Cole and Jared try bowling (Entered: 2007/01/23 01:07:04)

January 22, 2007

Today, for no particular reason - okay it was a MOMS club event - the boys and I decided to try the noble sport of bowling. We loaded up in the car at around 3:45 and headed north to Eden Prairie, where the aforesaid bowling alley was located.

On the way, we had an animated discussion about how Sean, Marilyn, Rachel and Andrew are their only first cousins (my brother's brood) and how Taylor and Kaegen, (Ben's cousin Tali's kids) are their third cousins. This has been a point of confusion for them for a long time.

Rightfully so, Rob and Jodi, living in Slovka, have seen Cole and Jared about 3 or maybe 4 times this year. Tali's kids, although they live roughly 1000 miles away, we seem to see just as often. Since Taylor is the little mother of the group, Kaegen and Cole are less than 3 weeks different in age, the bond between these third cousins is pretty strong. Considering that Taylor and Kaegen are two of about 30 3rd cousins they have, it's very strong really.

Of those multitudes of relatives I have, the only cousins my kids might remember are Heidi, Heather, Olivia, and Caroline, who went to the Indianopolis Children's Musuem with them -- but they'll only remember that if you mention Bob the Builder.

So back to bowling... We arrived at the bowling alley, me wisely not following Cole's directions that he was reading off of his imaginary map. We jumped out of the car in to "chocolate snow," Jared's name for it. Hand in hand we marched into the bowling alley, which to my surprise and delight, was well lit, clean, and non-smoking.

My shock at the general cleaniness of the place was my first. My second shock was they had toddler bowling shoes. I figured - silly me - that they wouldn't have kids shoes and they would bowl in socks, you know, like I did back in the day. Well nowadays, perhaps it had to do the high income surburb we were in, they have little tiny bowling shoes, in toddler size 9.

Were they cute? Nope, not remotely, but my plan was immediately foiled. I budget $20/week on silly outings like this, and not having taken the shoes into account, I blew my whole budget on renting shoes and one game for all of us, 30 frames of bowling. And as we were walking in, Cole said, "Mommy, I'm hungry." He is a bottomless pit these last three weeks. I gave him a snack (a healthy one, thank you) before we left, but he saw the candy machine and of course wanted junk food.

My budget gone, my child hungry, but my spirits high, the boys and I changed into own rented shoes. We tracked down the smallest balls they had, one 6 and one 7 pound ball. Light they might be, but they were still a standard size bowling ball. Jared picked the red 7 pound ball, and Cole the blue 6 pounder. We, awkwardly, carried our gains back to our lane, number 29. Jared tried so hard to carry his ball back to the lane, but a 30 pound kid can only carry a 7 pound ball so far. I caught it before it dropped on his foot and we made it back to our lane without any broken bones. I quickly found the first ball I could, a neon orange 10 pounder, and we were off.

The greatest part about bowling is that it is a novel sport. I can safely say that Cole has never seen anything like bowling in his 4 years. In fact, when I learned in gym class how to bowl -- I should probably thank my junior high gym teachers -- I had never set foot to a bowling hall before. Unless you count that time that Dad's plane was forced to land in Fort Dodge in a storm. Mom didn't want to drive all the way to pick him up, but after spending 2 weeks alone with us, she was determined that he was coming home that night. So Rob, 15, Rick 13, me, age 9, and Mom spend a lovely, smokey evening in the bowling alley/bar in Konwona Iowa. I didn't spell that right and I couldn't find the town again if I wanted, but it was the first time I'd been in a bowling alley, and the first time I closed down a bar.

Did you know that you can throw a bowling ball so slowly that it will stop in the middle of the lane? Just stop dead? Well it can, and a member of management, in our case a college student with an overgrown beard and longer hair than me retrieved it for us. In fact, he had to do it twice. Once for the pretty red ball, once for the pretty blue ball.

As it turns out, there is really no physcial way for a 30 pound two year old to throw a 7 pound bowling ball. Jared's arms, which can barely reach to the top of his own head, could not manuever the pretty red ball in any manner. The few times when I didn't help, the ball set new land speed records for the slowest blowing ball ever to be thrown, which would be comparable to the speed of a male penguin walking around with his egg balanced on his feet. That was a matter of life and death, this was just painfully slow.

Cole faired slightly better, he could at least sucessfully carry his ball to the lane. Until he dropped it and it went flying over to the other lane, where a teenage boy and his father were practicing serious bowling. The kid had the good humor to smile, the father looked a bit miffed. I had to take the ball to the lane from then on. Cole threw his ball in many different ways. Sometime he pushed it from under his legs, sometimes he sort of threw it like underhand softball pitching. Once he even tried to kick it. One time, he even managed to get a spare. He jumped up and down like a kangeroo and yelled "I won, I won, I won!!!" This time both father and son favored him with a smile.

How did I do? My neon orange ball and I had the best game in my whole life, I scored well over 100 points. Those little bumpers they have on the sides are a great invention. I don't know why I haven't been using them before now.

In the end, the kids were sick of it, although they really loved seeing the ball come back up out of the ball return. Cole scored 57, Jared scored 69, and I pulled down 117 points. Ben stopped by, 5 minutes after we were done, and Cole was starving. We had some pizza and other generally unhealthful bowling alley food and headed back for Prior Lake. Our bowling day done, but not forgotten.

Cole said that we should try it again another day, maybe tomorrow after preschool. I'm sure we will head bowling again, but next time I think I'll follow Cole's imaginery map directions. We might not make it to the bowling alley, but then I won't blow my budget on rented shoes.