Chuck E Cheese!

Last Saturday we attempted to take the kids to Chuck E Cheese.  They had never been before, but Evie had caught the commercial on TV once or twice and begged to go.  We had planned on going for Mitch’s 2^nd birthday, but time got away from us so we decided to treat the kids as kind of an end-of-summer adventure.  Like I said, we planned on taking them Saturday which we came to find out was HUGE mistake.  The parking lot was full and when we walked in the door, we were greeted with complete pandemonium.  While it shouldn’t have come as a surprise to us, we were still taken aback by the sugar-rushed, caffeine-crazed chaos of it all.  Talk about over-stimulation!  We backed away slowly, turned to the kids – and began to bargain with them to skip it and come back another night.  It seems so cruel and we felt so bad, but we knew that if we tried to take them in there, it would have been a mess.  In the end, we were able to convince them to leave with the promise that we would come back on Wednesday when Pat was off work.  Instead we took the kids to the toy store and let them explore to their hearts content for over an hour.  Mitch spent 99% of the sitting in the Power Wheels cars while Evie looked at Pokémon and Shopkins and I think they forgave us for our parenting faux-pas in the end.

 Pat and I try not to break promises to our kids so when Wednesday rolled around this week, we buckled down, took a deep breath and headed back to Chuck E Cheese.  Let me just tell you right now – if you ever want to take kids to Chuck E Cheese, go on a Wednesday.  It was gloriously peaceful.  Well, as peaceful as a place can be when it’s filled with noise from a bunch of arcade games and the glare of 10,000 blinking lights.  The kids had some much fun playing games and riding the little rides.  Mitchell was in heaven mashing the buttons on all the games and he was able to ride a train (it even had steam come out the front!) several times.  Evie and Pat won tickets galore and she and I had a blast playing the Price Is Right Game.  Kiki would be proud of Evie – she was hootin’ and hollerin’ like a maniac when we won.  You taught her well Kiki!  We really did have a great time and kids were very well-behaved.  A great family fun night in the books!