Bowling seemed like a good idea at the time.
I didn’t have high expectations. I simply hoped for a better result than last Spring Break, when Vivian melted down because her name was listed last on the monitor; when my husband finished in fourth place, behind me and two kids who still peed in their pull-ups at night; and when William got three pudgy fingers shmushed in a heavy glass door while an entire U18 hockey team looked on in horror. Those athletes may have taken pucks in the face, but they hadn’t seen smashed fingers on a four-year-old.
This year, I was cautiously optimistic.
With an order predetermined, we marched down stairs steeper than the London Tube. I smuggled in drinks (caffeine for me) and snacks, and my husband reminded William to mind his fingers.
We donned shoes broken in by the Society of People with Foot Ailments, and then started bowling.
Vivian went first, the only acceptable position for a girl who, since the moment of her birth, has been trying to make up for the fact that she was born second by two minutes. In the first frame, she knocked all the pins down with her third ball and clenched her fist in a moment of quiet pride.
Next, William heaved the ball down the center of the lane only to watch it for a nanosecond before being distracted by the mechanism of the ball return.
My turn: a strike. Like everything I do (including writing), I start strong and then fizzle out.
Then it was my husband’s turn. His first ball nipped a corner pin. “I like to get the hard ones first,” he said, suppressing a grin.
“You’ll do better next time, Dad,” Vivian encouraged. If a five-year-old can be patronizing, she nailed it.
Just before releasing his next ball, my husband turned around and glared at William, who was gliding on the wood with his groovy shoes.
“Will,” I said, “please don’t bug Daddy. He has enough trouble bowling without you distracting him.”
The game didn’t get much better. William did well but didn’t care. Vivian agonized as she watched her score creep up slower than anyone else’s. My husband muttered various profanities as the king pin alluded him.
Frame ten ended with Vivian in tears. “It’s an awful day!” she wailed. “I got last place.” She cried her way through the glass doors and up the stairs, for once not caring her brother led the way to the van.
Welcome to Bowling for Breakdowns, my family’s specialty.
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Feel free to share your bowling or Spring Breakdown experiences in the comments below. Misery loves company.
Great stuff. 🙂 I’m glad to see we aren’t the only family whose ‘Fun Family Outings(tm)’ never seem to turn out the way they’re supposed to. I guess it’s ok, though – my mom says it was the same when we were kids, but I only remember having fun.
I think your mom’s right: we tend to recall the fun things. In terms of actual outings, I don’t remember going on any as a kid, except Friday Night public skating at the rink, where my parents watched curling and drank a few rums and we skated on the hockey rink.
Oh my – that reminds me so much of last Sunday. My husband finally got the opportunity to come along and see my 3 year old daughter bowling. She had tried it recently at a friend’s birthday party and absolutely loved it. So we had been together several times since and she always had a great time. Daddy had not been able to come as he has been working all hours of the day and night for months. But finally, he was home so we went on our first family bowling expedition. All went well for the first ten minutes and then suddenly my daughter stopped. And got cranky. And would not bowl. And shouted at Daddy. And so on. I suspected what had happened but being the type who hates to admit she got hurt she only admitted much later that she had in fact trapped her fingers and thumb beneath one of the bowling balls. So that was that. As Kelly says above, the fun family outings just never turn out the way they are intended to.
But you just have to keep trying and hope someday they might!
That’s so true: the outings are completely unscripted, a type of improvisation. Can’t believe your daughter hides her injuries; mine cannot suffer in silence. Come to think of it, she can’t do much in silence.
At least y’all made it there. We’ve been going to the bowling alley for years now. That’s the joy of having 7 children.
p.s. I’m so thrilled to meet another “smuggler.” I refuse to pay $3 for a soda.
Hugs and Mocha,
Stesha
I smuggle food and drinks into movie theatres, too. You just have to time opening the can to a load explosion. Glad to meet another!
Sounds kind of like “Bowling for Crazy” in which you bring a group of eight 5- and 6-year-olds to the lanes for a birthday party. My two were the only ones even mildly interested in the bowling, so Gee and I spent most of the hour trying to round up strays, keep fingers out of the ball return, and haul children back when it was their turn to roll (or launch) the ball down the hardwood.
Good times, I tell ya, good times.
Note to self: avoid the bowling party. Kids not interested in bowling? Who’d have thought? (And I’m not even being sarcastic here)
laughed ’til I cried – especially at the daughter’s patronizing comment to the dad – we can relate!