ChuckaCheese, Where A Kid Can Be Kid

When I asked Baeleigh what she wanted to do for her birthday, her response was "ChuckaCheese". I had no idea she even knew what this place was, she'd never been there. I followed up with, "What do you do at Chuck E Cheese?" "Play games and eat pizza, silly!" Excuse me. ChuckaCheese it is!

With about 9 kids to help Baeleigh celebrate her 4th birthday, I had originally thought this would be easier than holding it at our house. I mean the birthday slot was from 2pm - 3:30pm. An hour and a half of pure chaos and it was all over, no clean-up! The older, wiser Crissy now knows better.

Mistake #1: Smartly avoiding the lunch hour, only to instead overlap the party with nap time (at least for Baeleigh).

Mistake #2: Thinking I could smoothly coordinate nine kids and parents through a well-choreographed 1 and a 1/2 hour party. Itinerary, i-shiminerary. I think that went out the door at minute 5 of the party, when I had about 2 kids actually in attendance.

Mistake #3: Assuming that my husband, the boy that never grew up, would be there to help me through this without running off to play video games himself (excuse me: winning tickets for Baeleigh). I think he played basketball for like 2, maybe 3, hours straight.

Mistake #4: Dreaming that I would get out of there in 1 and 1/2 hours.

I may have lost my sanity in the process, but in the end all that matters is that Baeleigh and all the kids had a blast. Baeleigh was DRAGGED out of ChuckaCheese around 5:45pm.

I'll note one last thing though: I commend Chuck-E-Cheese on their hand stamp system. Baeleigh and I were both marked with a invisible stamp so that if she left with someone she shouldn't be, the stamps wouldn't match and therefore she wouldn't be allowed out. If I had known what they were doing going in, I think I would have saved myself a lot of energy in worrying where my daughter had run off to next.