playtime

there was absolutely nothing to eat in the house on tuesday night. save for the turkey burgers, indian chick peas and naan, mac and cheese, garlic pork loin, rice, potatoes, endless vegetables and fruit. like i said, nothing. so we ventured to where else? ballston mall for the array of mediocre food court standards that left us at noodles and company where atty put away an alarming vat of mac and cheese. 

after our nutritious feast, we wandered around the mall and found an actual toy store. i can't remember the last time we were in an actual toy store. first on atticus's list was a train set that spawned about three feet by two feet and cost about three hundred dabloons. as fate and cvs would have it, we found and bought the above $10 train set.

it took two, graying parents to put together this 35-piece figure-eight train. after all, it didn't come with directions. while we switched tracks in and out, trying to make the figure-eight well a figure eight, attty just kept semi-screeching with delight, "train tracks! train tracks!" as we told him not to pull apart the pieces. when our masterpiece was done, we insisted on showing atticus how the train actually worked. by this point, the poor guy was flustered and overly excited and sat right on the track and kept saying, "uh oh! uh oh!" and then threw one of the trains. unfortunately my lip was the recipient of the blow. by that point, my lip was starting to swell and atticus was crying from all the fun we were having as a family. luckily, nelson had enough rationale left to say, "bed time."

the next morning, after milk and coffee of course, we went to check out the train that was still set up from the night before. atticus went right up to it and said "train tracks! bridge!" and started moving the train very carefully along the tracks. before i knew it, he was building a new track (and a far superior one than the original design i might add) and was unfazed by the broken figure-eight. why did we think we needed to show him how the train "worked?" this boy has never needed directions on how to have fun.