the.cheese.house

I took four kids to "one stop fun" (aka- the ball place) today. It's basically an indoor playground on steroids. Three stories with tubes, ball pits (thus the name "the ball place"), slides, balance beams, a zippy thing you hang onto as you fly thirty feet down a track, etc. Pretty much the ideal place to take kids on a rainy day. As I hung out- keeping my eye on the almost 3 year old as she cruised through tunnels and tubes- I was reminded of a similar experience I had when I was about six. It was at leila's birthday party in first grade. We went to chucky cheese's- the hippest place for parties in those days. After our pizza and cake, we took a group trip through the cheesehouse- something they sadly no longer have. In my six year old mind, this thing was HUGE with several rooms, tunnels, bridges, etc. Realistically, it was actually inside chucky cheese's, so it couldn't be so big. After having some fun, we decided to go get more tokens for games, and started to head out. Unfortunately, the cheesehouse had other ideas. Yup. We were lost. After wandering around in circles for quite some time (with adrienne crying at the end of the line) we found a window and tried to flag down the group of four mothers who had stayed to chaperone the party. They took a minute to look up, smile and wave at us before returning to their chit chat. We banged on the window, now with frantic looks on our face, to no avail. I distinctly remember feeling the panic rise inside me, yet trying to appear calm and in control. I took my turn heading the group, hoping to be the one to lead everyone to safety. It would have been a good end to the story, but liz was the one to eventually rescue us all.