Indulgence

Ryan started school last week, and Fran and I wanted to be a very positive experience. I tend to be a little strict (but very consistent) with him, so I am conscious of that and try to balance it out by giving him lots of praise and having a lot of fun activities when possible. We had a party on Friday night, just for our family--we ordered pizza and hung out at home and played video games--we linked our computers together and played head to head--Ryan had a blastl.

Was that enough? Oh, no. Fran committed me to take him to Chuck E. Cheese's on Saturday (while she stayed home with Kaitlyn), which I was thoroughly dreading. Just walking in that place gives you a reeking blast of little kid sweat and gross, greasy pizza. Lights flashing, creepy, fleabitten, enormous Stuffed Mouse lumbering around in a grey costume, loud music and beeping horns and wailing sirens. It's like a freakin' insane asylum.

But here's a secret: For 20 bucks, your kid can pretty much be The King of Chuck E. Cheese--That's about 100 tokens, and each game is only 1 token. Ryan was walking around like he owned that bi-atch. Plunking tokens in everywhere, cramming tickets from games into his pants until they couldn't hold anymore. Playing head-to-head driving games against overzealous grownups and then running them off the road and making them flip over while laughing maniacally at their downfall. And, I must admit, equally demolishing other kids, making me a little uncomfortable saying to them that he's going to "take them out." But all in good fun, right?

I tried to "zen out" and step back from the chaos for a minute, and I felt like I rose above them all and watched the kids scurrying like ants, power-crazed with tokens and electronics. Then I kind of connected with them, and this song came to mind:

Y'all gon' make me lose my mind
up in HERE, up in here
Y'all gon' make me go all out
up in here, up in here
Y'all gon' make me act a FOOL
up in HERE, up in here
Y'all gon' make me lose my cool
up in here, up in here

We even got our picture taken on their "sketch machine".



Brief factoid: It takes a kid about 2 1/2 hours to use up 100 tokens, then the kingdom must be abdicated. Whew! But he had a big smile on his face when we were leaving--right before I autoclaved his hands. Afterward, I took him to the ice cream store where we shared a double-dip hot fudge sundae with nuts, whipped cream, and a cherry on top. By the time we got home he was wiped out and had lots to tell his mom. It was a great day, and Ryan was the star.