Trains, trains, & MORE trains

This summer my family had the pleasure of visiting the Crossville Model Railroad Club  in Crossville, TN.

 

We were traveling to Nashville and had heard about this incredible train display that was en route and KNEW we had to see it since there are TWO little train fanatics in our house (3 and 4.5 at the time).   It is in an outlet mall and is a whole storefront FULL of different size model train layouts.  Only problem was that we would be driving through on a THURSDAY afternoon, a time when they are usually not open.  I contacted a club member via e-mail about a week ahead of time and inquired about setting up a private train viewing.   His response was very kind, and he said normally they do not do private viewings for anyone but groups.  He continued on to say that they usually have some folks working on the displays almost every day, and if we wanted to stop by in the hopes that we caught someone there they would be more than glad to show us around.
 
*SIGH*.   After a LOT of careful thinking about what to say, here was my response:

Thank you for writing me back! Is there any possible way that, without inconveniencing anyone,  I can be sure that someone will be there that day? I have 2 sons with special needs and I would hate to set them up for disappointment. The reason we want to come see your exhibit is that a family member of mine who was there recently was VERY impressed and knew that my boys would be enthralled. For some reason children on the autism spectrum are overly fascinated by trains… especially Thomas. Our house is full of toy trains. I think it has to do in part with the rhythmic motion of the wheels.  It would mean SO much to them to see it, but I can’t change our travel plans to come there unless I know we can enter the exhibit. Travel with small children is hard enough, even more so with special needs. If it doesn’t work out I understand, but I thought I would check into the possibility.  Any help you could give me would be greatly appreciated.  Thank you so much for your time-

Well, without hesitation he responded that if I called him when I was about an hour away he would meet me there personally & show us around.

When we got there my 2 boys acted like they were walking into Disneyland (cue heavenly music)…

 
 

Especially when they saw THIS…

 

IT’S THOMAS!!!

And Percy! And James! And Harold!!!

The 2 children wearing the train shirts are mine. We edited out their faces for security, so unfortunately you miss out on seeing the look of utter & complete JOY on their little faces.  Believe me when I say they were THRILLED.  Every time a train rolled by they squealed, “HI, PERCY!”, or, “HI, JAMES!”, or, “HI, THOMAS!!!”  They stood at the Thomas table alone for more than 10 minutes~ a LOOONG time for kids with short attention spans.

Turns out our e-mail friend had filled some of the other club members in on our family’s situation.  There were several other individuals there when we arrived and they were ALL incredibly welcoming & kind & friendly & went out of their way to help us enjoy the exhibit and to make us feel comfortable.  I think they were also excited to have such passionate little train enthusiasts to appreciate their displays.  I was so incredibly overwhelmed by the effort they put into talking with us & showing us around.  Come to think of it, they are probably that way with everyone who walks in the door, but it still made me feel special.  Especially when the female member of the club asked me, “I don’t know a lot about Autism. Could you please help explain it to me?”  I could have hugged her.  For her to take the time to ask and try & become more educated showed a level of compassion that was deeply moving.  I LOVE it when people are so open and caring and say, “I don’t understand~ can you teach me?”  The alternative is far worse- those who are made uncomfortable by that which they don’t understand so they say NOTHING & walk away. (See “Silence is not always golden”)       

My children spent a very long time exploring each and every detail of this glorious train land.  They were VERY sad to leave, especially since there was also a Thomas Wooden Railway train table to play with.  I think they could have stayed there forever.  A FABULOUS time was had by all. 

Thank you, THANK YOU, Crossville Model Railway Club, for giving my children such a treat… and for giving their Mom & Dad a special gift with your compassion and generosity.  There are good people in this world.  Just go to Crossville. 

Check out their website! Their hours are Fridays 12-4, Saturdays 10-5, and on Sundays from noon-3pm~ OR by appointment, if you say “pretty please”.  They’re awesome like that.

Hooray! It’s “Give Someone a Genuine Compliment Day”!

I am so excited that today is “Give Someone a Genuine Compliment Day“!  Haven’t heard of it?  Maybe that’s because I invented it.  Yeah, that’s right, I made it up… so what of it?  Today still ROCKS! 

This day is in part inspired by my 4-year-old, Thomas, who declared- “We love each other on Valentine’s Day!”   And then I started thinking… how often do we take time to REALLY love each other?

“Give Someone a Genuine Compliment Day” is also a positive alternative for those of you who HATE Valentine’s Day.  I have a few friends, single AND married, who were dreading today.  They HATE it.  I get that.  Single people who don’t want to be single are made to feel extra lonely on Valentine’s Day, and coupled people are under all this pressure to create the the perfect day and feel/be overtly romantic.  A woman is set up to be disappointed, and her man is set up to fail to meet her lofty expectations.  Feh.  Don’t get me wrong, I think romance is good and necessary.  But I also think romance operates better when it happens freely and spontaneously, and not under so much duress and expectation.

Let’s think beyond romantic love today.  I think it is also wonderful, and SO important, just be LOVING!

Let’s Keep Christmas

Henry Van Dyke wrote these words are approximately 100 years ago, yet they still hold just as much truth today.  I clipped it out of my newspaper last year… and kept it up ALL year to remind me.  That’s the whole point.

