Getting Married? Better call Bernice.

Once again, it's time for a trip down memory lane. Time to stumble over the cracked sidewalk of my brain to pay a visit to one of the primary influences in my life. We've already had a colorful conversation with Grampa Pete. And eaten a green tomato pie with Grandma Peg. Now it's Saturday afternoon and Grandma Bernice is waiting. And that's pronounced Bernice, as in rhyming with furnace. Not burr-neice.

I mentioned before that I grew up in a small town two blocks away from both sets of grandparents. I suggest, if possible, everyone should do this.

Grandma Bernice lived across the street from my high school. So her house was often a required stop on my way home. Remember how Grandma Peg could bake pies? Well, Grandma Bernice baked wedding cakes. If you went to a wedding in our church, you probably ate Grandma's cake three times out of four.

When my sister and I were younger, we would have fun looking through Grandma Bernice's old wedding cake books from the 60's and 70's. A lot of yellow and orange frosting was used back then. Sometimes Grandma would let my sister and I practice our frosting technique on a piece of wax paper. I could never make a recognizable rose out of frosting, but I sure enjoyed disposing of the attempts.

Grandma Bernice died in 2001. But Lady Di and I will always remember our favorite wedding cake from her. It was a three tiered white cake with a lemon poppy seed cake topper. And, yes, we did freeze it and eat it a year later. Well, actually it was a year and a couple of months because we forgot about it. It aged very well in that year. Now Lady Di has all of Grandma Bernice's old cake decorating tools and she has put them to good use on the kids' birthday cakes.

The first cake is N1S's volcano (or planet Mustafar if you are a Star Wars geek). The next cake was SP's Barbie cake for her last birthday.
Since Grandma couldn't make me a wedding cake every day, she usually popped popcorn for me when I would stop in on my walk home from school. We would sit in her living room, eat popcorn and play Kings in the Corner or watch television. I would have to watch grandma-type shows, but I honestly didn't mind it much. Now I can watch bowling, Lawrence Welk and Match Game reruns and actually enjoy them.

Grandma Bernice was very active. She was on a bowling team and had the trophies to prove it. She also went dancing with Grampa two to three times per week. When I was in college they would often surprise me with a care package of some sort on their way to their dance. I can honestly say that I was the only guy in the frat house that ever got visits from their grandparents. And I didn't get teased about it once. I think my roommates liked my care packages too.

Grandma Bernice was a hard worker. She grew up on a farm, farmed with Grandpa until 'retiring' and moved into town. She was a typical Lutheran church basement lady. She was superintendent of the Sunday School for multiple years. She held just about every church office there was, and when others her age started to 'slow down', she took the job of cleaning the church every week just for something to keep active.

I have a lot to thank Grandma Bernice for. I appreciated her while she was alive and miss her now that she is gone. She was mostly business but also had a funny side.

She would always tell the same joke while reading an auction notice from the newspaper. The ad would list the items up for auction and then state that 'lunch would be served on the grounds'. And she would ask us every time, "Why would they serve food on the ground?"

If it was one of her wedding cakes, I would have no problem brushing off a little dirt.

Bowling For Cupcakes

We have finally brought an end to the endless birthday parties at our home. We've had family parties, neighbor parties, extended family parties, school parties and finally a bowling party.

We invited Sweet Pea's kindergarten class to a bowling birthday party. We invited her entire class, a few friends in other classes and her brother and his friend. I don't know what we were thinking. Luckily for us, only about half of her class were able to attend. The party still came to 15 kids, but once you reach more than 9 or 10 it doesn't really matter how many more show up. And as long as we are within 2 or 3 kids at the end, I don't see any reason spend that much time with a head count.

Our local bowling alley is less than a year old and has a really nice party room connected to a dozen lanes. We used three of them. The kids enjoy bowling as it is, but when the alley turned out the lights and turned on the party lights, the kids went nuts. Each lane had runway lights going up and down the alley. There were also a half dozen large screen TVs showing various Nickelodeon shows.

After the disco bowling, the alley staff brought cupcakes and root beer. Sweet Pea then commenced with the 'grand opening' of her double digit number of gifts. She made a big show of reading each homemade card and trying make everyone laugh with a joke. She did get a lot of laughs though. Comedy clubs may start requiring a two cupcake minimum.

Our party lasted exactly two hours. The alley staff were very efficient. The bowling alley then provided a small cup of tokens to burn at their arcade. I'm sure they do that just in case some Dads have any left over money keeping the moths company in their wallets. They only provide enough tokens for a game and a half. Just enough to get the kids into the arcade to work their financial sucking powers.

