Texas Book Festival

I occasionally watch "The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That" with Max. I've saved episodes on the DVR so that we can see them when we (ok when I) want. He really likes the short song they sing as they go off on the day's adventures, and he seems to recognize his Cat in the Hat doll in a way that he didn't before we watched the show. So it seemed to me that he would probably enjoy going to meet and have his picture taken with the Cat at the Texas Book Festival last weekend.

Hi, go get in the tent or bugger off. Kthxbai.

It turns out that the only rule about the Cat meeting seemed to be that you wouldn't be able to get near the Cat until they wanted you to, and that there would be no lines to queue in. So, although it wasn't what I had hoped for, I was actually relieved when Max didn't seem to notice the big ass cat whisk right by him.

It was nice in the shade, and there was a little breeze, but anywhere too close to the tents and I felt like all the oxygen was gone. I was a little claustrophobic and there were too many people trying to fit in some of the spaces. Since Max didn't care about the cat we decided that we didn't care either and started to head back towards the car, but not straight to the car.

Such fast friends.

We figured Max would enjoy some running around time, and since we had to cross the Capitol grounds to get back to the car we headed for some flat spaces under nice big trees. We ended up finding another family there who had a little boy about 8 months older than Max, and they had a blast together! There was no prying Max away until the other family headed off. By the time we got him home it was well past nap time, and he was pooped, but it was totally worth it.

Max is in a cuddly phase right now, and has started freely giving hugs to Jeff and me. While running around he actually ran up to the other little boy's mom and hopped in her lap to give her a hug. There was a brief moment of jealousy where the other little boy did not want Max honing in on his territory, but then he gave Max a kiss. It's a shame they aren't our neighbors, because that would totally rock.

On a side note, I'm going to make a blanket statement right here and say that I will not be letting any of my kids play Call of Duty. I thought it was pretty horrible when my four year old nephew was always begging to play CoD*, but when the sister of Max's playmate this weekend said that he was pretending his whistle was a gun because he loves playing Call of Duty I was just stunned. Who on Earth lets a two year old play, or even watch, Call of Duty? I don't know enough about the game to know at what age the story line might be appropriate, but I do know enough about the level of violence to know that preschoolers don't need to be exposed to it at all.

Updated 10/25
* I should probably have taken the time to expound on the video game habits of my sister's kids. There was a time when the kids were granted access to games and movies that in my opinion were not appropriate at all. This was not all their mom's doing, she had help with some of these decisions. The kids spend time with their dad (her ex) and used to be baby sat by our other sister, because mom was working a full time job. As can be expected with several different sets of care givers, not everyone was always on the same page as far as what was allowed, and what wasn't.

I'm not sure when things started to change, because we live several hundred miles away, but I do know for a fact that things are much different now. One of the major changes is that mom is able to stay home with the kids now, and as such she is able to be in more control of what they see and do. The last time that we were in town with them the kids wanted to play video games and she asked them about the rating. They know they are no longer allowed to play games that aren't age appropriate and they don't like it. No more CoD in that house. I was proud of her when I heard the law being laid down, and I should have given her credit in this space instead of just bringing up the old times. I was too busy ragging on the fact that somewhere someone thinks CoD is okay for a two year old, and sees nothing wrong with them pretending to shoot people. That was my bad, and I'm sorry.