Birthday Number 8, Starring Calfgrit4

Sunday, Jan. 4 was our oldest boy’s birthday — he’s now 8 years old. We had his party on Saturday afternoon at the bowling alley, again (totally his choice). It’s funny, the only times we ever go to the bowling ally is for his or his friends’ birthday parties.

We had 11 kids in total (including our two Calves), so we had them split up on two adjacent lanes. Overall, the whole thing was a hit. When we were cleaning up, CG8 said, “This was the best birthday party I’ve ever had.” That kind of thing just warms a parent’s heart. Especially when the whole thing wasn’t expensive or difficult to arrange.

As fun as the party was for Calfgrit8 and his friends — all 7-8 year old kids — the most fun for me to watch was Calfgrit4 being a part of all the big kid activities. He’s 4 years old, going on 8, and he keeps up pretty well.

He used both hands to pick up a bowling ball weighing about 20% of his own body weight, staggered up to the line, put the ball down, and gave it a big push on the floor. (All of this was with my or Cowgrit’s supervision and instruction.)

It took the ball over 20 seconds to roll all the way down to the pins, where it had about a 50/50 chance of knocking down a pin or two, or dropping in the gutter right before the pins (the side bumpers were up for all the kids). I video taped a few of his bowls, and each one took between 20 and 25 seconds from his hands to the pins.

He was excited to just knock down one pin. Once, he knocked down seven, and he showed no more excitement for that than for just one. I think he was more excited to see the ball shoot up to the return from under the lanes.

God, to experience that kind of excitement for simple things again, that would be a wonderful thing.

Bullgrit