If there’s one thing that our son has taught us, it’s that things go better with applesauce.
Cheese, fish, noodles, chicken, hotdogs, crackers, apples, broccoli, sandwiches, bananas, cereal, filet mignon – all apparently taste better once dunked into a single-serving container of applesauce.
Who knows? Perhaps he’s on to something…
I could be having the worst day at work, my car could break down, I could lose track of where I last saw my wallet, suddenly come down with a vicious toothache, and my computer could crash in a flaming heap of plastic and silicon leaving me high and dry without a current backup.
All of this would be forgotten in an instant the moment I unbuckle Tyler from his car seat and carry him upstairs as he falls asleep on my shoulder.
This, my friends, is a major perk to parenthood 
This past weekend Karin and I took Tyler to see Santa for the first time.
For the first ten seconds that he was sitting on Santa’s knee, Tyler didn’t know what to make of him.
But then a light blinked on in Tyler’s head, and for five seconds he smiled. That’s when this picture was taken.
The next 15 seconds were filled with maniacal shrills and flowing tears. Tyler was suddenly overcome with a terrible fear of Santa and wanted nothing more than mommy, who quickly came to his rescue.
But man, those five seconds of smiling were something special!
Oh, and for the record, Tyler wants “choos-choos” and “brmm-brmms” for Christmas. He’s all about trains and cars…
It’s funny how children can change your jaded view of the world:
Tyler is big into Thomas the Train.
I’m not sure how this obsession came into being, but one day he started saying “Choo Choo! Choo Choo!” and hasn’t stopped since. And what do we do? Only the stupidest thing ever…we bought him a Thomas & Friends DVD.
When he first laid eyes on that DVD his entire body seized up, then he went into a disturbing set of shivering convulsions as he held the DVD stiff-armed in front of his wide-eyed face. After a couple of minutes he calmed down, took a deep breath, then proceeded to shout “CHOO CHOO!!” over and over again, clutching the DVD close to his chest in a death grip (but it was the cutest lil’ death grip I ever saw) until we left the store.
And now Thomas & Friends is all he ever wants to see.
After the 100th viewing of Thomas & Friends I began to deeply regret buying that DVD 
And what is Thomas and his friends, anyway? Are they alive? Robots? Sickening Mengelesque medical experiments gone horribly awry? They seem to be sentient beings, albeit in train form. They can converse with each other and blindly take orders from a squat man in a tall hat. Are these trains capable of independent action, or do they require that an engineer be on board? They obviously have a primitive social hierarchy, and are continuously in a competitive struggle with each other employing increasingly bizarre and twisted mind games.
If they are, indeed, living creatures, do they possess souls? Are they immortal? Do they die like all other living beings eventually do? If so, what happens whey they die? Are funerals held? Do they bury their dead, or instead recycle them?
So many questions. But I guess I’ll have time enough to contemplate them as I watch Thomas & Friends for the 300th time with Tyler.
Thanks, Thomas…
