"I scared"

Yesterday we had one of those moments... you know, when you think your doing something that your 3-year old will just love, and it totally backfires! In all reality, we really had two of those moments! Apparently it was a very scary day for Adam.
Scott was home in the afternoon, so we decided to go see the new Madagascar movie. I had taken Adam to see "Horton hears a Who" early in the summer this year. He was a little scared when the previews came on - I think because they are always so loud!! But, once that movie started he moved back to his seat and did fine. So, we talked to him about going to a movie and he was really excited! We get to the theatre, buy the movie tickets ($7 for a child matinee ticket is ROBBERY!!), buy the popcorn and a drink. Scott even bought Adam's favorite "gummies" (gummy bears). Everything's going great, we walk through the doors and down the hallway and as soon as Adam sees that big screen he gets this look of total terror on his face, turns around and runs back down the hallway. I hand the popcorn to Scott and walk down to where Adam is standing, pick him up and walk back to Scott. This whole time Adam is quietly saying "I scared Mommy... I scared". Thinking he'll get over being scared, we tell him it's just like watching TV and head up the stairs to find a seat. Suddenly, Adam is screaming at the top of his lungs, kicking, hitting, doing everything he can to get out of my grip. We sit down, he wriggles of my lap, and starts heading back down the aisle screaming at the top of his lungs. Needless to say, we decided to leave. (Luckily there was only one other mom in the theatre with a little girl - hopefully we didn't convince her that this was a scary place to be!). As soon as we were out the of theatre, Adam was fine. The theatre manager was so nice and refunded our money both for the movie AND for our concessions - which totally shocked me!! It was so nice of her. Maybe the huge crocodile tears on Adam's cheeks helped a bit! The sad thing - as soon as we walked out of the theatre without the popcorn, Adam wanted to go watch a movie, because he wanted the popcorn!
After the failed attempt at a movie, we decided to go get some dinner, and went to this great restaurant called Susumu. It's one of those Japenses places where they cook the meal in front of you. We thought Adam would love this because he loves to help cook, he loves to watch cooking shows, he bascially loves anything having to do with cooking! We couldn't have been more WRONG - AGAIN (twice in one day really hurts!). All was fine until the guy came out in his tall red hat. He flipped his cooking utensils around and Adam was done. Crying ensued again. Scott took him away from the table and they sat over at the entrance to the restaurant and watched from a distance. Adam wouldn't even come over when Scott did so he could eat. He sat in the chairs over by the door all by himself, watching from that safe place (there were only 2 other people in the whole restaurant!). Once the chef left, Adam came back over, sat down and ate his dinner.
I guess we've really entered the "scary" part of childhood. Hopefully we didn't scar him for life by scaring him that bad twice in one day!!