Drive-ins, babies, and wizards...

When my second child was just a baby I was living in Trotwood, OH. Things were so hectic; I was trying to finish my bachelor's degree, taking my other son to preschool, and trying to find a job. I couldn’t believe that I was a single parent. Just the year before I was living in Minot, ND, was married, and had on my figurative rose-colored glasses. What a difference a year made! 

Darion (my oldest son—8 years old going on 40) and I had already started our love affair with movies. He wanted to see the movie “Ratatouille “ that had just come out but because I had no babysitter, not a lot of money, and I was randomly searching Google that night; I discovered that there was drive-in alive and kicking about 10 minutes from where I lived. That was perfect because we could take a restless baby with us, they only charged per car not per person and since it was during the week it was like $8, and most of all it was something I had always wanted to try.

I am not kidding when I say that that was the one of the most memorable nights of my life (as well as my son’s – he still remembers it). Maybe it was a combination of a night of being able to just relax, a warm evening, beautiful skies, and being able to share a “first” with both of my boys. We saw “Ratatouille” and the boys loved it (the baby just cooed and gurgled but hey, he didn’t cry). What I didn’t know was that you could watch two movies for the price of one (yes, legally)! This particular double-feature was joined by “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix”. 

That is when Darion and I began our obsession with the young wizard. I had never heard of the books let alone the movies and I was ready to dismiss this movie but Darion said he wanted to stay. Before the movie came on we got to walk around for a little bit. This drive-in was in the middle of a field and could you believe that there were actual fireflies amidst the cars?! I was stunned by the beauty of the huge screen and how it blended with the breeze of the fields and the fireflies that would carelessly fly around us. I had a car with a sun-roof so we got to glance up at the stars as well. *sigh*

By the time Harry Potter actually began, the baby was fast asleep and it was just me and my buddy. We hadn’t been able to spend any one on one time since the baby had arrived so we were pretty psyched about watching a movie together. The movie resonated with both of us for different reasons and to this day is still our favorite movie. 

I enjoyed it because it was definitely something that I would have enjoyed as a kid. Also, since I didn’t know my biological father I identified a little bit with a little boy that hadn’t know his parents. Darion loved it because he liked to imagine that with magic he could make his world “perfect” again. He asked me for the first time that night “Why did Daddy leave?” That movie gave him the courage to ask something that he had probably been wondering for over a year. (More on this particular conversation later..)

We went home that day dazzled by the new world that we were introduced to and listened to all of the audio books over the next couple of weeks. We are so excited about watching the end of the series this weekend but it will definitely be very bittersweet.