What a Beautiful Noise: My One-Year-Old Nearly Beat Me Bowling

Today was discount Family Fun Day as we tried to get rid of some of the promotional "free whatever" coupons we've gathered in a pile over the past few months. On our nature hike this morning at Friedrich Park, we finally took a right at the initial trail fork and made it up to the old windmill. Both the kids enjoyed watching the big blades spin and the little goldfish in the water well play hide and seek in the weeds. Our four-year-old enjoyed identifying the numbered plants on the trail with the corresponding names on the map. Our 16-month-old was content to eat rocks and walk across the plank-bridges over and over and over again! We returned home in time for PBJs and Amelia's nap (oh, how I wish Nate would've taken one today. After his 6:00 wake-up and a long day, he just couldn't make it until bedtime. He started what would be an impressive meltdown just as we were finishing dinner at EZ's...but I get ahead of myself.)

"I found number 12 again, Dad...mountain cedar!"

Yup, there's the bridge...again!

After everyone was refreshed (and Jason and I finished our pm shot of espresso!), we loaded up the Sebring for an afternoon of family bowling! This would be nearly impossible for me to do alone with the kids at this age, but a perfect filler with Jason's help on a hot Texas afternoon. They had shoes down to a children's size 6. Amelia's in a 5, so what the heck? We let her try too! Nate an Amelia used the bumpers and the ball ramp. Nate's very first ball had to be retrieved by the attendant because it didn't make it down to the end of the lane. His second ball was clocked at 1.3 mph, so for future attempts, we had him use the ramp. He thinks that's a pretty cool physics experiment in itself--sometimes he just taps the ball off the ramp, sometimes he shoves it with a heave-ho! The end-point of this story, glossing over the chaos of having two kids under four with exploring personalities in the lanes; is that Nate bowled a 101, I tied Amelia with a 102 and Jason got a "lucky" tenth frame to jump ahead and win with a 121. Basically, Amelia nearly beat everyone!