So, why not go bowling with the kids... and no dad... and Mari and all 5 of her kids... and no dad. DUMB. So dumb. I think I got the idea from a mom at church who said she had a pass for the summer and had a grand ol' time taking her 4 year old. One four year old. One.
A couple of weeks ago, I asked Mari, wanna go bowling in the afternoon instead of the pool? Ya know, change it up. She totally predicted that it would be completely nuts but agreed anyway because she's okay with completely nuts. That's pretty much our lives right now anyway.
So we went bowling. I imagined the the kids taking turns, having a fun competitive game while eating fries and drinking soda. Ugh, never again. Mari got some pics but I don't feel that they totally captured my frazzled state at all. Or the number of times there were multiple balls rolling down the lane. I came home and took notes because I didn't want to forget one tiny part of the afternoon. So, that's what I have for you, just notes. I won't go into too much detail because posting anything these days takes a lot out of me. So here ya go:
Notes from our crazy bowling extravaganza with 9 children, ages 1-10.
Most of the time was spent keeping Angus from tossing 2 balls down the lane which actually happened many times.
Of course a ball got stuck in the middle of the lane, to start us off. Not enough power on the throw. The lady had to come out and walk down and get it. I'm amazed that only happened once. Actually it happened a few times but we (Rosie, Mari's 3-yr-old) would just throw another ball down to get it going again.
At one point I heard Angus say Oh no, oh no, oh no. He lifted up his shorts, and I saw that there was pee trickling down his leg. Why not? (he wears a diaper but sometimes the pee escapes)
Then, I went to retrieve a ball that was stopped just two feet into the lane. Did you know that bowling lanes are SUPER slippery? I did not. Both feet came up and I landed flat on my back. I'm okay.
I sent Mya to the snack shop for lemonade to keep her busy for 5 minutes. I gave Winter $5 to use at the arcade to eliminate one more kid from the madness but she came back 5 minutes later crying because she only got one ticket. One. $5, one ticket.
Rosie bowled next to us for all 3 of her big sisters who were more interested in the arcade. She probably had the most fun of anyone there. Caroline (10 yrs) would come back every once in awhile to yell at Rosie for taking her turn, then she would bowl and yell at the pins and go play in the arcade some more.
Angus kept trying to give Mya's lemonade to the lady on the left of us and he would also steal her very heavy balls. Then he blocked the people on the right from bowling a couple of times because he was spread out on the floor having a fit because I let Addie bowl.
I was able to drink half a beer. And something happened every time I turned my back to take a sip.
One time, Addie and Angus threw their balls down at the same time and cheered.
A few times, the ramp was used as a slide... by the OLDER kids.
Mari accidentally snorted applesauce at some point. I forget when. It's all a blur.
It took one hour to get everyone shoes, light balls, toddler ramps, bumpers etc, find everyone, get everyone out of the arcade and start the game. It took about 20 mins to bowl an entire game because the little ones were bowling one right after the other. I had to hold them back to wait for the reset bar. Then it took one hour to clean up, get everyone out of the arcade, retrieve their shoes and take them potty.
At the end, while collecting shoes, Mya was doing running cartwheels and Winter was chasing screaming Addie and Angus through the arcade. Circus.
When we finally got back in the car, I was sweaty and out of breath. I felt like I just ran a marathon and Winter kindly reminded me that I said we'd go to Yogurtland after bowling. That was back when bowling was a fun end of the summer activity, not my worst nightmare. I cringed and suggested drive through ice cream at McD's.
They weren't having it. Yogurtland! Yogurtland they chanted. Fine, I whimpered. So we went. The girls got way more than I said they could. Addie wanted all the flavors. Angus touched all the candy he could reach, threw his cookie on the floor which was immediately stepped on by a unsuspecting stranger. So we took our yogurt to go. Of course everyone was still hungry so we got some drive through burgers and called it a night.
Never again.
