They have rent-a-shoes!

When our friends Bill and Carin announced their joint birthday bowling celebration, my first thought was, "Can I do that?" I decided to find out, trial-by-fire style. So we showed up at the ever-classy Mar Vista Lanes on Saturday night for a night of birthday revelry with our friends, and I was ready to challenge the pregnant gods and any naysayers that thought it couldn't be done. But first I had to tackle the shoes...no, not rent-a-foot-disease, rather tying the suckers. I can no longer comfortably bend over to tie my shoes.

Perhaps this was a sign...

Now normally I'm a pretty decent bowler, if I do say so myself, for someone who plays once every couple years at best. I can throw down multiple strikes in a game, and usually score over 100. But Saturday night, I got reacquainted with the gutter ball. My first trip down the lane was surely awkward...I tried to bowl as normal, but the ball whizzed diagonally down the lane right into the gutter. Clearly, I was off balance. In fact, I've got my own damn bowling ball strapped to my rib cage for crying out loud. This continued for a few turns until I finally started to hit some pins.

And the nerve of the televised scoring system, let me tell you! After each turn, an animated graphic would show up on the screen with a suggestion of what you should do next time to basically score a spare. "Aim for pin 3, which will also knock out pin 6 and the ball will hit 9 and 10." But it my case it was more like "Hey moron, try getting the ball to knock over a pin and you'll score some points." Shut up.

When the first game was done, I actually did NOT lose! There were four of us on our lane and someone actually scored WORSE than me! And I figured I got to double my score - since, after all, I'm bowling for two - so my 63 became a 126, beating Mike's non-pregnant score of 125. DING DING DING - we have a winner!

I probably should have noticed the "Bowl at Your Own Risk" warning before I started my game, but when I was Monday morning quarterbacking, Babycenter.com told me that bowling can certainly be a safe activity for preggers ladies. Oh good. My sore left butt cheek disagrees, but that's a whole other story...

For your enjoyment - which is bigger? The ball or the baby?