Nostalgia

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Dad’s Candid Confession: I Used To Think Trains Were Sort Of Nerdy

November 3, 2012 at 1:40 pm , by 

23 months.

A train museum is Disneyland for a nearly 2-year-old boy.

I’m all for Disney theme parks and I’m really looking forward to the day my son Jack will be old enough to remember and appreciate a magical experience like that.

But for now, as he nears his 2nd birthday, a trip to the California State Railroad Museum was all he needed.

From seeing giant automatic train villages, to touring 1930′s train cars, to hanging out at the elaborate Thomas the Train play station, this was one museum that my squirmy son could not get enough of.

I’m seriously having trouble understanding what it would be like to have an American toddler son in the year 2012 who is not obsessed with trains.

What theme is your son infatuated with if not for everything locomotive?

If Thomas the Train and his die cast metal friends aren’t the theme of your son’s birthday party, and if he didn’t dress up as a train or a conductor for Halloween, and if he doesn’t have to carry out toy trains everywhere he goes, including to bed, well… what is he into?

This is all I know: Trains.

If this were the year 1995, Jack would have a t-shirt with a train on the front and the writing would read, in big letters:

“Life is trains. The rest is just details.”

The truth is, before my son got into trains, my preconceived idea about little boys liking trains is that it was sort of… nerdy.

But now I have been converted to the rough and tumble world of trains.

With all the soot and metal and crashing and American history, not to mention that most of the cast of Thomas and Friends is male, I no longer think trains are a dorky theme for my son.

So this election season, please know where I stand on this issue. I strongly support my son and his enthrallment of locomotives.

My best advice for anyone making travel plans for this upcoming holiday season, see where the closest train museum is and take your toddler son there.

If he has not yet been introduced to the world of trains, then make today the day.

Can I get a woot-woot?

 

 

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The Aftermath Of My Toddler’s 2nd Halloween

November 1, 2012 at 9:15 am , by 

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My Toddler Son Is Officially On Potty Patrol: “Dada Did It!”

October 22, 2012 at 10:13 pm , by 

23 months.

*Warning: Contains oversharenting.

This morning on the car ride to daycare, Jack had a big sneeze: “Dada? Nose.”

Unfortunately, I didn’t have any Kleenex in the car or even a blanket for him to wipe his nose off with. About 12 minutes later, we had arrived at KinderCare.

We got there earlier than normal, so I was able to sneak him in the front nursery room where no one else was yet and take my time carefully cleaning his face.

I was concentrating so hard to get Jack clean, when all of the sudden, I… well, it just came out of nowhere!

“Dada did it!” Jack loudly proclaimed with a straight face.

Fortunately no one else was around to hear it; but if they were, Jack wanted to make it clear that “Dada did it!” and not Jack.

I’m just glad that embarrassing story gets to stay between father and son. It’ll be our little secret.

Oh, wait…

Gone are the days when Jack was unaware of anything bathroom-related. Now, he feels it’s his job, in the likeness of a herald, to announce to the general public what should be private.

Let’s just say that if you come to our house and go upstairs to use the restroom, Jack will announce to everyone in the living room:

“[Insert your name here] potty.”

He hears the subtle flush and knows that’s his cue. Same thing with showers.

So if you use the potty, shower, or accidentally pass gas, Jack will announce it for everyone to hear. He’s on Potty Patrol!

 

For the past several weeks now, he has been practicing using his toddler potty before bath time. He’s actually only gone twice out of dozens of attempts, but it’s not for a lack of trying.

As I sit in front of him, watching my naked son try to make some magic happen on the potty, I think, “He should be weirded out by me being right here.”

Instead, he appreciates the moral support.

But what’s funny is he always pulls up the bathroom rug to cover his feet while he tries. I don’t think his feet are cold, the bathroom rug just serves as a sort of good luck charm.

Last night, he was doing his normal potty ritual while my wife and I watched and rooted him on.

Without any prompting, he covered his nipples with his fingers, waddled his arms like he had chicken wings, and made a weird barking sound.

My wife immediately asked him, “What are you doing, Jack?”

His eagerly replied with a scrunched up nose and a tone of celebration in his voice:

“Snake!”

