12-Step Plan for Surviving Chuck E. Cheese's on a Saturday Night

Every once in a while our family gets a wild hair and thinks gee, do you know what would be fun? Going to Chuck E. Cheese's!! Inevitably this wild hair always arises on a Saturday night, like it did today. 

Time to implement our 12-step plan for surviving Chuck E. Cheese's on a Saturday night:

12. Tire the Children Out Before Arrival

We had an active day today, helping with our elementary school yard clean-up in the morning and going swimming in the afternoon. With our children exhausted from the tough demands of menial labor and physical exercise, the chances of a Chuck E. Cheese's-related meltdown were reduced 50%. 

11. Consume Lots of Beer and Wine

One of the best things about Chuck E. Cheese's is that they serve beer and wine to make the experience more tolerable to the parents. Oh, wait! That was our experience in Florida. In Kansas, no alcohol is allowed and parents must settle for soft drinks to ease the pain. 

10. Consume Dinner, Instead

Dinner of Champions - a Chuck E. Cheese's cheese pizza! What every man dreams of after a 12-mile trail run in the morning. 

9. Go After a Really, Really Long Road Trip so that the Drive to Topeka (one hour each way) Seems Short

Topeka, home of the nearest Chuck E. Cheese's, is about an hour away from our house. But for children who have recently been in the car 20 gazillion hours, the drive is nothing. 

8. Sit in the Nosiest Area Possible 

It wouldn't be the full Chuck E. Cheese's experience without being surrounded by noise. We elected tonight to sit in the table directly under the tunnel/climbing structure on the wall so that we could hear overhead banging at all times. 

7. Encourage Daniel's (Untapped) Athletic Talent 

Daniel absolutely loved this game. However, he kept calling it "basketball" instead of "football," perhaps suggesting a lack of skill in either at the moment. ;) 

6. Encourage Annika's Gambling Streak

Annika avoids the skill-based games and heads straight for the give-us-your tokens-and-maybe-we-will-give-you-tickets-or-maybe-not ones. While such "gambling" games make my head spin due to the mathematical improbability of coming out ahead, Annika always seems to hit the ticket jackpot.

5. Avoid Costumed Creatures

Daniel has a strong fear of costumed characters at the moment, making our entry a little scary. After this brief scare, we continued our tradition of staying away from the Evil Mouse for the duration of the visit. 

4. Go Right Before Bedtime

The absolute best time to drive to another city and get all hyped up on chaos is close to bedtime, and we made sure to follow this step. (Disclaimer: the sunset picture is actually from our return trip home.)

3. Redeem All Tickets Immediately

The best thing to do with all of the tickets won at Chuck E. Cheese would be to encourage your child to diligently save them so that one day, they too can redeem their valuable winnings for an overpriced price. Haha! That sounds like way too much work. Instead, we always encourage our children to redeem their winnings right away so they can leave with even more junk. 

2.  Sit Wherever You Want (Or Not)

One nice thing about Chuck E. Cheese is that there are so many unoccupied tables. Except that I think there is a rule that staff are not allowed to clean off vacated tables for the entire day.

1. Just Think: It Could be Worse! 

This is a picture of me, on our drive to Topeka, embodying the cheerful, positive spirit I work so hard to model and instill in our own children. 

Bonus: Run into our old neighbors! We were super fortunate tonight to unexpectedly run into our neighbors who used to live across the street from us! So great to see them and ironic that we had to drive to another town to do so. ;)