On Wednesday evening Edward had his first trip to Chuck E. Cheese. Chuck E Cheese (hereafter referred to as CEC) is a family entertainment arcade which has been around for decades - I remember going to it as a kid myself, and it's a popular destination for children's birthday parties. It's changed a lot since I was a kid - the animatronic singing performers have become more sophisticated, the more exciting (and litigation-provoking) climbing structures and ball pits have been removed, and the trade-tickets-for-prizes system has become more automated, but at its heart it's still the same place that I used to go to to eat greasy pizza and play video games and Skee-ball until my brain overloaded.
I suppose there is one major difference between today's CEC and that of my childhood. They now have implemented a parent/child matching system: you and your kid get a unique code stamped on your arms in UV ink when you enter, and they check to make sure the numbers match when you leave. I guess this is an effort to prevent abductions. (Apparently there was an abduction of an infant from a CEC in 2003, which probably triggered this system. It was a child in foster care who was there to have a visitation with relatives, and the relatives absconded with her. Poor luck for CEC to have it happen there - that sort of preplanned "custodial interference" would probably have happened wherever they met up. But I digress.) It also means that you can't drop your kid off with her friends and have the other parent pick her up when they're done, which was common when I was little.
Anyway. Ed is too young to play unsupervised yet, so we hung out with him and showed him the sights. There were a few baby-friendly rides:
The Clock:
A very gentle Teletubby ride:
Bob The Builder:
We attempted to interest him in a frog game where he has to press a button:
But his favourite part seemed to be looking in the mirror at the back of the prizes cabinet:
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