It is raining. Again. Actually, I�m not sure I should dignify this weather with the word rain. It�s really more of a constant cold drizzle, the kind that�s too much for no windshield wipers but not enough to turn them off. The pinky on my right hand is actually sore because of my constant flipping of the wipers on and off.

But the worst part about the rain � and it has rained every day for over a week � is not my sore hand or the fact that the backyard is turning to mud and sliding toward the creek or even the heap of unplanted plants sitting on my deck. The worst part is keeping a five-year-old boy from tearing apart the house. Because no matter how well behaved the boy, there comes a point when he needs to run around.

This week our family room has been used for both basketball and baseball games, at the great jeopardy of the television set and the array of glassware collecting dust over the bar. Obstacle courses have been staged in every room in the house. And AJ has practiced forward and backward rolls at the foot of my bed, that being the largest expanse of open carpeted area in the house. But this morning, there was no entertaining him. �I�m bored. I want to go somewhere.� The ice rink is closed for the season. It was too soggy to go outside. And that is how we ended up in the fifth circle of hell, known ostensibly as ChuckEChee5e.

I will say this � ChuckEChee5e on a Tuesday morning is far more palatable than ChuckEChee5e on a Saturday afternoon. While there were still enough flashing lights and loud music to send a sensitive person into an epileptic seizure, there were at least very few other children there. And also we didn�t have to put up with the animatronic rat with his endlessly blinking eyes.

The destination was not my idea. I usually try to avoid video games at all costs. But AJ�s friend D was going there and we knew the boys would have more fun if there were two of them. And they did too. They ran around through the play tunnels, they played Skee-ball and assorted other games. AJ, it turns out, isn�t interested in video games nearly as much as he is in the three-d games. He loves pinball, for example, but not things on screens. His favorite game was one where you had to try to knock eggs rotating in some ferris-wheel-like contraption into a bucket. I think the physics of such games intrigues him. The games on flat screens leave him, well flat.

After our adventures in babysitting, we took the boys to the diner for lunch where D. had AJ laughing so hard, he could hardly speak. By the time we got home, he was so tired that he actually asked to take a nap � I looked out the window to make sure pigs weren�t flying before I took AJ upstairs and tucked him in.

�Only one song today, okay Mommy?� he said, his eyes drooping.

And then, as I was closing his door, �Mommy? I laughed too much. My tummy is tired.�

We should all be so lucky.

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