That was by far the most absurd and most hilarious thing I’ve ever seen or heard my son do. Ever.

I’ll never know how an unsolicited impression of a barking, wing-flapping, nipple-censored snake shows up in the midst of  watching your parents watch you try to use the potty; which for the record, remained empty after the snake impression.

I would say what happens in the bathroom, stays in the bathroom.

But then again, I’ve got a toddler who is on Potty Patrol.

 

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And Now My Son Will Only Have Girls For Friends…

October 11, 2012 at 10:56 pm , by 

22 months.

I had always hoped that my 500th Dadabase post would be about something at least a little bit monumental.

The good news is that in this 500thDadabase article of mine, I do have a milestone to write about in my son Jack’s life so far.

The bad news is, that milestone is that my son’s best (and only) friend who is a boy is moving to Texas at the end of the month, just a few weeks before Jack’s 2nd birthday.

That’s right. Henry, as recently featured in my recent Mall Toddlers post with Jack and Sophie, is bound for the Lone Star State.

It’s a difficult concept to grasp that The Three Musketeers are being split up.

Even stranger is the fact that Jack doesn’t really have any friends that are boys that are his age. He is surrounded by girls!

I wonder if Jack will suffer the same fate as me: I have some of the best guy friends I could imagine. The problem is that most of them don’t even live in the same state as me.

Henry has been a part of Jack’s life since January, which is nearly half of Jack’s lifetime. Not to mention, it was Henry who introduced Jack to Thomas the Train, which Jack is currently consumed with.

Obviously, in the process of Jack and Henry becoming friends, their parents have by default become friends as well.

So this is a big deal; even if more so for me than for Jack.

Of course, knowing that my own memory didn’t start until my 2nd birthday, and many people say that was abnormally soon, I have to assume Jack may not have clear memories of his adventures with Henry.

What if Jack only learns about Henry by reading about him years from now?

In other words, how weird would it be that Jack and Henry’s friendship was not at all recorded in their own minds, but instead only preserved, and for their sake, only existing, because of how I recorded and presented it?

In essence, I become the storyteller, the narrator, and the griot of my son’s life; not simply just for outsiders, but most of all, for my son.

 

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The Obligatory Facebook Picture Of Your Kid With A Pumpkin

October 11, 2012 at 12:05 am , by 

22 months.

Explaining to your toddler why you’ve taken him to go pick out a pumpkin is like trying to rationalize why the Wicked Witch in The Wizard of Oz dissolves when you throw a bucket of water on her.

(After all, what about humidity in the air? What does she drink? It bothers me that no one questions this!)

In other words, if you could rationalize it, then it would just be boring.

This past weekend we took our son Jack to Lucky Ladd Farms, a glorified pumpkin patch about a 30 minute drive from Nashville, along with my parents, Sophie’s family and Henry’s family.

I loved observing Jack and his pals as they pondered why we, the parents, were leading them to a bunch of weird orange balls with handles, encouraging them to pick their favorite to take home.

Jack picked one out, swinging it by its convenient handle, and there it flew, straight into a tree.

In that moment, the 1990s grunge band The Smashing Pumpkins suddenly seemed to have less of a random name than ever before.

Fortunately, the pumpkin stayed intact and I was able to take several taken pictures of my son with it for my obligatory facebook picture.

I’m assuming I don’t need to explain the inevitable autumn trend, as parents will be uploading a picture of their kid standing in a pumpkin patch or holding a pumpkin.

It’s kind of like a status symbol as a parent.

And unless we end up actually carving the pumpkin, or at least painting it, which I have a feeling we won’t, the pumpkin will end up eventually slowly rotting on Jack’s bathroom counter.

Have you posted your obligatory Facebook picture of your kid with a pumpkin? If not, you better give in to the pressure and head on over to a pumpkin patch this weekend!

If you would like to see more pictures of Jack and his friends at the pumpkin patch, I cordially invite you to visit The Dadabase’s Facebook page.

While there, you can check out the picture folder named Lucky Ladd Farms Pumpkin Patch, where you can catch a sneak peak of potential Dadabasematerial I am sure to write about in the near future.