My freshman year at A&M I took all science classes: Biology with Lab, Chemistry with Lab, Calculus, weight lifting, and Psychology. The idiocy of my choices notwithstanding, I really enjoyed the Psych class. One thing I will never forget was that our Professor had a research grant to study monkeys under the influence of cocaine. This was 1987 mind you, so coke was still relatively new unless you count the hundreds of years that Mayans and Aztecs chewed up coca leaves and ran nekkid through the jungles of South America. In any case, these monkeys would stop having sex (in the middle), stop eating, drinking water, sleeping, everything for more cocaine.
Connor loves Thomas the tank engine. He’s seen many of the videos, has at least 50 trains and coaches, and even has Thomas PJs. We took him to the touring Broadway show that came to town where he met Sir Topham Hat and Thomas’ and Percy’s drivers. He has a ton of track with multiple levels and tunnels, bridges, etc. He has wooden railway pieces upstairs and the plastic sets downstairs.
My best friend’s (and Connor’s Godparents) across the street neighbor has two boys who’ve recently just grown out of their Thomas obsession. So their mom was just about to put them up on craigslist. My best friend’s wife said, “Wait, call Nita first and see if they want it.” Nita asked me if we should go and take a look before she sold them. Connor has a catalog and is constantly pointing and saying which trains and trucks we “need.” To be honest, I’ve broken down and gotten most of them for him. And to be more honest, I couldn’t fathom them having anything unique to Connor’s collection. I figured at best we’d find two or three trains Connor didn’t have or maybe get some more track to continue building his little empire.
Holy shit! Now I should have guessed that a best-selling and award winning author might be a little quirky and gravitate toward the obscure. But when we started sifting through the trains he and his wife had gotten for their kids, it was beyond amazing. They had every obscure train and even some discontinued sets. They had bridges, carnivals, the sheds, tunnels, and so many different and unique trains I was absolutely shocked. Connor immediately took ownership of them and even started howling when Josie dared to play with one of the trains we didn’t even own yet. So of course we bought the lot.
We got home and normally a big drive from Onion Creek to North West Austin induces a little nap. Not for my boy with one train in each hand. We got home and it was just about lunch time and immediately afterwards would be nap time. But not for my little coked up monkey. He wanted to take all the trains and sets out of the four boxes and start assembling all of them and cataloging his inventory which was now about double. Connor threw a little tantrum when pressed to have lunch. Again when he was put in his crib and told to nap. He was trying to bargain his way into getting a train to hold while napping.
The next day Nita said he didn’t even want to play outside, it was all trains all day. When I got home, it looked like it was about to rain. Since I had driven Connor through a sprinkler or two in my golf cart, I said, “C, let’s go ride in the golf cart and see if we can get rained on.” He very matter-of-factly said, “No daddy, I’m playing trains.” I replied, “Hey buddy, come on, it’ll be fun I’ll even give you some juice.” He stopped, thought, looked at his trains, grabbed Diesel 10 and Charlie the purple engine, and agreed. So we drove around and finally got to the golf club where he hopped out and ran around (finally) with a train in each hand. Again, dinner time was preceded by a light tantrum and he wanted to play trains instead of taking a bath. Bed time was also coke-monkey-esque. We almost had a little meltdown during his rant/explanation of how he just needed to “finish” the track.
He really is at a great stage right now. He’s really in to creating things, building, connecting, combining, etc. So he has a red moment once in a while. (For all of you who are married to red heads or have red heads in your families, you immediately knew what I meant didn’t you?) See y’all later, it’s back to the train table….I’m coming Connor, cool your jets!
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