around the area we live, BYO is primarily used for 2 things.  The first, you may have already guessed, is for alcohol (as in, "Uh yes, it's my turn to BYO the sauv blanc to the park while our kids play together today.")  The other is actually "BYO Baby" to events, which makes it possible to do stuff that normally parents just can't do with their kids.  My favorite BYO Baby option is at the movie theater.  Two of our local theaters have one movie a week during the day where admission is half price for adults and you can bring a baby up to 2 years old.  The online description actually reads, "Kicking, screaming and breastfeeding are encouraged."  If you don't have kids, I'll admit this sounds like a godawful way to spend an afternoon, but if you have a baby, this is really awesome.  I've taken Isla at least once a month for the last 6 months. 

At first, when she was younger, she just danced in the seat and ate her box of raisins and then fell asleep.  Then she discovered she could crawl up and down all those stairs!  She'd climb to the very top of the stairs next to the film screening box and sit as high up as she could.  Every time this one male employee would enter the dark theater and come up the stairs, Isla would squint through the darkness, see a male figure, and yell, "DAD?!"  (Would you believe it wasn't him, even once?!  Toddlers are hilarious).  Now, Isla is approaching 16 months and I need to pay slightly closer attention to the movie choices.  We played a lot of peek-a-boo during shooting scenes in Jason Bourne recently so her eyes would be covered, for example. I am definitely out of the Hollywood gossip loop without seeing US Weekly Magazines on a regular basis in grocery stores, so I actually went into Jason Bourne assuming it was all about that other actor (the one from Jarhead and The Avengers who that last Bourne movie was about) so in the opening scene, as soon as I realized that was not the case, I yelled excitedly at Isla, "That's MATT DAMON!"  She giggled and we high-fived.  Eventually she fell asleep and I held her ears against me with one hand while consuming my other BYO item discretely with the other. 

Perhaps the most hilarious scene at the theater was at the BYO Baby screening of Bad Moms last week. The theater was absolutely packed ("chockers," in aussie-speak) and it was at one of the hipster theaters nearby - you know, the ones who write all the show times on brown paper with a marker just to make a statement even though using a damn Light Bright would be one step higher technologically?  The other crucial element of a true hipster theater, of course, is an extensive craft beer and cocktail list.  I've never seen so many people trying to push a stroller holding multiple glasses of bubbly at the same time.  It was like nobody let these moms (and a few dads) out of the house all week and they just broke free!  It was a fun, giggly time all-around. 

So, we are surprisingly keeping up with all the latest movies!  Nate watches them on planes during his heaps of work travel (he has an Asian country tour coming up, so I've got my work cut out for me) and I hit up hipster theaters with my kid's during nap time! 

The other excellent place to bring kids here is the horse track.  They have a ton of free activities for kids so that adults/families can fully enjoy themselves.  Pictured below is our trip to the local horse track last weekend where Isla got her face painted for the first time.