Bowling party

Yesterday, K and I headed over to Lanes and Games to attend one of the three Stars Wars bowling parties simultaneously happening there.  I only recently discovered the joys of candlepin bowling, which, if you're not a New Englander, involves cylindrical pins and a small, light ball. Perfect for little hands and people with chronic wrist problems.

We're all familiar with little-kid soccer. A swarm of kids chase the ball, all trying to kick it at once, and occasionally tripping over each other and falling down. (Except my kid. He's the one malingering at the other end of the field, inspecting an ant.) As it turns out, little-kid bowling is similar. At any given time, there were at least three children hovering over the ball return. When a ball came out, a kid, any kid, grabbed it and immediately ran over to the lane and heaved it in the general direction of the pins. After five seconds of monitoring the ball's slow progress down the lane, they would run back to the ball return. About one in ten balls bounced off the metal bar that was clearing the pins and returned to the children, often hitting some of the other balls on its way. It was more like large-scale billiards than anything you would think of as bowling. The kids did manage to rack up some impressive scores. Ten pins are no match for twenty balls.

After a few frames, if you could call it that, K announced, "I'm done with Lanes. I'm ready for Games!" He grabbed my hand and we ran to the arcade room. We played an unsuccessful game of pinball, with each of us controlling a flipper. Then I introduced K to air hockey. I tried to let him win, but he wouldn't cooperate. He didn't care, though. He laughed with glee every time he hit the puck. After our game, he played one of his friends. While the friend's dad was watching them and nudging the puck when it got stuck in the middle, I snuck off to play pinball by myself.

IT WAS THE LONGEST AND MOST AWESOME GAME OF PINBALL EVER. Lights were flashing! Multiple balls were shooting out and ricocheting around! I even triggered a mini-pinball game a few times. PINBALL WITHIN PINBALL. I got so into it that I ended up neglecting K for nearly ten minutes after the boys went back to the Lanes. I can't remember the last time I've had that much fun. And I realized, how sad is that? There are many things in my life that I enjoy and that make me happy. But I honestly can't remember when I last had fun, extended, laughing, excited fun. The kind of fun K was having while playing air hockey. I have fun moments with K, but they're quickly ruined when he either demands something or wants to reenact the moment fifty times.* (Today we had the following conversation: "Say that and then tickle me again. Why aren't you laughing?" "Because it's not funny anymore." "Why?" "Because after a while, when you do them over and over, things stop being funny." "Why?")

 Another thing that happened yesterday: Around 6:30, I was giving X a bath. I called JW in and said, "Can you take over? I feel like I'm going to pass out." I proceeded to do just that. I thought I was just lying down for a minute until I felt better, but at 9:30 I woke up just long enough to take off my jeans (pockets still full of tokens, as I discovered when I did laundry today) and didn't wake up again until a quarter to six the next morning. I thought I'd be refreshed, but I just felt worse. Late nights working, early mornings with the kids, a perpetually sick baby who has passed on his colds -- I've only been back to work for two months and I already need a vacation.

* Edited later to add: On further thought, it's not at all fair to say K ruins every fun moment we have, or to say that I never have fun at all. I've been missing out on a specific type of fun, the playing air hockey, riding a roller coaster, WHEE! kind of fun. So maybe I'll just go back and use all those tokens that I fished out of the dryer.