Overall, it was a fun and relatively low stress event. One of the kids' mothers stayed and was a great help herding all of the little bobcats. The bowling alley staff provided a great time for the kids and parents. Happy Birthday, Sweet Pea.

Now please tell me that we are done with birthdays for a few months.

Bowling With Friends

Last Sunday, we celebrated Autism Awareness Month with a bowling/pizza party at the local lanes. Lady Di coordinates an autism support group in our area. Meetings usually are attended by eight or nine families at a time to discuss autism, asperger's and various successes and challenges.

So the group went bowling. We had five families show up for bowling and pizza. A couple of the lanes employed the bumpers. That is one advantage of bowling with young children. Our bumpers got a pretty good workout. I think the kids even bounced a ball or two off of them.

Both kids love to go bowling. Number One Son was a little frustrated with his second game, but he still had fun visiting with a few of his friends.

Sweet Pea had fun every time she threw the ball down the lane. When she didn't knock down very many pins, she would put on a dramatic face and slouch back to her seat before laughing. When she got a spare or strike, her two fists would rocket into the air with a "WoooWhooo!" as she skipped or danced back to her seat. She also invented a different to way to high five after a good frame. She would put her palms together and we would slap the backs of our hands back and forth three times.

After the first game, I let the kids bowl a few of my frames while I hung out at the pizza and root beer table.

I could tell that the kids had fun, because it was hard to get them to leave when we were done. It was nice to get together with families that face some of the same challenges that we do in day to day life. For some with autism or asperger's, the noise or the smells of a bowling alley would be too much of a sensory overload. Our group, however, had no problems and since Minnesota is smoke free in public areas, bowling alleys are now much better for people with sensory issues.

An added benefit to the outing was showing the public that having autism or asperger's doesn't mean being unable to enjoy normal activities as a family. Many times families struggle with prejudice and embarrassment when kids act up in public. But autistic kids are no different than other kids in that respect. You, as a parent, learn what situations to avoid, and our children learn how to cope with sensory and social challenges. How else will they learn how to behave if they never get the chance to be in a social situation?

So, next time you are at a restaurant, or grocery store or bowling alley, and some one's kid is having a meltdown, autism or not, don't think of it as your evening being ruined. Think of it as a child who had too much to handle this time, but will probably do better next time.

Strike!

Tuesday night, Sweet Pea invited me to escort her to her Girl Scouts' bowling night. All I could thing about was, I hope the alley had insurance. With ten wild scouts pounding their lanes, it could add up to some damage. Thanks to Lady Di's good directions, we found the bowling alley, which happened to be in the middle of a dark corn field with no lighted signs. We deserved a scout badge just for finding the place.

First, we had to get bowling shoes. Sweet Pea ran to the counter and politely asked, "Size 11 please."

I asked, "How do you know your bowling shoe size?"

I guess she had already bowled at an after school program earlier that afternoon. Which meant, either her bowling arm would be tired out from bowling earlier or it would be warmed up just enough to win some serious money. I then found out that wagering is not allowed at Girl Scout activities. I was also disappointed to know that only the scouts were going to be bowling and not the parents. I felt that, against Kindergartners, I could have had my best chance of actually bowling better than someone. Although, when I saw all ten of them bowling at the same time, I was glad that my toes were safely in the sitting area. Even though the 'bumpers' were in the gutters, a couple girls found a way to get their ball stuck there. And only a few bowling balls ended up rolling back toward the parents instead of the pins.

There were many bowling styles on display this night. Rolling the ball between the legs was popular. Also, the two handed swing your body three times was used. One scout thought it would be good to hold the ball above her head and let it drop from there to the lane. Let's say that that wasn't the only time the adults winced.

Sweet Pea came ready to bowl. She liked to run to the line and push her ball down the lane. It worked pretty well for her. It was probably fortunate for me that adults weren't bowling this night. Sweet Pea scored a 99 in her first game! I was thinking that I have got find a father-daughter league to enter. Then I remembered a few of my many sub-one hundred pin games. A mother-daughter league would be much better. Lady Di is the bowler in the family and she, apparently, has passed on her ten pin talents to Little Peatie.

After her 99 game she cooled down a little and bowled a 74 for the next game. Still pretty good. Regardless of the scores, all of the girls had a fun time. There was lots of talking, giggling, squealing, dancing and laughing. I think I was the only one following the scores. Many girls didn't even bother to watch their ball snail down the lane before skipping back to laugh with their friends. Which is fine, because the point of the night was to have fun. We were at a nice alley, I got to meet some of Sweet Pea's friends, and we had some fun father-daughter time together. I hope, someday, when Sweet Pea is grown with her own life, she will think back to times like these. Maybe she will even ask me someday, "Dad, do remember when we went bowling?"