Spending Time at Chuck E. Bleeping Cheese Hell OR How I Was Blackmailed by my 7 Year Old Daughter

Cressy, my 7 year old daughter, my only beloved child, is kind of like a special little monkey.  Once I tried to describe her to my Sis, who lives all the way across the country, and I said, "She's on her own little wavelength."  And she is, but then, so am I, so I guess she got it honestly.  What can I say?  My DNA has passed onto her.  So when I mistakenly ask her what she wants to do when it's just she and I, I can always count on those cutesy-mootsy genes coming back to haunt me.  (Or in actuality to kick me in my metaphorical balls.)

Consequently, I was coerced by Cressy to go to the restaurant that all parents secretly fear and dread.  Yes, I'll say it.  I know people are cringing somewhere.  But here it is:

Chuck E. Cheese

Whoops.  Just lost a few people.  I can still hear them screaming in denial.  For those of you without children, this is a restaurant, and I use the term 'restaurant' loosely.  It serves kid type food.  It has kid type entertainment in the form of games, toys, and a giant robotic dancing rodent named Chuck E. Cheese.  I'm assuming that Chuck E. is a mouse, although I think he looks like a giant rat in jams.  

I don't know who the kid is, but the other thing is Chuck E.  I can only surmise that two vice presidents got together with a bottle of cheap tequila and brainstormed for ideas of a mascot.  ("I know, a giant talking thing."  "No, how about a sheep?"  "No, I mean, like a rat, no, a mouse."  "How about a rouse?  Or a mat?"  "You don't have children do you?"  "I could have children...somewhere.")

Cressy likes the games and the other kids at Chuck E. Cheese.  However, when the poor little bastard in the Chuck E. Cheese suit comes out to socialize, she's usually like, "WTF, Mommy?  Is that a rat or a mouse?"  (Once Chuck E. Cheese accidentally knocked her over at a friend's birthday party and she has never forgotten it.  Twenty years from now she'll still be holding a grudge.  That guy better have eyes in the back of his head, let me tell you.)

Here she is attempting to catch her breath after days of stressful playing at Chuck E. Cheese.  It's my belief that she and her friend, shown here, are holding each other up.

"You ready for more, Cressy?"
"No, I need to rest or maybe find a bathroom, Alyssa."

So the great part about Chuck E. Cheese is that parents can go in, get their hands stamped with ultraviolet ink so no perverts can take their kids out, buy pizza, hand their wallets to their kids, and sit quietly until their kids return with the empty wallets.  Fun, huh?

Okay, so we went.  It was a Friday and it wasn't jampacked.  I ordered pizza for Cressy and salad for me.  (I was being a good fat woman.)  I handed Cressy a cup full of tokens.  She disappeared into the mass of whirling, spinning, undulating, and color screaming machines to gleefully burn out the neurons and dendrites in her little brain.

I had brought my Kindle, thinking I would get to read.  Hah.  Instead remnants of a psychological/sociological education started slithering around in my head as I watched all the other parents attempting to maintain their collective sanites.  There were lots of mommies at Chuck E. Cheese and well, I couldn't help myself.  I started categorizing them.  I even came up with seven types.  SEVEN.  Who knew?

The first is the Hoverer.  This mommy likes to stay by her child's side no matter what.  I suspect that this mommy wouldn't even let their own grandma pick them up as an infant.  This mommy is on the prowl for anything unsafe to their precious little angel and will ruthlessly safeguard their being.  Pay particular attention to the protective bubble that has been formed around the child.  (This child will grow up to be a serial killer or maybe a politician.)

Then there was my personal favorite, the Screamer.  This mommy has several kids in the restaurant, some of which are actually hers.  She WILL NOT get up to go straighten anything out.  Now don't get me wrong, the Screamer Mommy is not ignoring her children/wards/things to be watched.  On the contrary, she is paying close attention to them, but she doesn't really want to get up and do anything.  So she bellows.  (She has special mommy voice powers that enable her to be heard over Chuck E. Cheese's robotic dancing mouse/rat music, other kids' screaming, and the sound of 20,000 games being played at the same time.)  Everyone knows that the Screamer Mommy is present.  (My God, they can hear her all the way down the street.)

Next up is the Socialite.  Here is a mommy who cannot go anywhere without a posse of gal pals.  She has friends in multiples of twos and will not stop speaking/gossiping/interacting with them in order to do anything so silly as to be a parent.  You see, Chuck E. Cheese has become socializing time and woe be to the parent who interrupts her precious socializing time.  She might nail you with her Manelo Blahniks.  Seriously.

There is the Smart Phone Addict Mommy.  This mommy has a smart phone.  It is surgically attached to her hand and she has special implements to help her use it effectively.  She has this phone in front of her the entire time, even while she is eating, drinking, telling her kids not to kick Chuck E. Cheese in the testicular area and even if someone else comes up to speak with her.  This phone is the Smart Phone Addict Mommy's best friend.  She even sleeps with this phone.  God help her if it runs out of juice.

The Smart Phone Addict Mommy is closely related to the Talker Mommy.  There is an important difference.  The Smart Phone Addict Mommy is playing with the phone, Tetras, Angry Birds, Facebook, etc.  The Talker Mommy is yakking on her phone for the entire time she is at Chuck E. Cheese.  It is my observation that this type of mommy is speaking to every one she has ever known.  Relatives, friends, the guy at the Quik-E-Mart, her pastor, her 2nd grade school teacher.  You name it, she's talking to them while on the phone.

Okay, now we have an editorial comment.  My daughter, Cressy, has wandered in to ask what I was doing, and when I explained, she said, "There's another mommy, Mommy."  She looked at me with large, solemn blue eyes.  "The Space Mommy," she intones.  "You know with the suit in outer space and everything."  I know.  I know.  It has nothing to do with the point of this blog, but Cressy's so cute when she suggests something to draw that I have to oblige.

Space Mommy, which has nothing to do with this blog whatsoever.

Okay, then onto characterization number 6.  The Director.  This mommy could be confused with the Hoverer, but they're actually quite distinct.  While the Hoverer mommy seeks to protect her child from, pretty much, everything in existence, the Director wants to live vicariously through her child.  Nothing that the child does is the correct way.  This mommy wants the child to do everything mommy's way, no matter if mommy is nitpicking or not.  The child can only play the games mommy's way.  The child can only dress mommy's way.  Don't you dare take off your scrunchy because mommy put it there.  The Director Mommy can also be easily mistaken for the Screamer Mommy because of her yelling capacity but don't make that subtle error.  The Director Mommy is large and in charge, kind of like Fat Woman.  Not only does she want to be in control of her children, but she wants them to be mini-robotic versions of herself so that she can feel like a better person.  Also the Director Mommy can be likened to the Godfather.  She'll make you an offer you can't refuse and if you refuse you'll wake up in your bed with the head of one of your plush animals cut off.

Finally, there's the Hermit.  The Hermit Mommy sits alone, avoids eye contact, and ignores pretty much everything unless her child is shrieking bloody murder, has a bone sticking out of their leg and/or arm, or has arterial spray which is coating the ceiling in a bad way.  The Hermit Mommy should not be confused with the Smart Phone Addict Mommy.  Hermit Mommy is not playing with her phone constantly.  Nor should she be confused with the Talker Mommy.  Although Hermit Mommy may talk on her phone it is limited in nature and only because her mind is fried from child/mommy interactions and/or Chuck E. Cheese exposure.

 And me?  I am Fat Woman Mommy, ignorer of all social conventions.  So there.