One of my 6 year old’s best friends from his pre-school years had his 7th birthday party at the local bowling alley. His parents asked him who all he wanted to invite to his party, and he said just his two best friends from pre-school. So it was three 6-year-old boys and two dads (the third dad didn’t stay) on lane #4.

Boys can be so silly. They got so excited with every bowl, by the graphics on the game monitor, by the pizza from the alley concession counter, by just feeding off each other’s excitement. An excited boy with a six-pound bowling ball can be dangerous to everyone around him. It took constant reminders to keep the two waiting boys behind the bowling area while the one whose turn it was handled his ball. They all wanted to be right together, talking about what just happened, what is happening, and what will happen with the ball and pins.

I’m amazed at the strength of the bowling lane floors. We tried to keep the boys from just throwing and dropping their balls on the wood, but still, that floor took constant punishment. And our boys weren’t the only ones pounding the balls on the floor—there was a regular drum beat of balls smashing into the floors from all the other kids in the building that day.

To bowl, each of the boys would carry their ball up to the line and drop, toss, or hurl the ball. Occasionally the ball would roll pretty fast, but most of the time it just meandered down the wood floor, bouncing off the rails blocking the gutters.

One time, my boy threw his ball down the lane in a zig-zag pattern; it bounced off the rails at least half a dozen times, and he still managed to knock down eight pins. He would never watch his ball go down the lane. He’d set it to rolling, and then just turn around and walk away. He was only interested in the act of bowling, and apparently didn’t care too much in the result. He’d have his ball in hand (or sitting on it) before it was his turn to bowl; he was anxious to fling the ball, he just apparently didn’t care too much about watching the pins fall.

I think all three boys enjoyed the reunion, though it wasn’t quite what you’d consider a “party.” There were cupcakes and presents, but it really was just three “old friends” (yes, I realize the humor in this concept regarding 6 year olds) getting together for some old-school silly time.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com

The other evening, I found a handwritten note in my 3 year old’s lunchbox, stuck to his unopened package of peanut butter Ritz Bits:

Sorry [3YO] couldn’t eat them. We gave him Goldfish : )

I had made his lunch that morning, and I forgot there was a child with peanut allergies in his class. I packed his lunch bag with some rolled up ham slices and pepperoni (he loves pepperoni), some sliced grapes, an apple juice box, and the snack bag. We usually give him a package of Cheez-Its for his classroom snack, but I put the last package of those in the 6 year old’s lunch that morning. So I just grabbed the next bag of snacks in the cupboard.

The peanut restriction completely slipped my mind. In fact, after I saw the note, it was a few moments before I realized why he “couldn’t eat them.” Interesting, though, I’m now so in the habit of making the ham and pepperoni roll ups for his lunch, I didn’t remember why we started packing that instead of a peanut butter sandwich, like we pack for the 6 year old.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com

I had just dropped off the 6 year old at school, and I hadn’t had any breakfast yet. So, instead of going directly back home, I turned the van toward Biscuitville. The 3 year old was full of questions.
“Where are we going now?”
“Where is mom?”
“Why are we going this way?”
“What is the name of this road?”
“What is the name of this store?”
On and on and on and on. . . .

On the way, I called my wife to ask if she wanted anything from the restaurant. We went through the drive-through, where I ordered an egg biscuit for me, a bowl of grits and a medium Mountain Dew for my wife. The 3 year old didn’t want anything—I asked him if he was sure, twice.

When I got my order, the guy at the window handed me a bucket of MD. Good lord, I thought, this cup is big enough for movie theater popcorn. It’s been happening for years, this increase in drink sizes, but it still catches me by surprise. A medium today is the size of what would have been considered extra large 20 years ago. And to add a little bit of sad irony to the trend, when I order a water at a fast food restaurant, I inevitably get a little child-sized cup mostly full of ice. It’s like they’re trying to make sure you get more than plenty of caffeinated sugar-drink, but they want to keep you thirsty for good, healthy water.

Anyway, I set the barrel of MD in the cup holder between the front seats. The cup is smaller at the bottom so it can fit in car cup holders. This makes it very top heavy—something that didn’t really seem important at that moment.

When I pulled out of the parking lot, turning left onto the highway, the cup jumped out of the holder and into the passenger seat. I quickly reached over to catch the cup, and managed to just barely get my fingers on it. When I looked back up, out the windshield, I saw I was about to hit the right-side curb. I had to jerk the steering wheel with my left hand, and this renewed momentum to the extra-large “medium-sized” cup of Mountain Dew, and it flew out from under my fingers and into the passenger-side door. It wedged between the seat and the door, but the plastic top popped off, and 50 gallons of ice and green liquid all poured out into the floor.

As soon as I could, I pulled off into a parking lot. I got out of the van and walked around to the passenger side. When I opened the door, MD and ice fell out like sports gear in an over-stuffed closet. Nice. Just great. Sigh, double sigh, and cuss (under my breath because the 3 year old was watching).

“What happened daddy?”
“Where are we?”
“Why did you get out of the van?”
“What are you doing?”
“I want a biscuit.”

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com

Our neighbors asked us if we could watch their little girls for half an hour or so, while they go to an appointment. We said, “Okay, send them on over.” My wife was out of the house at the appointment time, so I ended up the parent in charge. (That’s not a problem, for the record.) We went out into our backyard to play.

The girls are 5 years old and 2 years old (compared to my boys of 6 and 3). The kids started out playing on the play set, swinging, climbing, sliding, etc. Then my 6 year old wanted to play football. Over the next 20 minutes, six balls of various sports and sizes were being thrown, kicked, and caught. The 5 year old girl was game right in there with the 6 year old boy, and the 3 year old boy was trying to keep up. The 2 year old girl was calmly picking up and carrying balls outside the more active play.

I chased the kids, the kids chased me, and we had a grand time until I just needed to sit out the action. Soon, the kids all settled down to play with cars on the patio, in relative quiet. They played this way for about 10 minutes, and then they got up for more ball play.

They’d been running around for about five minutes when the girls’ mom came over to pick them up. She came into the backyard and we talked for a couple minutes while the kids continued playing. The kids would throw balls to us, run past us, and generally want to involve us in their “sport,” despite our trying to have a conversation.

It was pretty obvious, and ashamedly funny, that the girls’ mom was not used to such rambunctious activity. The throws and runs seemed to surprise her at times. My boys’ mom knows to at least keep heads up while boys are playing around her, so a ball thrown to her won’t startle her. I know I’m making a general, blanket statement based on one anecdote, and there are plenty of girls and moms of girls who don’t feel and look out of place in the middle of active outdoor play. But the scene played right to the stereotype; it looked like a sitcom.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com