Chelsea Romanowski keeps a careful eye on her 4-year-old son Izaiah as he runs again and again to the ball return to pick up his bowling ball to try and bowl, even though their lane hasn’t opened yet.
Eventually Romanowski picks her son up in her arms. Izaiah is just too excited about everything to wait on his own.
“He loves bowling. We went bowling for his third birthday,” Romanowski said.
The duo drove down from Buda to attend the third annual Mother and Son Bowling event held Thursday at Sunset Bowling Lanes. The annual event is organized by the Youth Services Division of the San Marcos Parks and Recreation Department as a fun way to celebrate Mother’s Day ahead of the busy whirl of weekend events.
The idea to have a bowling-centric Mother’s Day event came about due to the popularity of the department’s Daddy Daughter Dance for Father’s Day.
“We have been doing the Daddy Daughter Dance for a really long time and we tried to do a Mother Son Dance a while ago and it just wasn’t really successful,” Youth Services Manager Jessica Ramos said.
The department reached out to local Facebook group Mothering San Marcos and asked them what kind of event they’d like to see instead of the dance. Bowling came out on top due to, Ramos theorizes, its dual appeal.
“I think little boys love to be active so it’s a good way for them to get some of that energy out,” Ramos said. “For the moms of course they get to hang out and meet other moms, which is always a struggle as a mom to make mom friends.“ In Ramos’ experience, the moms like to bowl too.
“It is just one of those things that is easy. It’s always fun even when you are losing,” Kathleen Seal said.
After his ball knocks down most of the pins, Fynn and his mother Meaghan Ganucheau share a celebratory high-five
Seal and her 7-year-old son Aiden have been attending the event since it started, and Seal said it’s one of the reasons the family now makes bowling a regular family event.
“We come every week as a family and it just kind of turned into a hobby of ours. He has his own ball now.”
Despite the title, the event isn’t just for mothers and sons, but for anyone who has a similar mother or son figure in their life that they want to spend time with.
“Unfortunately some people don’t have their mothers in their lives,” Ramos said.” So it’s a chance for them to connect with someone that is a mother figure to them.”
Ramos said that Mother’s Day weekend can be a difficult reminder for children in families who either don’t have or have lost their mother.
“If their mom isn’t in their life then it’s a good opportunity to think about that relationship and reflect on it because this is Mother’s Day weekend.”
Outside of the fun of bowling together, the event also serves another purpose for families of opening up communication.“Maybe it’s a good chance for them to sit down have some really good conversations here that maybe they wouldn’t have because they are not one-on-one with that person,” Ramos said.
