First Time Bowling

I took the kids bowling, and boy, could you ever tell it was our first time! Let me explain.

The bowling alley was crowded and we had to wait for a lane. No biggee, the girls patiently took a seat and watched the other bowlers. After about 10 minutes, they had a lane for us. We put on the fancy bowling shoes, got our ball (a 6 pounder--their lightest), requested a ramp to roll the ball down, and made our way to our lane. The ramp didn't come by the time we got everything set up, so the girls did their best without one. They put the ball down and pushed as hard as they could, which isn't very hard, I'm afraid. The ball crawled it's way down there, and H and G were both able to get some pins down.

Now for M's turn, and the ramp still hadn't come, though I'd asked three times now. Bless her heart, she tried her best, but it's hard for a 3-year-old girl to push a six-pound ball! It crawled even slower (if that were possible!) while I told the girls to blow on it to help it down! It made it all the way to the end, touched a pin but didn't knock it over, then started rolling slowly back until it stopped in the middle of the lane. Needless to say, the people in the lanes next to us thought this was pretty funny. I went back to the desk to ask again for a ramp, and now to tell them that our ball was stuck. Thankfully, that did the trick and they brought us a ramp!

Oh, but that wasn't the end of things! One time M had a hard time hoisting that six-pound ball up on top of the ramp, and it fell off the side and rolled into the lane next to us where it got stuck. How embarrassing! There was a mom with young boys in that lane, and I hoped for some understanding and tried to strike up a conversation, but all I got was a smile. She was probably just shy (or maybe she had a headache from bowling next to us!). Thankfully, H helped M get her ball up onto the ramp each time after that. That's what big sisters are for! :-)

Again, not the end. H decided she didn't need the ramp since she had watched the boys next to us and saw their technique of side-throwing the ball down the lane. This was working fine until during frame #7 when it bounced off the bumpers and into the OTHER lane's gutter, where there were teenage boys bowling. The boy who was about to bowl lamented getting a gutter ball, and his buddies urged him to quickly bowl anyway. . . his ball did beat H's down there, but the lane still counted 2 balls, so it gave him an error. Oops! I was very apologetic and H was embarrassed, but she did apologize as well. The teenagers were good-natured and laughed about it, though the boy did get some ribbing from his friends.

All in all, it was a somewhat embarrassing and humbling experience for me, but we all laughed and had a good time. I'm happy to report that we went again last week and there were no major mishaps! We have free bowling passes for the rest of the summer, so hopefully the girls will be old pros in no time! Or at least they won't bowl in someone else's lane. :-)