The One Where We Met Thomas the Tank Engine

Despite outward appearances, C really did have a great time. Honest.

You can stop looking, folks, you've found him: The one little kid on the planet who doesn't like Thomas the Tank Engine, my son C. This has always been totally bizarre to me, as he's completely scary obsessed with trains. When they had the little train in the mall at Christmas time he demanded we ride it at least once a day, lest he rain chaos and pandemonium upon the household. The dreary January day that train was finally dismantled was a terrifying one. C's second birthday will be held at a miniature train track in three weeks, and is completely train themed. "Choo choo" were amongst his first words. And yet, every time I turned Thomas on, he would watch for a few minutes and inevitably get bored and demand Frozen for the 6,091th time. Nevertheless, when my friend Sunshine of Transforming the Now offered our family tickets she had won to A Day Out With Thomas, there was no question whether we'd take her up on them. C may not care about Thomas, but a fun day out as a family with tons of activities was guaranteed to be a hit regardless.

The event was held at the West Coast Railway Heritage Park in Squamish, BC (an hour outside of Vancouver). We woke up ridiculously early, and after bemoaning via my facebook status that I used to sleep til noon and play video games all Saturday, we were off. The drive kind of sucked. Not because it's a painful drive or anything, but because we were stupid enough to tell our 2 year-old that he was going to go ride a train before setting off. By the time we arrived into Squamish, he had decided we were horrible lying liars, never to be trusted again. He was whimpering and moaning in the backseat "traaaaain, traaaaaain" as though he were physically in pain. Luckily, he forgot about our betrayal pretty quickly upon arrival.


He will never be this happy again. Until the next time we let him ride a train.

We had a bit of time before our scheduled train ride, so we proceeded to explore "Knapford Station," which the park had been transformed into. It was kind of ridiculously cool, no lie. There was a ton of stuff for kids to do. Our first stop was to get Thomas temporary tattoos. These babies were made of some sort of otherworldly ink, cause C's STILL hasn't come off nearly a week later. We looked at tons of old steamer engines, skipped a magic show (more appropriate for slightly older kids), and met Sir Topham Hatt himself.


Not even his first celebrity- C has also met Nichelle Nichols and Mickey Mouse.

In no time at all, we had used up the free time before our train ride. We headed over to get loaded onto Thomas! We got seated into our little car, complete with table, and it was time to go. Volunteers wandered up and down the aisle, telling jokes for the kids and passing out "Junior Engineer" certificates. C was pretty pleased. I actually found the train ride itself the least satisfying part of the day, it only lasted about 20 minutes and went forward and back, but such is life. It was still pretty cool.

After getting off the train, we were ushered into a little tent where we were able to write a letter to Thomas (or any of his friends). The big bonus to this feature would be that after you mail the letter in the little Sodor post office, your child will actually receive a response from Thomas in the mail a few days later! When other than holidays and birthdays do kids ever get mail, not to mention from their television heroes?

We hit up the face painting station and did some playing with the many Thomas train sets available for kids to check out, but it was becoming pretty apparent that nap time was imminent. After a brief trip to the gift shop, where C chose a purple train named Charlie as his souvenir, it was time to head home. But first, to collect C's prize! When you first arrive at the event, you're given a map where you can collect stamps at the different activity stations. Once you've acquired all stamps, you can hand it in at the exit for a prize. I was pretty impressed by what the little prize was, too: A little Thomas made out of a couple of Mega Bloks! By the time we got back to our car we had so many little toys, stickers, tattoos, and activity books that C was definitely set for the ride home (of course he promptly passed out from all the excitement).

All in all, a huge success. Worth the drive, worth the whining, and a ton of fun. I definitely plan to check out the next event the railway holds, a Halloween train. I'll even go as far as to say that it's worth the new obsession....C has demanded to watch Thomas pretty much every second of every day since. My "This household has gone __ days without watching Frozen" sign is up to 3, guys. 3. Thanks, Thomas and Friends.


Yes, I actually have one.

The One Where I Rant For the First Time (on a Blog)

So one of the many local mum's groups I subscribe to (pretty much exclusively in order to buy and sell kids' clothes) had yet another mother asking for tips on where to get her infant daughter's ears pierced today. In general, I make it my mission to not judge the parenting decisions of others, because it's frankly none of my business. I don't care what your kid eats, so long as you feed her. I don't care if you work or if you stay home with your kids, what you wear, what your sleeping arrangement is, or what kind of tattoos you have or political ideologies you may subscribe to, so long as you love and care for your children.

But.

I have issues with piercing tiny innocent baby ears.


It's not colic, it's the chunk of metal you shoved through my ear.

Here's the thing. Sure, most women grow up to have their ears pierced. Yes, if you get it done now, she won't remember it when she's older. Will it be easier to keep them clean now? Maybe. But consider the bottom line here: You are making the choice to cause unnecessary pain to an infant for reasons that are exclusively cosmetic.

From time to time, it becomes necessary to inflict pain upon an infant out of necessity. The prime example of this being, of course, vaccination. The child has to suffer through a moment of pain in order to reap the huge benefits of a lifetime of immunological resilience. When we take our children to be vaccinated, we often talk about how difficult it is to watch them in pain. To see our babies crying and in pain without knowing why we, their loving caregivers, are allowing it to happen. It's such a difficult experience for some that they make the incredibly foolhardy choice not to vaccinate, which is an angry rant for another day. So if we have such a hard time subjecting our children to pain for beneficial purposes, why, then, would anyone be willing to subject them to pain for strictly aesthetic ones?

No matter how insignificant a choice it may be, piercing an infant's ears is sending the message that you care more about how they look than how they feel. That, to me, is unacceptable. I have zero problem with pierced ears- I had mine done when I was a pre-teen. I've had many, many piercings beyond my ears, and wouldn't rule out ever getting any others. As soon as my daughter is old enough to ask, should she want her ears pierced, I will have them pierced for her. But I absolutely will not be doing it without her express educated permission because body modification should require consent.


No, it's totally cool, my first words were "piercing gun."

Which leads me to my second area of concern with the issue. The assumption that because a child was born with female sexual characteristics, she will automatically choose to live her life by some arbitrary set of rules laid out to dictate how her gender should behave. What if that little girl grows up and turns out not to be a little girl at all, but a transgendered boy? Or a gender queer individual? Or hell, what if she just plain doesn't WANT her ears pierced? Yes, she (or he- let's just use the neutral pronoun 'their' going forward) can take the earrings out, and the scars will grow over. But an assumption has still been made as to their personality and choices, and I don't think that's healthy.

If you're planning to get your infant's ears pierced, I don't think you're a child abuser. I don't think you're a bad person, setting out to maim your kid and cause her years of psychological trauma. And I do know that all of this may come off as crazytown bananapants, I do. I just urge you to reconsider. Tons of us got our ears pierced in prime 'play with them and get them infected' years and lived to tell the tale. The pain of a first ear piercing, when begged of a parent, is a rite of passage and will still not be remembered, given a few years. But it comes with the added bonus of being a conscious choice made by a person old enough to accept it. Make a mother-daughter event out of it, go for milkshakes afterwards, have a fun day, and make it an event to remember. I promise you it's worth it.