The Train Trainer

Recently, Caed overheard me talking about the stock market being down again. He was of course curious to know what things you can buy at that kind of a market, and whether it goes down because it is on a drawbridge. He was imagining something along the lines of the farmer’s market on Main Street selling green herbs, not the broker’s market on Wall Street trading greenbacks.

I gave him a quick explanation and then promised to teach him all about money, and how to manage it wisely, when he was a little bit older.

He replied, “And when you’re a little bit older, I’ll teach you about trains. Cuz I know that stuff really well, and you don’t know it yet. But I will teach you.” So cute, that boy.

So this morning, he demonstrated to me that he does, indeed, know more about trains than I do. Before the clock struck 6:00 a.m., he had constructed a drawbridge out of his train tracks and blocks, using his “Thomas map” as inspiration.

(A brief aside to define the Thomas map: This is a booklet obtained at the Day out with Thomas that has pictures of all the things you wish you had, but your mom won’t buy, unless she is desperate to get you to potty train, and even then, you’d still only get one thing. And now you can’t even ask to buy stuff from it anymore, or else she’ll take said Map away for good).

A bit later, the drawbridge and its elaborate island loop were inadvertently demolished by the wrecking ball that doubles as Baby Sister’s foot. Caed solicited my help in the restoration efforts, and it probably won’t surprise you to learn that I was unable to duplicate his design. This is not so much a tribute to Caed’s structural design genius as it is a revelation of my three-dimensional ineptitude. But whatever way you look at it, I apparently have a lot left to learn from my ever adorable train trainer.