The Kiddo has been crazy about trains since some friends in Seoul gave her their sons’ old Thomas the Tank Engine story books. So whenever we go home to visit my parents in Chattanooga we try to visit to the awesome Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum.
This time it was a ride on the Missionary Ridge Local, a six-mile round trip on a vintage passenger car pulled by a steam locomotive. We also got to disembark (de-train?), tour the museum’s workshop, and watch them turn the 610 around on the turntable.
You can see more photos here and a video of the engine turning around here.
English vocabulary invented by my daughter: ‘Boom’ as a verb. Please add the following to your dictionaries:
Boom: v. – 1. To throw an object forcefully to the ground in order to produce a loud sound; also requesting others to do the same. (Example: “Boom blocks on the floor, Mommy.”) 2. To throw an object or objects forcefully to the ground while manually adding a verbal ‘boom’ if resulting noise does not meet acceptable decibel level. (Example from this morning: “I boom Daddy’s socks. Boom!”)
Lots of people say having kids makes you feel young again. I used to think this was sweet; now I realize it was a warning.
Lately nothing makes me feel more like I’ve re-entered junior high than being around other mothers. The ones with four kids who arrive at preschool early, immaculate, in full makeup, with their kids all fed and perfectly groomed. The moms whose 18-month-old is completely potty trained and regularly eats things like lentil stew and spinach salad.
Meanwhile, I lumber out of the car most mornings in my sweatpants and headband, perpetually 15 minutes behind schedule, and do my best to wipe the crumbs off my toddler’s (notice the singular–just the one child) mouth and shove a barrette in her hair. We won’t even get into potty training and the diet heavy on spaghetti, fruit, and peanut-butter sandwiches.
I find myself fighting the urge to start dressing all in black, slink off in a corner and write bad poetry. In other words? It’s 1985 all over again.
I thought I worked through all this in my 20s. That I learned to just live my own life. (And also that people were usually to wrapped up in their own issues to be judging me as much as I thought they were.) What is it about parenthood, well, particularly, motherhood that brings this out in so many people?
Maybe it’s that we realize that no other job is going to be as important, with so much on the line, as this one? I think it tends to bring out raging insecurity. I think I’m even getting pimples again.
I am being driven batshit insane by Once Upon a Potty.
Unlike decent parents out there, we’d been putting off potty training as long as possible. Her diapers still fit, so what’s the problem? Am I the only one out there not longing to have our already limited out-of-house excursions curtailed by the demands of a preschooler’s bladder?
Then, Montessori forced our hand. Apparently during the two mornings a week she’s there, they’ve been letting her use. the. potty. For it’s intended purpose no less. (We almost had her convinced it was just a neat thing to flush minute bits of tissue down while Mom did her makeup.) Then she started asking to do so at home. (‘What? What’s that you say? What is this ‘pee-pee in the potty’ of which you speak?’) Now, since I—and apparently more than a few of my peers—didn’t get with the program fast enough, they’ve upped the ante. The kids in her class, most of whom are not yet ‘potty trained’ must come to school in pull-ups. No dipes allowed. Everyone will be encouraged to use the potty.
So, we broke down and bought S her own potty. And, the book. (To give you some idea of the experience: The text makes an awesome drinking game if you do a shot every time you get to the phrase “I, Prudence’s mother.”) Also, the video. The video that she would watch 24 hours a day if we let her. That’s all she wants to do now. Sit on her potty and watch the “potty video.” (You can watch a clip here. Sing it with me ‘Now, we’re goin’ to the potty, potty…) I’m hearing that damn song in my sleep.
All of which might be worth it, except that S won’t sit on the potty without her diaper on. She wants to “go pee and poop onna potty like Pwuedence” but only, she insists, if she can leave the diaper on.
This may take awhile.
This is the first in what I hope will be a series of posts about things to do in Atlanta with young kids. When I lived here as a single non-parent person, I seem to remember a lot of times feeling out of place being over 30 and childless. So many things designed to be “family friendly.”
Now I move back here with a toddler and suddenly find myself thinking, “Where the heck is all that family-friendly stuff when you need it?”
One of the city’s best kept secrets, as far as the recently childed are concerned, is the playground at the DeKalb Peachtree Airport.
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