I took Caroline and three of her friends bowling yesterday. As summer winds down, the girls are getting bored and cranky; even the pool is losing its appeal. Because I don't particularly care for hearing them bicker, whine, complain and litter my living room with friendship bracelet scraps, I figured an outing was called for.
Out we went. Out to the bowling alley. Because that's what the cool kids do.
We went to the bowling alley on Ft. Belvoir and lucky for us (or unlucky, depending on your feelings towards Cosmic Bowling) we walked into a dark, disco ball-lit and smoky (from a machine, not cigarettes) bowling alley. Oh, and the music was playing rather loudly. Pretty much a 8 year olds dream come true. Evidently some group of adults were having a bowling/work party, which explains the day time cosmic bowling experience. Naturally, the girls loved it. I didn't mind it too much either, EXCEPT not all the music they played was age appropriate. There is nothing like watching four girls (ages 8.5-11) singing and dancing to The Pussycat Dolls. Frankly, it's kind of scary and I admit to cringing quite a bit. At one point Boom Boom Pow by the Black Eyed Peas came on and all four girls informed me that they knew where all the curse words are in the song, even though they were bleeped out.
All together now......sigh!
Once our eyes adjusted to the smoky darkness and found the right size balls and shoes, the girls had a great time bowling. Well, three of them did. One of the girls isn't the best bowler and spent the majority of her time sulking. I tried to tell her that she'd have more fun if she worried less about her score and just focused on having fun with her friends, but she didn't seem to take my words to heart. I even informed her that *I* am the world's worst bowler, so she should feel better about her score. No really, I'm not very good at all. When Caroline was 5, she beat me. AND we were using the lane bumpers. Tell me that's not pitiful. The other girls did a good job encouraging Rachel and cheering her on, which was nice. Those are the sweet moments when you're happy to be surrounded by pack of wild girl monsters. Thankfully it wasn't my kid with the sour attitude; when Caroline sulks because she is losing, I just tell her to suck it up. Clearly, I haven't any patience for dramatics. Unfortunately, you really can't tell another person's child to suck it up. That doesn't usually go over well.
After two rounds of bowling we gathered our junk, turned in our stinky shoes and went across the parking lot to Dunkin Donuts. Hey after that experience, I do believe an iced coffee was in order. I bought the girls Coolattas and got myself a fancy caramel iced latte, which proved to be a very sweet mistake. That latte was SO sweet. Like hurt your teeth kind of sweet. I managed to drink half of it and then when we got home I dumped some plain, unsweetened iced coffee into the cup to dilute the sweetness a bit. I think I'll stick to the simple stuff from now on. Either the DD girl had a heavy hand with the caramel or I'm just unaccustomed to that type of sweetness. Such a lightweight!
It was a fun afternoon, even though I don't have any pictures to document the fun being had by all. Hey, it was too dark in the bowling alley anyway. Just know that the girls bowled, ended the game with various bowling related thumb/wrist injuries, shook their tail feathers to some mightily inappropriate music and went into sugar comas from their Coolattas from Dunkin Donuts.
If that's not a successful afternoon, then I don't know what is.
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