Logan is a perfectionist. Knowing all the rules and playing by them is important to him. Making mistakes is hard on him. The prelude to a meltdown is almost always something happening where he wanted to do something and couldn’t, or accidentally did something wrong, or was doing something and didn’t know there was a ‘rule’ against it. Once corrected: frustration.
So I was especially proud of him when on a recent bowling session, I decided it was time he learned the lane-by-lane etiquette of not talking to or otherwise distracting the bowler in the next lane once he is on the approach.
Now when we bowl he always takes the end lane. Partially because it is one of only maybe ten lanes in our favorite house that have bumper capability (which he is needing less and less, by the way). Another partial reason is that it gave him some separation from the other bowlers so he wouldn’t distract them not understanding the whole turn-taking thing.
And then I bowl in the lane next to him. We bowl a lot of games this way: the other day we checked out after a couple of hours having bowled 20+ games. But we enjoy it.
Anyway, back to the finer points of lane etiquette. I decided to make this the day I teach him not to distract other bowlers once on the approach. So as he began to ask me a question while I was starting to swing, I stopped my swing and told him about this new rule. He understood and we went about our business.
A while later I was working off a two-bagger when on my approach he turned around from having thrown his ball and started to ask me something. I looked at him and he immediately gasped, and put his hands over his mouth as he realized what he had almost done.
I threw my ball (brooklyn strike, as I can’t seem to figure out any better way to do it), and thanked him for waiting, and asked him what he was going to say. He told me and we went on.
It wasn’t so long ago that he would’ve had a much harder time taking that minor infraction of even a new rule so gracefully, so much in stride. It could’ve easily led to a little fit and early exit off the lanes for the day.
It was another of those little moments that I can truly appreciate with him.
