Wednesday 4 April 2012

The great disappointment

Keesadilla is a train nut. He loves Thomas and all things Thomas related. Every night, in bed, we tell a "pretend story" as we call them - a story made up by yours truly. Or rather, by Keesadilla, since he narrates the whole thing and then tells me to repeat everything he just said. Each night, it ends up being the same story: Thomas is on the island of Sodor, then Keesadilla arrives, they have to get somewhere which involves crossing a bridge, the bridge breaks, and some other engine has to come and save the day. Sometimes the engine in trouble is Gordon, or Hiro, or Spencer, and Thomas and Keesadilla have to save the day.  Regardless, there is always a broken bridge and the risk of falling into the "mutty" pool, aka the sleugh. The dialogue goes something like this: "OH THE HORROR!  NOT MY NEW PAINT JOB!  WHAT WE GONNA DO?  IT'S CAUSIN CONFUSION AND DELAY! HOW WE GONNA CROSS THE BROKEN BRIDGE?? OH NO!!"
Waking hours are no different.  Keesadilla watches Thomas videos on youtube, then reenacts the videos on his track with his harem of trains.  One of his favourites video themes is "Accidents Happen."  If you go on youtube and search "Accidents Happen Thomas" you will find countless videos made by fellow train nuts depicting their toy trains crashing around on train tracks, causing confusion and delay all OVER the place, yo.  Naturally, Keesasilla wants to reenact his own "accidents happen" on his track, which means I have to rebuild that mofo track on a regular basis.  Not only that, for each story he wants to play out, he needs a NEW track:
K: Mommy, I need a new track.  This track is not good.
M: What?  This is a GREAT track.  I just made it for you!
K: But it's not very good, see?  Thomas doesn't like it, and Spencer can't crash like this, SEE? I want the bridge to break so accidents happen! WHINE WHINE WHINE!
M: Well, you can do that on this track (and I try and show him what I mean).
K: NOOOOOOO!  I need a new track!  A good one!  This is a disappointing track *insert pouty face here*
BOO on this track!  How can I be truly happy with THIS atrocity??

M: Are you EFFING KIDDING ME?!  Ok, maybe I say that in my head.  Or under my breath.  Or maybe out loud.  Usually I am so flippin annoyed that I cannot be held accountable for what I say to those damn trains. But 99% of the time, I get down on my hands and knees, take apart his track, and use the existing pieces to come up with some new magical track that will fulfill all his trainly desires. He'll usually smile and say "This is a GREAT track!  I am so happy for you, Mommy!"
Which is what he said yesterday, when I removed the constraints of the train table and built the track on the floor:
Huzzah!  Mommy, you are the best Mommy in the WORLD!  Ok, maybe he didn't say that, but he SHOULD, damn it.
This morning, however, we were back to the land of disappointment: "This track is NOT good.  It's not a good idea!  I need a bigger track with place for a mutty pool!"

Well pickle me in perrier, I had no clue how to make a better track than THAT.  Did I mention that I had already used every.single.piece.of.track in our set?  How can I make a bigger, yet interesting, track when I have no more TRACK pieces?  And no, I am not a carpenter, I can't just *make* track.

After dropping Keesadilla off at playschool, I saw a bag of used track pieces for sale by donation to raise money for the toy library.  This bag was the shiznit.  Bridges, HIGHER bridges, and even a boat to float around in the mutty pool!  I snagged the bag before anyone else could make sense of its goodness and went home.  iBean napped, the boys were both at school, I had time to myself. And what did I do?  I built this:
Sweet Mother of Tallulah!  Look at the dangerous curves and junctions!  So many posibilities for ACCIDENTS!

Chuff harder, Oliver!  You're gonna slide backwards down that slippery hill!

Beware the mutty pool...
This track is the antithesis of disappointment.  It is an APPOINTMENT, right?  Am I RIGHT?  Ok, I know that is not the correct use of that word, but whatevs.  This track rocks.
As long as Thomas agrees...

4 comments:

  1. You Rock Woman! Beware the Mutty pool!

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  2. That is the awesomest track ever! ;) And I need to find some of those gray tower pieces... our set came with little blocks that don't stand up at all to toddler play. Also, it probably would help if we had something other than carpet to set it up on... Hmmm? :)

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  3. Can I come over and play with you?

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  4. Krista: Melissa & Doug brand now have supports for the bridges and stuff that have the plastic-style clips so that the whole thing doesn't tip over. I just picked some up last month for $1.79 a piece. Before I came into my track fortune...

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Thoughts? Comments? Questions?