Concepts & Anticipation

Micah used his Voice to ask to eat at Subway the other morning for breakfast. Because I'm an awesome parent, I laughed, looked him in the eye, and said, "we're not eating at Subway." He then chose to EAT EGG instead. While I was making him an egg, he asked to PLAY BOWLING. And then, to reiterate, he came over to the stove and pretended to bowl. It's a universal sign, perfected by the Wii, and easily understood. Clearly, Micah wanted to bowl. Unfortunately, being a school day, bowling wasn't in the cards and I had to nix that just like I did the Subway suggestion.

My kids are pretty sure I'm the worst mom ever. I've got a reputation to uphold at this point, so I've got a daily NO quota to fill.

On Saturday, however, the Special Olympics was meeting to bowl at 3:30. As I was making Micah his daily egg sandwich, I said, "we're going bowling today, Micah." Things like this are generally not processed and comprehended by my boy. We can tell him "we're going to Grandma's" but it's like it's just words to him. He just doesn't grasp that we're actually doing that. Once we are in the car, and he sees that we are headed in the direction of Grandma's house, he gets excited. It has to be a concrete thing to him. But vague concepts and intangibles (things we can't just hand him to show, like a video or a chocolate bar) aren't always grasped.

Saturday morning, after trying yet again to convey an intangible concept, Micah walked over to his Voice and said PLAY BOWLING. He got it! Micah understood something that wasn't concrete! It was a breakthrough of epic proportions, and I danced a jig inside my head to celebrate. And then spent the next 7 hours saying, "not yet."

It was brutal, those 7 hours of pestering and asking and begging to bowl. Micah packed my purse with socks (because while bowling over summer we wore flip flops to the bowling alley and had to take socks with to wear with the bowling shoes), he put my iPod in my purse, he brought my purse to me. He asked to go bowling. He brought me a change of clothes, he got my shoes, he put my purse in my hands. And this was all within the first 30 minutes. It was a loooooonnnnnnnngggggggg 7 hours, but the awesomeness of the fact that Micah grasped the concept of "we'll be doing this" made it all worthwhile.

Finally - FINALLY - 3:30 came around. I had a few stops in town before we went to bowl, and at every intersection he'd point the way to the bowling alley, then was clearly frustrated by my lack of cooperation when I turned the wrong way. But we finally, finally got there, and Micah was giggling with glee. It was super crowded as we signed in with the Special Olympics, and I got his shoes at the counter. As we were headed to our assigned lane, Micah noticed that I only had 1 pair of shoes in my hand.

This was completely unacceptable. He pointed to my shoes, asking that I bowl with him. "No, I'm not bowling today, Micah." At our lane, Micah realized there were people there that he didn't know. And I wasn't bowling with him. His discomfort was very evident. He started to walk away. I caught up with him, knelt down, looked in his eyes, and said, "Micah, I'm not bowling with you today. You're bowling with these people here. Do you want to stay and bowl, or do you want to go home?" He chose to go home.

The poor, poor boy. All that excitement, all that planning and anticipation, and then he didn't even get to bowl with his family like he thought he would. I got him a video at RedBox to make up for it.