Family Bowling Day Pack 3066

Today we went bowling with Miles Boyscout pack 3066 for "family bowling day". Miles, Zoe, Mike, myself  and the babies all loaded up ready to bowl. It took all of five minutes for the boys to scream loud enough to turn  heads (even over the ridiculously loud music and black light disco fest ringing through the bowling alley).

I'm at a point where I just ignore the world around me. The stares from other parents, employees, kids all wondering what on earth is wrong with my boys and what kind of awful parent I must be that they'd act this way. I developed a bubble. I just stay centered and calm in my   bubble...just me and my toddlers...who are screaming and writhing like they are being tortured because they've suddenly seen a balloon, or a ball, or a vending machine,  or a whatever object in that moment and they can't let it go, they don't get their way, so they FREAK out in the hugest way possible. The stares, the other people, they don't exist in my bubble. There's no reason to be embarrassed in my bubble, its just us.

Mike freaks out too, he hasn't figured out a way to stay calm yet, so I basically have disqualified him from my  bubble because there's just no room in there for him, its already enough with the twins. Mike swears and yells at me "why are we at this effing thing"? I just stay in my bubble, I've tuned him out. Having a husband losing his cool in the midst of two autistic three year olds losing their cool.... its character building stuff.

Six months ago I would have just started crying of humiliation, the awfulness of it all..the utter embarrassment of being such a disastrous public spectacle.  Today, I have a bubble....it's the only way I can go outside my home and not risk  becoming a hermit.

So ten minutes into the whole thing, Zoe spills her freshly poured sticky soda EVERYWHERE, ..we have to call the employees to help us clean the mess. Next, I take a trip to the vending machine for Darby and Cooper to get combo's. Darbys combos drop, Coopers combo's get stuck. They're  just frozen in the vending machine annoyingly stuck to that metal piece, it just refuses to let go. Cooper gets  upset in his extreme way and starts trying frantically to climb into the vending machine to get his  combo's. Again, the employee  is called to fix the situation. More time goes by,  predominantly consisting of Cooper screaming, Mike swearing, Darby running 80 miles an hour through the bowling alley, and my ten year old daughter attempting to capture the attention of every single person in the bowling alley with her erratic dance moves. It was quite a moment. I thought it couldn't get any worse..I was wrong.  I decided to let Darby bowl a few turns.

So he gets his little bowling shoes on and rolls a few down the bumpered lane... and all is good. On his third attempt, he picks up his five pound  ball, trips over his feet, and lands with his chin crushing down on the ball.  I scoop him up and quickly take him to the locker room hoping to get there in time to prevent the sound thats about to come out of his mouth from the ears of the other bowlers,  and  to assess the damage. He opens his mouth to wail and blood comes pouring out all over his shirt and  pants as well as my shirt and pants. He chomped down on his tongue pretty hard and both sides are bleeding . Luckily his tongue  is still attached.  After ten  minutes or so the bleeding  stops. At that moment when I first saw the blood, I just remember thinking "God, can't I have just one effing break??" And I swore in my thoughts to God... , and I wasn't taking it back, I felt justified in it.

After ALL that, I thought I was out of thick of it, it couldn't get worse could it? Then, a delivery of balloons and cake came for a 40th birthday party for one of the pack leaders. That basically sent Darby and Cooper into a wailing fit. Thankfully Miles was done bowling by this point and still claiming me as his mother. I gathered up my blood stained Darby and my screaming  Cooper, my seriously pissed off husband, my attention seeking daughter, and we left. I'm pretty sure most the parents were happy to see us go.