While working on his Lego robots, one piece was not working exactly how Thomas had envisioned it working, so, with a heavy sigh he took it apart and said “Oh well, thanks for the cardboard.”
Me: The cardboard?
Thomas: Mum, thats just a saying you say when you have to start something again from the beginning. Thanks for the cardboard.
Me: Do you mean back to the drawing board?
Thomas: Oh. Yeah. That one maybe.
I am not, as a rule, a maker of resolutions. I prefer to set the bar incredibly low for myself so that I can pat myself on the back when I exceed my (terribly low) expectations. This year though, I have resolved to blog at least twice a month (see? low).
For my first one, a story about Thomas and his obsession with Mayors and, specifically, the mayor of Toronto.
I can’t exactly remember how he even knew anything about mayors but a few weeks ago, we were listening to the radio and the story mentioned Parliament Hill. Thomas asked what that was and I explained that it was where the government meets to make decisions about things. Naturally, he then needed to know what the government was. Instead of being honest, I told him that they were the people trusted to make decisions about the country, to which he replied,
“Oh, so like a bunch of mayors?”
“Yeah, like a bunch of mayors!” I replied, pretty impressed at his thinking.
“So, like, Rob Ford and stuff?” he asked.
(insert massive sigh here)
How to explain the crack smoking, racist, lying, train wreck of a mayor, that is Rob Ford, to a (not quite) 4 year old?? Given that all CBC ever talked about for a good three weeks was Rob Ford and his shenanigans, it shouldnt come as a huge surprise that Thomas picked up on it, but MAN is this a tricky one to explain without a lot of questions. He is OBSESSED with Rob Ford. He mentions him at least twice a day. It doesn’t help that there’s a picture of him on the cover of our local paper that we see a hundred times a day. We’ve sort of summed it up that he’s not a very nice guy because he lies and is dishonest and that seemed to quell the tide of questioning for a while until, we hoped, he moved on to something easier like, say, the Middle East, or debt ceilings or something.
Around christmas, Thomas came into the kitchen with a guilty little look all over his face and said,
“Mum. I sneaked a look at number 21 on my advent. I put it back though.”
Given that I would never have known that he’d done it, I was pretty impressed that he told me and told him that it wasn’t good to have done it but that I was very happy he told me and that it showed he was growing up to be an honest person and that was very important and blah, blah, blah. His response…
“I know, cuz if I didn’t tell you, I would be EXACTLY like Rob Ford, right mum?”
“Weeeeellllllll, not exaaaaaaaactly, like him. But I don’t doubt that Rob Ford sneaks ahead on his advent calendar son.”
There. Politics. Taught to a three year old. Done.
An honest little face if ever I saw one. With his campaign manager at his side
We`re just back from Road Trip 2013 which took us to the Okanagan, Washington and Oregon for two amazing weeks. I`ve got a ton (ie about 400) of pictures to sort through and organize into posts but I`ll start with this one…………
We had planned to go to this amazing indoor water park in McMinnville, Oregon that is in an airplane hangar and has a decommissioned 747 on the roof. You climb all these stairs to get into the plane where the emergency exits are water slides!!! Genius! So fun. So, so fun. But when I say planned, I mean that we decided we would go there, an hours drive from Portland. We didn`t actually plan anything which left us having to stop at Wal-Mart to buy towels and then, finally, we pulled into the parking lot of the water park. The completely empty parking lot. Worst. It is the worst telling your 3-year-old that the water park that you`ve been psyching him up for for weeks, is closed. Brutal. I`m not sure who was more disappointed, him or us. It was an equal bummer all around. But since we were there, we decided to part with $60 and tour the aviation and space museums (oh, we skipped the Firearms and Ammunition Hall wherein one must pass underneath a giant sign that has a long, ridiculous quote from Charlton Heston. Gag.). The museums were actually pretty rad (note: if my parents had brought me to this kind of thing on a family trip I would NOT have thought it was rad. I would have complained at every step and sulked, and stomped and told them they were the lamest, etc, etc. We decided that we can not deprive Thomas a childhood without these moments.) and we spent a great deal of time ferociously competing playing on flight simulators where you had to try and dock your space craft to the docking station. Some people crashed and burned (Thomas and Andrew), while others were told that they did an excellent job and were subsequently asked to submit their resumes to NASA. For days afterward, Thomas asked me to sing Rocket Man over and over again (sorry to all those passersby who had to be subject to that). Then, today, I played it for him and in probably one of his top 5 cutest moments, he grabbed my hand with his cute little chubby toddler hand and said, “Mum, do you want to dance wiv me?”. You can`t invent this stuff – little kids are the best.
Why not listen to the song and imagine the cuteness while looking at some pictures of our day? Just press play on the vid and then scroll down….. (I don`t think this works if you view on your phone)
He may have failed the height requirement part of NASA`s tests but he would otherwise have totally been asked to be an astronaut (note Andrew`s thumb to the right), as per usual)
Competitive space craft docking
The Spruce Goose (google it). Pretty cool. I have included a pre-schooler in the picture (look closely) so that you get a sense of the scale. It’s a billion times larger than a pre-schooler.
37calvertrd 