some lovin'

Thing 1 tries her hand at being a hip train master by stealing Curious George's hat.

These three are pure trouble when Curious George decides to man-handle his sisters. No, they are not Cousin ITs. The one in blue is Thing 2, and in red is Thing 1.

It wasn't long until Curious George unleashes his big brother love. Poor Thing 1.

Notice Thing 2 is nice and save on the side. Her placement is not accidental. She places herself where his brother can't smoosh her too much.

a boy, his Papaw, and trains

There is no doubt that for Curious George, the highlight of this Thanksgiving season was his Papaw's trains. Equally enjoyed was his cousins' company, especially cousin B. Oh yeah, and cousin C's Leggos.

a day with thomas and bob

We chugged along to Nana's and Papaw's place in order to see Thomas and Bob this weekend. The little man fell ill early in the week but thankfully bounced back just in time. Then Daddy fell ill on Thursday so I was left to do all the packing and driving. Then the girls came down a cold. Daddy and the girls had to stay at the grandparents' house. But when all was said and done, it was a memorable weekend.

Oh, Thomas. If you only knew the amount of restraint a 3 1/2 year old had to exhibit in order to wait for his designated ride time, while the whole time seeing you ride back and forth without him!

Sir Toppamhat

Oh how much fun it is to pretend to be a train on a turntable while it turned around and around. This little guy did enjoy it, even his face says otherwise.

Bob, I was quite surprised at your ability to hype up the boy. But you did it. I had to act like a looney to get him to loosen up, but it was all in good fun. A mom has to do what she has to do, even if she truly did enjoy the show herself. ;-)

fun fun and more fun

I saw my chiropractor today and being Tuesday, I had the 3 musketeers with me. My appointment was at 9:30; I knew it would be a great time to venture out in the big big world with the 3 of them for the first time. So we went to the mall, played on the coin operator cars, had lunch and played at the play area. I think second to being a great time (early in the morning is usually a tantrum free time), what worked is that we had gone over the rules over and over before getting there.

Rule 1: You must stay close to me at all time. "I cannot protect you if you run far away from me."

Rule 2: You have to listen to Mommy or we will go home right away.

Rule 3: You have to potty with the rest of us. (Nothing worse than abandoning food at the table just to run to the bathroom - with a toddler and a double stroller!)

Rule 4: If we all cooperate with each other and have fun, we will do this again another time!

Of course rule 1 and 2 went straight out the window once we got there because he saw the new coin operated cars. But thankfully, thanks to a new parenting outlook I am trying to put into practice, nobody blew a top today and we were quickly right on track for an awesome time.

Of course the first order of business is to ride the train, what else?

Then off to the firetruck. With it being so roomy, I let the girls join in the fun.

But then they cried when the I put them back in the stroller. :(
(It's Thing 2 in the window)


Thing 2 and Thing 1 trying to follow big brother and conquer the tree slide.

Thing 2 tried to climb the bridge. But it was a little hard with shoes on.

Thing 1 investigates the boat. Thing 2 heads to something more interesting. All put the girls in the boat with Big Bro, so they got to enjoy the boat together.

more trains

trains, cars, fire trucks, trains, and more trains

I don't think you're ever seen this much excitement from a 3-year-old. The problem is, that we built up the trip by telling him he would be able to ride in a train. But the way the trip was structured, the train ride was after 2 hours of walking around and looking at the countless trains. When it was finally time to ride the train, he bee-lined for the train like someone was trying to nip his behind.



Look at this boy grinning like a fool.



Here is 3 generations in front of the this 1925 train (picture on the left), but it's actually 5 generations.. Papaw shares his story of riding on this train with his father, and his grandfather running it. Poor little man doesn't know yet that there is another legacy here in store for him - the big belly.

The picture on the right is Daddy and Big Brother's cousins...and no, they are not really funny looking. The sun just happened to be in their eyes.



And here we are, the women-folk. I got a work out carrying Thing 2, but Nana had Thing 1 who is even heavier. Silly me for leaving the stroller at home. Never again!

lovely day gone bad

With the high for the day topping 80 degrees, I thought what a great day to go to the mall and let Matty enjoy riding his favorite train. How was I to know it was going to end up as bad as it did? Neither the fact that the husband complained of body ache even before we left the house, nor the fact that Matty started the day whining at 5:30AM gave me a single clue.

For $2 a person, who wouldn't have fun riding in this?

Enjoying the ride with me in the blue car.

There was some sort of family happenning and we enjoyed a lot of Storm Troopers, Padawans, Imperial Guards, Darth Vader, and even Young Anakin. I don't know why Daddy (the Star Wars geek) didn't want his picture taken with Darth, though?

Daddy and the girls waiting for us to ride the train.

So far so good, right? Little did I know that Matty was planning on riding the train again, but this time with his Daddy. Daddy wanted to go home but went ahead and agreed. All the 4 train cars had people in it. If they wanted to go ahead and ride, they would have be in the cars with someone else. Matty refused. Apparently, he wanted to ride on the red one and that one was already full. So they stayed behind until the next ride (they should get first pick of which train they wanted to get in to since they were in the front of the line). By this time, I left them to enjoy the ride so that I could go browse in one of the stores.

When I saw the train pass me, I saw Matty and Daddy in the black and not the red and Matty was screaming and crying. Why wasn't he in the red one? Here's the story... When Daddy and Matty were about to get in the red car, the family behind them (family of 5) asked if they could get in the red one since it's the only car that was big enough to hold all of them. Well, well, well... wouldn't you know it, Daddy said yes. So they went and rode in the black one instead. It was a bad decision on Daddy's part, but to his defense he said he wasn't thinking straight because he was in pain.

From the moment they got off the train, the tantrum intensified. Daddy grabbed the stroller from me and pushed on ahead of us because he has finally reached his limit. So there I was trying to hold a 3 year old who was having a full body fit. It was hard enough to be carrying a 40 lb toddler, but a screaming, squirming, tired and sleepy toddler?

The planets definitely didn't align for this trip.