All Aboard

Big boys get to go on big trains.

It's kind of absurd that for all the knowledge and affinity Mal has for trains, and our proximity to the train station, we have never taken him on a train ride.  He has been on the little train at Vasona, but not on the big ones.  Until yesterday.

Mal's friend Luke is a HUGE (and I mean HUGE) fan of Thomas.  If there was a contest for biggest fan ever, I am pretty sure Luke would win it.  Luke's mom and I decided to take the boys for a ride together.  It was completely unplanned, but the boys practically matched with their engineer hats and red shirts.  It was way to cute.

We parked at a nearby park and walked over to the station.  Well, we actually ran to the station.  Mal was excited and wanted to run the whole way there (and truth be told, we were running a little bit late, so it was a bonus).  He was hopping up and down and clapping and squealing like crazy...until we came up out of the tunnel, right by the engine of the train which was very loud.  Mal started crying at the top of his lungs and wanted to go home.  It freaked him out a bit.  Once we got on the actual train, he was back to his happy self.

I'm having a lot of fun riding the train Mommy

I could relay the ride from my point of view, but this is how Mal told the story to some random Dad at the park after the ride.  It was a pretty good summary of the afternoon. For full effect, imagine him saying it really fast in an almost stressed out fashion.

Look Mommy, it's Trader Joe's

"We got to ride on the train today.  We went in the tunnel and came up and it was really loud.  It was a little bit scary for me and I wanted to go home because it was loud.  I was crying.  We went on the stairs to the train because we were looking for Victoria and Luke.  I pushed the button to make the door open.  And then we rode the train and it stopped and we got off and waited a little bit and then we went on another train to come back home.  We saw Trader's Joe's and we made a lot of stops and the train went really fast.  And we saw trader Joe's when we were on the other train.  And the coffee store (Starbucks). The train stopped and we got off and went to the light rail and then to the park."

Up high

Aside from seeing Malachy so happy, the best part of the train ride for me was watching Mal and Luke together.  When we sat in the upper deck, they were in seats on behind the other.  They were talking to each other the whole time.  On the way home, we sat in the lower part section and Mal and Luke sat together for a while.  Again, they were conversing as naturally and completely as Victoria and I were.  When did the kids go from grunting commands at each other to telling stories and chatting about the train ride?  After the ride, Mal and Luke were high fiving each other and Mal totally got him with the "down low, too slow."  He cracked himself (and me) up.  It seemed like such a big kid thing to do.  Every day, I think he couldn't possibly be at a more fun age, and then the next day he proves me wrong.