On the way home from a birthday party at BounceU this afternoon, William was talking about all his favorite birthday party venues. It seems that BounceU, Glow Galaxy and West Side Athletic Club are all at the top of the list right now.
Then he said, "And did you know, Mommy, there's this place called Chuck E. Cheese? They have games and stuff and parties there, too."
Inwardly, I groaned. Aw, MAN. I ALMOST made it to his fifth birthday without him finding out about Chuck E. Cheese. I've managed to keep the knowledge of Chuck E. Cheese from him all this time, and someone blew the whistle.
Yeah, yeah, I know they have Skee-ball, and yes, I adore Skee-ball. Yes, I loved it as a kid, too. But I'm oooooold now. And at least if it's anything the way I remember it being, Chuck E. Cheese is so LOUD. And so EXPENSIVE. And so GERMY. And the pizza is so LOUSY. Okay, so the germy party doesn't really bother me; every kiddie place is germy, and besides, that's David's bugaboo. But STILL.
"Oh?" I asked calmly. "Where'd do you hear about this Chuck E. Cheese place?"
I played it cool. As if I'd never heard of Chuck E. Cheese before and was only mildly interested.
Turns out a couple of his friends from school let him in on the secret. (Gee, thanks, y'all.) It's going to be hard to put the rabbit back in the hat now. Or the cow in the barn. Or the cat in the bag. Or whatever animal metaphor people use for this sort of situation.
I think I managed to distract him with talk of candy. (He was eating a blue raspberry ring pop, and he was delighted by the way it was turning his mouth a vivid shade of Smurf blue.) Maybe he'll forget we talked about it. Or maybe he's not really that intrigued by it because it's still an abstract concept to him.
That's what I'm hoping for, anyway.
5 comments:
My experience with the giant rat has been pretty good...the boys have been several times and only ask to go every so often because I haven't moved all of the extra tokens we have completely out of their reach. I think our last trip was over the summer.
I've managed to go during no-so-crowded times and it has been ok. Pizza was actually a lot better than I had remembered it too!
Don't worry too much. I think you'll see that it's not as bad you think. It has changed quite a bit since the days that the only Chuck-E-Cheese around was close to Hickory Hollow Mall.
What I want to know is, how on earth did you manage to keep it from him this long? Yago's first Chuck E. birthday party he attended was probably when he had just started walking! Kudos to you, my friend. Kudos to you. And I'm sorry the cat escaped...
I had to take some children I kept and was quite surprised how much it had changed! And they must have changed their pizza because it was MUCH better than I remembered it being. I would try it out one rainy day during the week it was not very busy the day we went, and if you look in your Sunday coupons they often have some pretty good deals. And really he can get some of his energy out on a rainy day while you play skee ball! I remember dreading going, but it turned out to be a lot of fun, and really not as nasty as I remembered it being.
Okay, good! I'm feeling better about this now. I mean, hey, even if just the pizza's better, that goes a long way.
Thanks for weighing in, y'all.
Too funny! We went to a few Chuck E. Cheese parties back when the boys were gowing up. One of them even had a b-day party there. A. thinks it was David.
David reports that it was actually at Showbiz Pizza, which is also where I had my ninth birthday party.
Do those places still give you free games tokens for good grades?
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