This weekend we fulfilled our birthday promise to Leila and we took her bowling, along with lots of our friends. In our bowling group was 8 adults 7 children and 2 fetuses, and we all had a blast. I wish I had pictures to prove it! We played two games, and each of the children had their very own distinct bowling style. There is Bryce who runs up to the lane and throws his ball with all of his strength. Bryce is a competitive and clever little guy, who mentioned to me when I had a couple of consecutive gutter balls that maybe I should bowl in the lane with bumpers next time.
Then you have Lilly, who is more of a leisurely bowler...she strolls up to the end of the lane, sits down and gives her ball a gentle backhand, sending it so slowly down the lane that when it makes contact with the pins, you don't know who is going to be left standing...the pin or the ball.
In typical Leila fashion, she choose a ball that was way too heavy for her, but it was purple, her favorite color. Every turn she would drag that heavy purple ball up to the line and give it a good shove, taking the ball's travel time as a perfect break to have a dance with her buddy Lilly while she was still the center of attention standing out on the wooden floor of the bowling alley.
Sawyer and Eli split a game and neither of them was so engaged in the activity to notice that their attempt to throw the ball down the lane was nearly always met with a follow up push from their grown up assistant, they were happy to see the ball go over the end of the lane and into the bowling alley black hole whether or not the pins had fallen! YeongHo and Thea did all of their bowling from their Daddy's arms, but you could tell they had fun. YeongHo's little face would light up in excitement as he rested his hand on the shiny red ball before Bryan heaved it down the lane.
If you can't tell from my descriptions, we had a wonderful time. It was magical watching the kids play together, encouraging and celebrating for each other after each throw. Very little attention was paid to how many many pins fell, but a glimpse into the carefree fun of children was the focus of the evening. My friends have great kids, and so do I. I love them all dearly!
1 comments:
I enjoy listening to Leila's account of the evening. She talks about the long, LONG, *LONG* (at this point, her eyes are wide open and she's spreading her hands as far apart as she can reach) hallway that has pins at the other side, and how she rolled the ball and it KNOCKED (more vivid expression) those pins RIGHT OVER (with hand sweeping across in front of her to show the full force of her throw)!
Another favorite: on one of the breaks between rolls, I saw Lilly running past the line onto the polished part of the lane, and a few feet in, she slipped and fell on her butt. Within seconds, Leila followed and mirrored every step, falling on her butt just the same. They both got up and giggled and ran back toward the ball return.
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