This isn't Nam, Smokey, there are rules.

So, a few weeks ago, we decided to take the kids bowling and see how they did. We went on a slow weekday afternoon, as the bowling alley was getting ready for league bowl that evening. This is our new bowling center in Fulton, and it is very nice and shiny and new, and not icky and smokey like the old one was. They have automatic bumpers that go up in the gutters when it was the kids' turn, which was pretty cool. They had kid-weight balls and even tiny shoes for them, and they really liked rolling the ball and watching the pins fall. Being the ages they are, they had some issues with understanding turn-taking, and they were severely distracted by the arcade games and toy machine-game thing in the corner. Noah especially liked the deer hunting game with the rifle-shaped controller. Being our child, though, he thought it was a guitar and pretended to play it as such. The highlight of the afternoon came when I, being the brilliant problem-solver that doesn't want to bother anybody that I am, attempted to rescue Madeleine's ball that lost momentum and stopped a third of the way to the pins. I took one step on the freshly waxed and buffed lane next to ours and immediately fell on my tookis. I mean, instantly, no time to regain my balance and not look a fool. I got up, sensibly walked in the gutter, gave her ball a push, and walked back. Soon after, we started to loose the kids. They really wanted to play those games in the corner. We finished an entire game, but after that, we decided to pack it in. It was an interesting experiment, but I think we'll wait another year or so before taking them back.