There are very few things in this world that I don't like. Beef stew and chicken pot pie immediately come to mind (since my world tends to revolve around food). There are also some non-food related things too. For example, Thomas the Train. I cannot stand that stupid train. Or any of his idiotic friends. There is nothing more obnoxious than a whiny blue train that can't make a good decision to save his life. Perfect role model for kids if you ask me. So of course I shouldn't have been surprised when Greyden fell head over heels in love with Thomas. Suddenly, everything in my life is Thomas. Even Elmo has taken a backseat. We have Thomas books, toys, clothes, pajamas, and approximately 143 episodes of the lovable little train on our DVR, which is taking up precious space that was once previously occupied by Keeping up with the Kardashians. *Sigh*

Since we're pretty much living and breathing Thomas, I immediately took notice when, at the beginning of the summer, I saw a picture of him on a billboard along I-75. All that the billboard said was "Thomas the Train at Crossroads". Since being a parent means putting your child's wants and desires above your own sanity, I made a note of it on my phone, then forgot about it until a few weeks ago. It was a Saturday morning and I had been nursing Emerson when the image of the billboard randomly popped into my head. Since I am incapable of nursing without my iPad handy (so that I don't die of boredom - I mean, you can only ogle the baby for so long before you start to go cross eyed), I googled it and found out that Thomas was only at Crossroads Village for two weekends and that weekend just happened to be one of them. I must have blacked out or something because the next thing I knew, I had lost my mind was buying tickets for that afternoon.

Crossroads Village is a turn of the century town in Flint, MI, complete with historic buildings, craftsmen from the period, and the Huckleberry Railroad, which is an authentic Baldwin steam locomotive (I obviously looked it up on their website, because I still don't know what that means). The train, sorry, locomotive, takes you on a 40 minute ride around the Village and Mott Lake. According to the website, Thomas would be gracing us with his presence and taking us on the tour himself. Who (besides anyone in their right mind) could turn that down?

We arrived at 3:30pm sharp for our 4:00 train ride, thanks to Greyden's middle of the day napping. By the time we made it to the station platform, the train was just coming around the bend. I wish I could have caught the look on Greyden's face when he saw the huge Thomas the Train coming our way. His reaction? Total shock and a whispered "Choo......choo......" as Thomas pulled up in front of us.



Greyden's shock over the huge Thomas coming at us.



Riding in one of Thomas's cars.



Thomas the train pulling us around the lake.



Emerson enjoying the train ride.



Daddy and Grey with Thomas (it was about 5 minutes before I could get him to stop staring at Thomas long enough for me to take the picture).




Emerson with Thomas. She didn't need any convincing to turn around so that I could take the picture.


Of course since that day, absolutely everything is Thomas or choo-choo (whereas before, only pretty much everything was Thomas or choo-choo.) Being the stellar mother that I am, I am always on the lookout for a good Thomas bargain (I mean, who isn't?) so when I found some Thomas and Friends bath squirters the other day in Walmart on clearance, I quickly snatched them up. Good thing I did because they are now Greyden's favorite toy. And when I say favorite, I mean that they go from bath to bed to living room to outdoors with him. He even knows their names - Thomas, Salty, and Percy. Yes, the creators of Thomas the Train named one of his friends Percy. Not to say that Percy is a bad name (okay, it totally is) but it's even worse when you give a toddler who is still learning to talk a toy named Percy. As anyone with half a brain knows, toddlers aren't the best at enunciating their words. So we now have Thomas, Salty, and, ahem, "Poocy". Go ahead and say that out loud a few times. Yes, you're saying it right. It would be bad if he were just running around saying Poocy all day. So the fact that he's running around using it in sentences is really bad. Yesterday the sentence of the day was "Ride Poocy?" over and over again. Since Kevin and I are approximately 12, we find this hilarious. The hardest part for us is not to make a big deal out of it (if laughing until you're practically crying isn't a big deal). It is, of course, his new favorite toy, so every other word out of his mouth is Poocy. "Poocy go nigh-night?", "Me want Poocy!", and, Kevin's favorite, "Poocy bye bye?" (It's after that one that Kevin likes to explain that yes, the Poocy is bye bye because no one has seen it in a really, reeeeeeeally long time. Cute.) We haven't had any incidences of Poocy in Public yet, but we're waiting for it. So far we've been avoiding restaurants, just in case, and are a little hesitant to take him anywhere without a background decibel level of a rock concert. I'm sure this is just the beginning...