Last week was the boys first outing of the school year with their school club. It was at Monkey Joe's, which is essentially a big space filled with bouncy slides and houses. It's their kind of place.
And because it was a work night for Daddy, that meant I took all three boys to Monkey Joe's by myself. There was a time I wouldn't have even considered. It's big, it's loud, and it's also not very well contained. All three are big red flags.
But I did it. And it went remarkably well. Connor is old enough to listen and to follow the rules. He has two - not to hurt anyone and not to leave. Simple, right? He has a tendency to play a little rough, so the first one is more about being aware of other people, their age and size, and also not doing things like throwing balls at people's heads (it's happened before, and we've talked about it).
The twins had a big time. Several club members attached themselves to each boy for the night. A few girls kept Sawyer company as he slid and jumped his way through all the slides. Xander was all over the place. A group of four girls were sticking with him. They were trying to keep him out of trouble, like climbing into the ski-ball machine or the pop-a-shot machine to get free balls to play. They even used their own money to buy him tokens for his arcade obsession.
The only bad thing about Monkey Joe's is the food. It's pizza, which both boys have been obsessed with lately but cannot have because of their gluten-free-casein-free diet. Connor, of course, has no such limitations. So I tried to keep him and his pizza out of eyesight for the twins. It mostly worked.
It was a long night, but a fun one. There were a few scary moments where I had to search kind of hard to find one of the boys, but they were always in good hands with their little friends (and the club sponsor who was also helping keep an eye out for them).
Slowly but surely, we're making our way out into the world a little bit more. And the boys are handling it really well.