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

(Related to Friday’s post.) At the game store, my boys got interested in some water-sports game on some unknown-to-me console system. But I spotted old-school Super Mario Bros. on another monitor, so I gravitated over to it.

The first few tries I made at the old game showed that I’d lost any skills I once might have had with it. I just right sucked at it. But after a few minutes, and about half a dozen deaths, I managed to make my way in the world. Soon Calfgrit7 (he turned 8 yesterday, but that’s another post, tomorrow) noticed my game and left his little brother to float around in the water game.

CG7 asked to play and I let him. I told him the object of the game and how the controller worked, and he took right into it. It took him less time to get the hang of the game than it did me to get back into the hang. He was stomping Goombas and Koopa Troopas left and right.

Once I saw how impressed he was with the old game, I told him that I had this game at home. He was immediately interested. “Really!? Can we play it!?”

So when we got home that night, after baths were finished and pajamas were on, I took out my old Super Nintendo and plugged it into our TV. I was mistaken when I told CG7 I had Super Mario Bros. I have Super Mario Kart — but that’s even better for our situation. With SMK, both boys can play at the same time instead of waiting for turns.

I explained the game and controls to both boys and let them loose on the first basic race track. They *loved* it! At first, though, CG7 was frustrated with figuring out how to drive the karts on the track. He moaned and complained “Why can’t I get off this wall? Why am I going the wrong way?”

I got him to calm down for a moment and said, “Now think about it for a moment. There’s no hurry for you — Calfgrit4 is just going in circles — so take your time and think about how to work the controls.”

He took a big breath and calmed down. Within a few more seconds he had it figured out and was racing. Of course, he was just racing himself, as CG4 continued his circling the starting line.

I let them play two races — CG7 won both, of course — and then I took over for CG4. I won the next two races, easily, but not without having to try. CG7 knew what he was doing by then, and if I started screwing around on the track, he’d pass me and I had to work to get ahead again.

I gave the controller back to CG4 who again lost a race. But it didn’t matter to him that CG7 was running circles around him, (as he ran circles around himself), he just liked controlling the character on the screen.

By the way, Calfgrit7 likes Donkey Kong, and Calfgrit4 likes Luigi. We all three had a ball with this old game for over half an hour. Afterwards they made me promise we’d play it again sometime soon.

The play of the game holds up well after all this time — originally produced in 1992 — but the graphics are absolutely abysmal by today’s standards. It’s really shocking to go from any modern console or computer game and then watch this thing. It’s amazing what our minds ignore or fill in with the old, simple graphics of the old games.

When I’ve always thought back on these games, I can picture in my mind’s eye, vivid details and smooth colors. Looking at Mario Kart on the Wii doesn’t look different than what I remember, in my mind’s eye, of the Super version. But actually looking at the 1992 graphics, wow, nostalgia paints a much more beautiful and detailed image than reality.

But that’s the technology we had in the day. And still, the game play was and still is superb. I’m looking forward to playing this some more with my boys. By the end of our half hour of play time, I had just started introducing the special abilities — shells, banana peels, speed mushrooms, etc. — so our next races should be even more exciting.

Bullgrit

Continued from yesterday.

It was a few days after getting the whoopie cushion before I could give it the first play. The boys were playing in the den, and Cowgrit was doing something on her computer at her desk in the den. I was in my office quietly opening the plastic package and blowing up the cushion.

I snuck the cushion into the den and placed it in our soft chair in the far corner. I used a thin pillow to conceal the trap. It wasn’t a good set up, but if I could keep Cowgrit misdirected, I might could pull it off.

I went to Cowgrit and whispered I needed to talk to her for a moment. I pulled her over to the other side of the den, past the boys playing on the floor, and in front of the loaded chair. I made sure her back was to the trap, and I urged her to sit down.

She immediately suspected I was up to something sinister. She smiled suspiciously at me, and tried to get away. I grabbed her, laughing, and dropped her down on the soft chair.

Nothing. “Dagnabbit!” I said.

“What in the world,” she laughed. She stood up, turned and looked under the thin pillow. “Oh geez,” she said. I let her walk away, then.

The cushion was flat, but it must have let all the air go slowly from the weight of the pillow on top of it. I took the cushion out of the room and blew it back up. The boys were oblivious to everything but their toys. Cowgrit had gone to the kitchen to make sure she was away from her insane husband.

I set the cushion back down in the chair, but there was no good way to conceal it. I’d never trick one of the boys to sit on it. So I’d have to set it off myself. I sat down.

The cushion gave a beautiful explosion.

Both boys stopped their play and looked at me. Calfgrit7 laughed, “Daddy farted!” Then Calfgrit4 laughed, too.

I sat in the chair for a minute, laughing at myself. When the boys went back to playing, I reset the cushion. I sat down on it again, and again the room was filled with a wonderful explosion of sound.

Both Calves laughed again, but this time Calfgrit7 knew something had to be up with the whole thing. “How are you doing that?” he asked.

I stood up, and showed them both the whoopie cushion. “It’s a balloon,” said Calfgrit4.

I showed them how the cushion worked — I blew it up, placed it on the chair, and sat down again. Both boys shouted with laughter at the sound. CG7 actually fell to the floor laughing so hard, and CG4 copied him.

For the next hour, the two boys used the cushion on every chair in the house. CG7 would blow it up, and they’d take turns sitting on it. They “farted” on both den chairs, all three cushions of the sofa, the four chairs around the kitchen table, my and Cowgrit’s desk chairs, and several places just on the floor.

We tried to get Cowgrit to knowingly sit on the cushion, just one time, but she refused. She’s such a girl.

Bullgrit

A few days before Christmas, I was out with Cowgrit and Calfgrit4. (Calfgrit7 was with a friend.) Cowgrit wanted to stop by a dollar store for something — I don’t remember what, maybe to look for stocking stuffers? — so we three went in.

My job was mostly to just entertain CG4 while Cowgrit looked around. But I spied something I couldn’t pass up: a whoopie cushion. For only a buck, I had to get it.

I distracted CG4 for a moment, and I grabbed the package. I held it around my back so he couldn’t see it. Then when my real intended target came back to us, I had to be more subtle and clever with my concealment. But Cowgrit’s not easy to fool.

I pretended to buy some candy while she took our littlest boy out of the store. She had noticed I was hiding something, but she thought I had picked up something for the boys’ Christmas. If only I was that thoughtful.

Once outside the store, Cowgrit wanted to see what I had bought. I tried not showing it to her, but my secrecy just made her curiosity even stronger. “Why won’t you show me what you got them?” she whispered.

We got back to our van, and while I was making sure CG4 was buckled in, Cowgrit took a peek in the dollar store plastic bag sitting on my driver seat. I discovered her investigation when I opened my door. “Well,” I moaned, “I just lost my first surprise victim.”

Cowgrit gave me that look that asks, “How old are you?” Then she laughed.

To be continued…

Bullgrit