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…
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.
I picked up Karin and Tyler from the airport yesterday afternoon. They’ve both been gone for a week visiting her folks and it was great to finally see them again. As I pulled up to the curb and waved to them I couldn’t help but notice how much Tyler had changed in the seven days that I haven’t seen him.
It only took a week, but I could clearly see the physical changes, and soon noticed that his mental development had progresses as well. I guess it’s a parent thing (I still can’t believe I am one), but having never raised a child before this moment came as a shock. I do not believe that sometime during the previous week my Tyler was abducted by pod people and replaced with a near-perfect carbon copy, but the changes were quite staggering and evident.
This, more than anything to date, has really hammered home the fact that Karin and I should treasure each day with Tyler. Sooner than either of us expect he’ll be riding a bike, going to kindergarden, playing sports, doing well in school, attending his prom, going to college…then he’s gone. Our son. Off on his own. Forever.
But in the meantime we’re stocking up on DVDs of The Muppet Show, Sesame Street, and Mister Rogers…because every kid deserves a decent television role model.
