Colter has picked up some good habits at Chuck E. Cheese, including how to wait his turn, deal politely with kids who hog the games or take his tickets, and especially, he's learned the advantage of saving up for something larger than a microscopic plastic helicopter that won't fly.
Plus, it's a safe place to explore his competitive side. And there's no denying that as a family, we love winning. It was thrilling yesterday to see Gary get 480 points on Skee-ball. We watched, mesmerized, as the tickets poured out hundred after hundred, with flashing lights and everything.
But yesterday's outing introduced me to a new danger (I was already familiar with the loud noise causing a headache and a hoarse voice, the cholera potential of the salad bar, and the bottomless nature of my son's appetite for tokens).
Yesterday, it was the unattended toddlers that really scared me.
Maybe I suddenly flashed back to the "CSI: Miami" episode that investigated a little girl being kidnapped -- then accidentally killed -- in a similar place, but I don't think so.
What scared me more than potential abductors were the actual parents, many of them, who leave their very young children to run around alone in a place filled with flailing arms, stomping feet, and flying balls.
What are they thinking?!
I actually found an employee yesterday to help this one wandering boy, who was climbing on equipment and putting parts of his body inside places they could easily have become stuck. While she was looking for an associate to watch him, a little girl who was not much older started asking adults in our vicinity if they'd seen a little boy. I directed her to him, and she took him back to a birthday party in another room.
Next time we go, I'm trying the beer.
Oh my God. When my husband was in the air force-back when he was in his early 20's, he and his best friend would go to Chuck E. Cheese for the beer. They'd get kind of loaded up on cheep pitchers of MGD and eat pizza and get up in the play equipment and terrorize the kids.
Now he has to spend every day with my son.
Hahahahahahahahahah!
Posted by: Kelly | December 14, 2003 at 08:59 AM