Bowling offers great way to celebrate kid's birthday

My little guy, Braden, turned 5 on St. Patrick’s Day, and to celebrate my wife, Jenny, and I held a party with kids from his 4K class and family members at 5 Star Lanes in Plover Saturday, March 13. Time never flies any faster than it does when bowling with 10 5-year-olds.
Preparation for the party was minimal, especially when compared to other parties we’ve thrown for him. We didn’t have to clean our house, because people weren’t going there, and we didn’t have to do much at the bowling lanes, because 5 Star took care of almost everything.
The majority of our preparation was to take Braden bowling there about a month ago, just to make sure it was something that could work. We knew from his first roll of the bowling ball down the lane it was something that would be fun, because he was celebrating and cheering before the ball even hit the pins.
Braden, Jenny and I posted scores some basketball teams could beat on good days, but we didn’t care because it was a blast and different from the usual things we do as a family.
We booked the party following our bowling excursion, and then spent a little time since then making invites, putting together goodie bags for the kids and purchasing a cake at Trig’s right before the event. On the day of the party we showed up about a half hour before it started, just to make sure we were there before the invitees arrived.
Once they were all there, with both sets of grandparents and some of Braden’s aunts and uncles in tow to help, the names of the 10 bowlers were entered into the computer and all the kids were fitted with shoes. The kids thought it was weird they had to take their perfectly fine shoes off, only to put some less-fine shoes on in their place, but none argued, as they couldn’t wait to throw the balls down the aisle.
Only a few kids had bowled before, but it seemed all were familiar with the sport, either through Nintendo Wii bowling at home or because their fathers spent a lot of time watching “The Big Lebowski,” which is not just the greatest film featuring bowling ever but one of the greatest films of all time, as I have attested to many times in this column before.
For whatever reason the kids were familiar with the sport, we didn’t have to spend much time helping them with it, as all were eager to get the ball to the pin in some sort of way, whether it was a granny bowl between the legs or a throw-the-ball-down-lane throw. And oftentimes the kids tried a different approach every time, copying what some of their friends did, usually to equally bad results.
Because the bumper lanes were up, and thankfully because the bumper lanes were up, the kids all scored between 50 and 100. I’d hate to imagine what those scores would have been without the bumper lanes, even though I’m sure the kids could have cared less about those scores as they haven’t reached an age where things like scores mattered. In fact, as long as the ball hit a pin, each kid thought he or she was a winner. It’s kind of sad that attitude doesn’t always carry over to adulthood.
All the adults at the party had a specific role, and as much as I wanted to bowl, I was no exception. My role was to videotape the proceedings, using a digital camcorder we purchased prior to going to Disney World in Florida in January. I didn’t have much experience prior to using it at Disney World, so the majority of the video I shot was like a roller coaster ride in that I was constantly moving the camera, to jarring and mostly unwatchable results. The end video contained 40 minutes of somewhat passable footage, which was a shame because I shot more than three hours worth of our trip.
This time I tried my best to keep the camera still, and I would like to say I did so, but I haven’t watched it yet. I’ll know when I get a few hours of free time to work on the video project, but I’m keeping my fingers crossed in the meantime.
By the time the kids got to the seventh frame, we realized we needed to get the bowlers who weren’t bowling at the moment started on eating the pizza and cake, as parents were soon due to pick their kids up from the party. The kids were hungry by then, so once again our job was easy.
And getting Braden to open his presents, well, that’s not difficult either, as anyone who has ever seen a kid open presents before will know.
Somehow, and I haven’t figured out how, the kids managed to bowl all 10 frames right before the party ended. The two kids with the highest scores were two of the three girls at the party. One of those girls rolled a strike on her first attempt, and she followed it up with a spare on the next frame. She finished with a 91, one pin ahead of the other girl’s 90. If I were bowling, even with bumper lanes, I would have been happy with a 91.
I wasn’t bowling, but I was still happy because it’s the first party we’ve thrown for him that didn’t seem like it took that much effort. And our bill at the end was less expensive than the bills for those other parties. That made me very happy.