Three sons and five grandboys have provided me with an education on many topics: dinosaurs, rockets, balls of all sorts, cars, and bodily functions (including peeing in window wells) to name a few. However, my first generation train education, it appears, was not quite up to snuff. Generation two is filling in the gaps.
On Christmas afternoon we built Gingerbread houses. (Short traffic stop: I'm not sure Gingerbread should be capitalized, but since it includes my sister's name, it seems adequate enough reason for a big "G". Now back to my normal flow of consciousness.) In real life, I actually get paid to design houses, so you might think "game on" for houses. And it was: Court and Jorie made some great houses (view to left and to the right)! For reasons I soon learned to regret, I made a Christmas train. (Christmas is capitalized for many reasons, including acknowledgement of what an amazing day it was in 2014. There is either a frustrated English teacher in me begging to be released, or I just know too many of them. I suspect the latter.)
Aidan,current family railroad officiant, was my design consultant. "No, Granma,all green on the front for the cow catcher." (I won that battle - we needed a red smile for our engine.)
"Is that a tender, Granma? We need a real tender. Where is the coupler?" Candy cane to the rescue.
"Where is the caboosie?"
"You mean the caboose? The last car is the caboose, right?"
"Yeah, we need a caboose." So we made another car, which for three-year-old reasons far beyond my understanding, did not qualify as either a caboose OR a caboosie.
"Granma, we need a caboose." Apparently caboose and caboosie are interchangeable for those under the age of five. A quick dash to the kitchen to make more icing/glue, and I tried again. "No, Granma, that's not a caboosie."
"But it's the last car." I failed at both caboose design and adequate train logic.
Fortunately at this point I was saved by the bell - the dinner bell. Dinner wasn't ready, but at the rate I was going, it might be midnight before I correctly sculpted an edible caboosie. I escaped to the kitchen to prepare food that would actually be eaten.
Next year I will study up on train design. Or better yet, I'll make a Gingerbread version of the Empire State Building - life size even. It must be easier!
Happy New Year to Thomas, and James, and Percy, and Diesel - and Aidan, the master engineer!
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