Little House on the Suburban Coastal Plain

Rush wants all kinds of things for his train set:  various cranes and trains, a windmill, and Sir Topham Hat (aka The Fat Controller).  He wants Sir Topham Hat “so he can tell Thomas what to do.”  Basically Rush wants every train character he has ever seen in a book or tv show.  Obviously we’re not going to buy all this stuff, but the great thing is that Rush doesn’t really expect it.  All his train pieces have been birthday or Christmas presents, so thankfully it doesn’t cross his mind that we would just go out and get something new.  He decided, mostly on his own, to make the things he wants.

I saw a Barbie Dream House in the Toys R Us ad before Christmas and it was a total disappointment.  Thank God we never had one when I was growing up, even though I wanted it.  My sister and I would take everything (everything including big things, like a record player) off a big bookshelf that was divided into nine big sections.  That bookshelf became a giant apartment complex and/or Barbie mansion.  The Barbie Dream House is to a tenement as that bookshelf is to the Plaza.

So I’m really proud of Rush for using his imagination to add on to his train set.  Our new Sir Topham Hat has a close pin body, a Sharpie on a champagne cork face, and hot glued felt scrap clothes.  He’s now actively admonishing engines for causing confusion and delay.  The popsicle stick and coffee can windmill was less popular, because when I was hot gluing I didn’t realize that the windmill had to spin.  Trent and Rush will have to work on that this weekend.  (Have you ever noticed what a horrible word “gluing” is?  If a gluing was a sea creature, it would attach itself to your leg and suck all the life out of you verrrry slowly.)

Rush and I made Colin and Cranky (cranes) this morning, out of construction paper, cracker boxes and twine.  They look nothing like cranes, but the great thing is, who cares?  Rush is happy to have them and lined them up alongside the wooden track this evening.  I don’t mean happy to have them in a poor-Rush-he-doesn’t-have-any-toys-and-has-to-color-old oatmeal-boxes way, far from it, but happy in a content, imaginative way.  He looks around for Colin and Cranky, by name.

This is all somehow influenced by the Little House on the Prairie books, which I’m rereading for the first time since my mom read them to me in second or third grade.  Somehow thirtyish women get back to these books, because I know I’ve seen detailed references to them on other blogs.  In my case the gateway drug was the Little House children’s books we started accumulating a year or two ago.  After reading the picture books to Rush, I started looking for copies of the series for me.  And here we are.

The tricky part is that these books get into my head and influence my thoughts all day long.  I’m only on By the Banks of Plum Creek and all I do now if compare myself to Caroline Ingalls.  I do not measure up.  With Caroline, dishes get washed right away, chores are done, and certainly children would never be lounging around in their pajamas.  She’s capable and calm and never complains and her children are always in crisply ironed clothes.  Can you even imagine what I would say to Trent if he told me we were leaving our newly build home and freshly planted crops?  I have a shower with hot water and a closet full of dresses and I didn’t have to milk a cow today, yet I wore jeans and had my hair in a ponytail.  The shame!  Either this is a totally unhealthy way of thinking or I’m going to turn it around and become awesome, just like Ma Ingalls.

I’ll try to drag myself back to 2012 for the moment.  At Tate’s last pediatrician check-up, she asked if he could color.  Um…should it have occurred to me to give a 14 month old crayons?  Obviously it wasn’t a big deal either way, because when I said I didn’t know she just moved on with the visit.  But today we learned the answer:  Tate will scribble briefly (3 seconds) then eat the crayons.

Here’s what happened right after train accessory making/crayon eating:  crying, by both boys.  Tate is just taking one nap these days and he wants to take it at 9 AM.  That just cannot happen, so he has some rough patches in the morning.  He’s still adjusting.  I don’t know what was going on with Rush, I think his crying started after I told him we were going outside.  Who can remember?  All I know is that going outside will fix things at least 97% of the time.

I call it a successful morning because I got everyone outside and happy.  Caroline Ingalls once saved her house and family by putting out a wildfire by smacking it with burlap bags soaked in water.  All’s well that ends well.