Yesterday we took the boys to "A Day Out with Thomas," an event that we first started planning to attend 9 months ago, back when Bear was in the height of his Thomas phase. (That was, of course, followed by a brief but fervent Blue's Clues phase and the current Zoboomafoo phase, but recently his passion for the railway has been re-ignited.) DOWT is essentially Lollapalooza for the 3 year-old boy set, with the main attraction being a ride on Thomas the Train. Other features included an opportunity to be terrorized by an enormous Sir Topham Hatt, a rambling motorized train set to admire, some bounce houses, and the requisite Hall of Capitalism, where one could by anything Thomas at only mildly jacked up prices.
Being the lame Mommy that I am, I failed to make the actual reservations until a week before the event. Luckily, tickets were still available, however the departure times and seating were limited - the earliest train we could get being 2:00, and our car was #8 - way in the back and a far cry from the infinitely preferable car #1, which was obviously closest to Thomas. We started out at 11:30 on Sunday - only an hour and a half later than we had planned - and after the hour and a half drive to Felton, parking, hiking to "Sodor," and waiting in line at will call (because I purchased the tickets at the last minute), we had just enough time to get on the train.
Now, our first mistake may have been stopping to eat at the Cheesecake Factory Saturday night, giving Bear ice cream, and not getting home until 9:00, so that he was bouncing off the walls until 11 PM. Just before we got to Felton, Bear fell asleep. Not a good sign. Also, cutting it that close meant that we had skipped lunch, so now he was tired and hungry. But he was excited to see Thomas and loved every minute of the 25 minute train ride. Then we had to get off. This is where the real trouble began. Mistake #2 may have been taking him on the steam train at Tilden park twice the weekend prior, and twice on the zoo train the week before that, thus setting an expectation for 2 rides on every train we encounter from now until eternity. We did what we could to salvage the rest of the day and considering his tired, hungry, and now disappointed condition, Bear did very well. As in we only had to pick his tearful, crumpled body up off the ground once or twice. We waited in line a half hour for Sir Topham Hatt, only to discover that the looming, 8-foot figure was too frightening to come within 20 feet of. We paid too much for hot dogs and corn-on-the-cob, Bear's favorite foods. He jumped in the bounce house. He got pushed around by a 3 year-old bully. Then, just before leaving, Not-so-surly-dad bought him a Thomas balloon. A giant, 3-foot-long mylar Thomas balloon.
We loaded everyone into the car, Thumper now three hours overdue for his afternoon nap and Bear suddenly remembering that he started the day obsessing over going to the zoo to see a peacock, and now resuming that tangent. The Thomas balloon occupied every square inch between the 2 boys, and kept making its way back over into Bear's face, causing a great bit of consternation. NSSD of course had to stop for coffee (more confusion and delay), which is about the time Thumper finally decided he had had enough and began to scream. Back on the road, we continued on like this for about 10 minutes before NSSD decided that maybe it would be better if Thomas rode in the trunk. "Why did you even offer that to him?" I muttered. "He wanted it" replied NSSD gently.
The rest of the trip proceeded as follows: Thumper would scream for several minutes on end before finally settling down and falling asleep. Suddenly Bear would have an outburst, waking Thumper, and more screaming would ensue, accompanied by parental admonishing of Bear for waking his brother.
So last night I laid awake worrying about this: Bear is at the age now where he is forming memories that he will carry with him for life. And the memory is a funny thing. When I think back on my childhood, the memories I have are of random little moments that my parents probably never guessed I would remember, like eating cold fried chicken and pringles in my grandfather's borrowed motor home while broken down by the side of the road - I have no idea where we were going. When they ask me if I remember things that were important to them, a family reunion for instance, I never do. My boys are my life, and I would do anything to make them happy, including drive 3 hours round-trip to ride Thomas the Train for 25 minutes. But what if instead of remembering how much fun he had on the train, he only remembers the long lines, the crying, and being yelled at all the way home?
As soon as he woke up this morning, Bear asked for his Thomas balloon, and played merrily with it the entire day. He put it between his legs and "rode" it up and down the hall. He tied his wooden Sir Topham Hatt to the string and floated him around the house. He loves that balloon. If that is the only memory he takes away with him from the entire experience, I am OK with that.
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