Miniature golf can be hazardous to your health

In a classic case of overcompensation and parental guilt over scheduling his tonsillectomy for Halloween, I arranged for us to take Monkey Man and his best friend Q to play miniature golf today.

And tomorrow, I'll be making the appointment to get my tubes tied.

For some odd reason, Monkey Man has been obsessed lately with going to the sports park to play miniature golf. We haven't taken him in at least a year, mostly because after shelling out the bucks last time he made it only 10 holes before he had a total meltdown. Let's just say he takes after certain people in the family when it comes to being competitive, and it's not his father.

Ahem.

So we picked Q up around 10 AM and the two magpies sat in the back seat watching the Looney Tunes and offering the funniest commentary I have ever heard, like...

Monkey Man: So the wolf, I mean coyote, is trying to smush the road runner.

Q: Why?

Monkey Man: I don't know, he is always trying to do something to the road runner. Aw, look, that train is going to run over that poor wolf.

Q: Why do you always feel sorry for that wolf guy?

Monkey Man: Look, dude, let's focus on watching Looney Tunes instead of asking so many questions.

The boys had an absolute blast playing. Needless to say, we tried to stick to some very basic rules but when it came right down to it we didn't keep score, we "helped" the boys out a little here and there, and tried to have as much fun as possible. Of course, there were a few casualties of the morning, like me getting hit in the arm once with a golf club and other time in the stomach, but it was all good. Other than the permanent indentation right above my belly button that looks somewhat like a putter.

After we finished up, we took the boys to TGIFriday's for lunch. And maybe it was like this all morning and I didn't realize it until we got inside a closed space with other adults, but the boys had two volume levels when they talked: shouting and bellowing. We had to shush them umpteen times and finally when the food came it was blissfully quiet. I guess with the time change, they were kind of tuckering out a little bit (Monkey Man still naps every afternoon so he was running out of steam) so we were able to eat in relative peace. Sort of.

The two of them chattered the whole way home, discussing the merits of Daffy Duck versus Porky Pig, and when we dropped them off Joey turned to me and said, "What about this did we think was a good idea?" I guess we are so used to having ONE child who is relatively mellow in nature that we aren't used to adding other kids and the chaos that ensues. And it wasn't like the kids were bad (other than yelling in the restaurant), they were acting like your typical 4 or 5 year olds. And let me tell you, the personality that comes out when Monkey Man is with his friends can really surprise me at times because he's really kind of a leader in a lot of ways despite his somewhat shy nature when he's around strangers. Which is a lot like I was at his age. Yikes.

But like I've said before - and I'll say it again - I'm glad I only have one kid. It was seriously like herding cats, just that I didn't have to use any Benedryl.