Trying Something New

This week I had the rare opportunity to do TWO new things in Atlanta that I have been meaning to do for several years.

Last weekend we packed up the crew and made the trek across town to the Decatur Book Festival. I've seen advertisements in the AJC for this for years and it's always looked interesting, but I never made it in my pre-baby days. Once the boys were born in rapid succession, we pretty much avoided any event that contained any combination of the words "Decatur" (across town), "Book" (who has time to read?) and "Festival" (frequently not stroller-friendly).

But we were desperate for something to do besides the pool or the same old parks we hit every weekend, so off we went. The verdict: if your family is like my family (i.e. two high energy pre-school aged boys), wait a few years to check it out.

The festival purports to be family-friendly and while I would not say it was family UN-friendly, there isn't a whole lot to do for small kids. For some reason, I was hoping there would be an army of children's literary characters that my kids could talk to, like Arthur (whom I find annoying as hell when I have to read him but awesome when he is live and in person and entertaining my kids), or a Harry Potter magic show or something.

Instead, there was a craft tent sponsored by Target and a children's stage with children's authors. Which would've been cool except the author that was there when we were there seemed to target tweens and not preschoolers. There was a children's parade and children's authors/musicians earlier in the weekend, but we failed to check the lineup so we missed those. There were several booths selling children's books, but they were crammed in close proximity to each other and had high traffic flow, making it difficult to find a way to navigate the stroller containing our youngest so the two oldest could check out books. Of course, it was hotter than Hades, so my middle son proceeded to show signs of a heatstroke almost as soon as we got there, and we had to stop and feed and water him. So at least I can attest that the Decatur Book Festival has great food vendors.

There was a whole section of book vendors that my husband and I (both avid readers in pre-baby days and even now, when we can squeeze it in) both gazed longingly at. But alas, it was not meant to be - our bunch was ready to go home, so we had to bail.

All in all, the outing was a pseudo-bust. I say "pseudo" because on the bright side, our newest addition, who has barely slept since he was born 6 weeks ago, sacked out in the car and slept through the whole thing. Ahh...blissful silence from him so we could focus on the incessant yammering for treats of the other two.

To add insult to injury, when we got home my husband checked his email and saw that he had gotten one about a super-family friendly event involving bouncies, kid-friendly freebies, and tons of family-friendly vendors - the Family Festival at the Labor Day 10K Classic. Which is held less than 10 minutes from our house. Ouch. Oh well. Maybe next year.

This post turned out to be longer than I intended, so stay tuned for details on my other Atlanta excursion later this week...