I Guess I'm Officially a Dad Now

I had my Chuck E. Cheese cherry popped last night.

I feel so dirty.

Instead of a birthday party for Ian this year, we let him invite a friend over to go do some fun activity. Ian chose a trip to Chuck E. Cheese's where a kid can be a kid and a parent can be driven out of their skull.

I'd never been to a Chuck E. Cheese's establishment before last night. The last time I was inside anything similar to it was either when I was nine-year old at a place called ShowBiz Pizza or that time I was looked in an elevator for 3 hours with five Russian midget wrestlers, a guy with Tourettes Syndrome, and donkey with intestinal problems.

It's hard to say.

I do know that Ian and his friend Parker had a blast. We went to McDonald's first because Ian doesn't particularly like pizza (i know, i know - we're working on it) and nothing says special day to Ian like a milkshake and Happy Meal from our friend Ronald. While I think Parker might have been confused by visits to two mecca's of children gluttony in one night, he took it all in stride.

Ian and Parker ran around and threw tokens at everything the blipped, blinked, moved, or played music.

Emma stuck to mainly to the miniature merry-go-round and simple duck game. She was mainly there to see Chuck E. Cheese. Every time a "show" would start up on stage, she would want to go running up there and stand right in front of the mechanical rat. It was particularly exciting for Emma when the real Chuck E. Cheese came out of the broom closet and waved at the throngs of children who threw themselves lemming-like at Chuck's legs and belly. Emma got to shake Chuck's hand - which she had been talking about doing for the last two days.

Zoe - yes, everyone went to Chuck E. Cheese's - pretty much just slept. It was the only thing she could do considering the sensory overload she was experiencing.

Overall the trip was pretty much what I expected - though the place seemed smaller than I thought it would be, with less actual video games than I figured would be there. Are less stand-alone video games created since the rise of Xbox and Playstation? I don't know.

I know it wasn't my last trip there, but I can't say I'm looking forward to return visits. But my parents suffered through similar types of things for my enjoyment as a kid; at the very least I can suffer the same for my children.