Over the weekend, the littlest Tanaka crossed over the threshold from being a curious, free-spirited, and rambunctious five year-old to an older, somewhat wiser and still curious, free-spirited, and rambunctious six year-old.
In our family, we don’t hold huge birthday celebrations, but we do let our kids have their choice of venue for their birthday dinner. And, of course, as only Little would have it, she chose Dave & Busters….on a Saturday night. For those of you who don’t know what in the world D&B is, well, you can Google it, or you can just imagine Chuck E. Cheese on steroids – minus Chuck E. and friends. Picture a massive arcade room with an adjoining restaurant that serves massive amounts of food. It’s loud. It’s crowded. It’s Saturday night. And my six year old wants to go.
After a full day of trying to redirect her energies and attention with suggestions of pretty much every other restaurant in the city, we gave in and headed down into the city to the Ward Villages, which sits right next to one of the largest shopping malls in America (yes, on our tiny, little island), and in the heart of the most over-developed locations on Oahu.
Traffic. Parking. Not my favorites. Crowds? Definitely not. But for the little one, I’ll make an exception.
We ended up having to wait an hour and a half for a table, so we went on upstairs to the game room. The husband and I strategically anted up the money for a single game card – we figured the kids would have to take turns between games, so that would allow the money to drain a little more slowly and a little less painfully for the wallet. As I nervously shuttled the kids around the game room, I couldn’t help but feel a little bit of the overprotective mommy wanting to shield these kids from the overstimulating blinking lights and grown ups with alcoholic beverages, curb them away from the rapid-fire machine gun video games, and keep them nestled in safely at the Skee-ball corner where they could pretty much play all night.
But alas, my kids are growing ever so quickly, and one day, they’ll be here with their friends. Would I still be holding their hands then? As much as I want to, I have to let them go. So with baby steps, we allowed them to choose their games. Some were done in a blink of an eye. Others were interactive, and involved throwing footballs, shooting basketballs, or tapping lights as fast as you can. There was one called Typhoon was actually like a “ride” where my two girls sat in chairs that moved and a virtual screen simulated a rollercoaster-type ride in front of them. They had 15 “movies” to choose from, and leave it to my little one to choose the scary movie one. It was her favorite of the night. Much to my delight, the kids really enjoyed the more interactive games as opposed to the button and joystick games. And at the end of the night, they did end up in the Skee-ball corner.
Dinner was a bit eventful with three tired, hungry, and overstimulated kids, but looking back on it, I’m glad we went. The gapped-tooth smile of my little one that night spoke volumes. And as she blew out the candle on her complimentary birthday cake, surrounded by her partners in crime, I thank God for these small, but big moments in their lives, and quietly shed a tear, accepting that we can’t go back – even a day – for my precious littlest one is now a six year-old.
