Press A To Jump

Father Christmas and Mum and Dad and our family got me everything I could have wanted for Christmas: there was a general theme of Cars (the film) to some of my presents: a little Mack with all the accoutrements a famous racing-car could need when travelling from race to race, and a big Mack with slots containing nearly all the characters from the film – including regular Lightning McQueen, Dinoco Lightning, and Makeover Lightning, but inexplicably omitting Sally and the Sheriff – plus a Lightning McQueen jacket, t-shirt, hat and scarf, plate, cup and bowl.

I spent as much time as possible playing with my cousin Eddie, who was very good about playing with me, but balked somewhat when I tried to give him big kisses – it must be awkward being a teenager, I suppose.

We had our party at Playschool on Friday, so I was in all day except just in the afternoon. We had games, Father Christmas came (I got another book, maybe he’s saving up all the cars for Christmas itself ?) and a great time was had by all. What with all that party food, though, I was a right Jamesie Fartpants for the rest of the day.

The air of excitement chez nous is getting pretty heavy, though I’m really not sure what to expect from Christmas itself. I asked Santa for a real Mack, not that I’m unhappy improvising Mack from Lego or my toy car-transporters, in fact anything capable of carrying my Lightning McQueen on it’s back, but it would be good. Seemingly, it depends on whether I’m Naughty or Nice, which puts the pressure on – we’ll see.

We went to see Father Christmas at Bodiam castle today: if you count when I was in Mum’s Tum, this was my third time, though I don’t remember that or my other previous visit.

They do a bit of a treasure hunt, or to be more specific a Wreath Hunt, and once you’re tired out from climbing interminable stone staircases to stand in the bracing air on the tower-tops shouting ‘Quack Quack’ at the ducks, you go and see Father Christmas. Even Daisy was a bit reticent, and I was fairly struck dumb by the enormity of the Big Man Himself. We got colouring books, I was a bit miffed mine was wrapped in Disney Princess wrapping-paper and tried to enforce a swap, but apparently the elves are fallible and Father Christmas is too nice and too busy to point out any error in their ways. I spent quite a lot of the time asking if we could maybe go home, but the rest of it enjoying myself, what with climbing on the stone walls, the treacherous spiral staircases (which I insisted on ascending and descending unaided, except maybe the odd bit of hand-holding), jumping in muddy puddles, and playing hide-and-seek in the castle while waiting for our turn to see Santa.

When we got back I invented a variant of swingball played with a metal ladle, a plastic scoop spoon and our little toy basketball: I used the ladle, even though the plastic one was probably better: we rolled the ball backwards and forwards along the lounge floor as I’m forbidden to play the ball in the air inside (no half-volleys, no throwing, just place on the floor and kick or roll)

I like to play guns, bang-you’re-dead: no-one knows where I got it from, none of my favourite TV shows have shooting in them, not even Power Rangers, and even Spiderman doesn’t have shooting in it. Still, boys will be boys.

Thanks to a thread on Slashdot, I now like to play on Boohbah though I’m not sure I know how to work Zombo (or it’s text-only version). Then again, I’m not the only one.. the original thread was full of somewhat insulting comments like this:

I don’t think it’s possible to make a laptop that can stand up to a two-year-old unless you encased the whole thing (including the keyboard) in about a two-inch thick layer of plastic. Two-year-olds throw terrible tantrums. They’re known for it. … They don’t understand the consequences of their actions.

I did put a mini-cd in our Macbook’s superdrive (making Dad think it was broken, because being a slot drive it could recognise or eject it and when he put a DVD in it the Macbook spat it out again). Just a mistake, though: I understand that if I don’t treat it properly I won’t be able to play with it anymore, doesn’t that count as understanding consequences?