Keeping Christmas by Henry Van Dyke

Are you willing…

to forget what you have done for other people, and to remember what other people have done for you;

to ignore what the world owes you, and to think what you owe the world;

to put your rights in the background, and your duties in the middle distance, and your chances to do a little more than your duty in the foreground;

to see that men and women are just as real as you are, and try to look behind their faces to their hearts, hungry for joy;

to own up to the fact that probably the only good reason for your existence is not what you are going to get out of life, but what you are going to give to life;

to close your book of complaints against the management of the universe, and look around you for a place where you can sow a few seeds of happiness.

Are you willing to do these things even for a day? Then you can keep Christmas.

Happy Birthday, Thomas!!

Thomas, my firstborn, turns 4 this week.  FOUR.  Before my eyes my adorable preschooler is slipping away forever and he is turning into a BOY.  I am so excited to see him grow, and so proud of the boy he is becoming, but I would be lying if I said I wasn’t also a little sad.  In honor of his birthday I post this video with the Thomas the Tank Engine theme song… AND a Happy Birthday serenade by 50 Cent.  I stumbled across it on YouTube and it cracked me up.  Some people have waaaay too much time on their hands!  I also would like to take this opportunity to share some of the latest “Thomas-isms”.  If I don’t write them down, I forget.  We think we won’t ever forget those precious memories, but believe me, we do. 

He has been really making me laugh lately with the way his little mind works.  For example, I was fixing his hair and commented on his cow-lick.  Confused, he asked, “What’s a cow-lick?”  And when I told him, he responded, “Ohhhh… why not a PIG-lick?”

Support Group is on a roll!

This past week we held the third Support Group meeting at my church for families of children with special needs.  We had SIX families and a staff member attend!  We would have had EIGHT, but one house was full of sickos and another tired mommy accidentally fell asleep.  Considering that this group was thrown together in August, those are really exciting numbers.  Although I would have been excited by TWO.  And everyone seems to really be connecting.

The parents have all said, “Oh I needed this so much, thank you for starting this group!” And I smile, because one of the main reasons I asked if we could form the group was to help ME!  I couldn’t find a Christian support group nearby, so I started one! But I also have a heart to help people (on my good days), and all these pent-up ministry inclinations just waiting to be used.  Funny how God works… recently I was pretty upset that things didn’t work out the way I planned with another ministry that I wanted to be a bigger part of.  I was not given the opportunity to be in the leadership role I thought I wanted and I couldn’t understand why.  I have gone to seminary for goodness sake!  I got skillz!  But now I see that God had at least 2 reasons for holding me back on that ministry: 1. to humble me and give me more of a SERVANT’S heart, and 2. if I had become a part of the leadership of that other ministry there is no way I could have helped start the support group!  So I didn’t get what I thought I wanted because God had something better in mind, even though I had to wait over a year to see what God had planned.  Think about THAT sometime.

Fun with friends

It wasn't THIS dock, but you get the idea...

 

Last weekend we hauled the family off to the home of some friends out of town for the day.  Sometimes these visits can be a recipe for disaster, especially if a home is not babyproof (read- PERCYproof).  I am happy to report that the day did not suck.  We actually had a great time, despite a few hiccups.

The home was owned by two men who had clean, minimalist decorating taste.  THANK GOODNESS!  Not a lot of things to break.  And the best part was that were was a loft area that housed a pool table.  We stuck the kids up there to play and could observe them from below, and they were content for a surprisingly long time.  SCORE!  We were actually able to visit some with our friends.  This doesn’t happen a lot for us in social situations.  Plus some out of town family met us there and Thomas especially had a fantabulous time playing with his cousins. 

100th post!!!!!

98, 99… 100!!  Took me long enough to get here!  I am also celebrating six whole months of blogging.  Instead of the traditional “100 things” post I think I will just talk about things that make me happy.  More specifically, my boys!!!  All THREE of them.  Did you know I have the three smartest, cutest, sweetest men on the planet under my roof?  

Let’s start with baby Percy.  He has made amazing progress since this blog started.  His language skills are growing at a rapid rate (hooray for speech therapy!), and he has really expanded socially and become very loving.  He loves to run around the house giving everyone sneak attach hugs.  I will be doing the dishes and all of a sudden -BAM- he rams into my legs and hugs me.  Other times he just rushes into the room and starts flapping his hand, waving, saying, “Hi Mommy… Hi Mommy… Hi Mommy…”-  I am finally Mommy, not Bahddie.  His articulation is getting better every day.  But oh how I already miss Bahhdie and Bardeey  (Barney) and Toadeey (Thomas).  Speaking of Thomas the Tank Engine, Percy can name like 50 different characters when you point to them.  Oh, and he can count to fifteen!  Sorta… “twelve, thirteen, fifteen, thirteen!”  Oh, and he can sing the alphabet song!  Speaking of singing, on my birthday recently he actually sang “Happy Birthday” to me!  It was adorable.  Actually, he spent the next few days singing Happy Birthday to me.  Every time he saw me eating birthday cake he stared singing it again.  I am not going to say how often that was *cough- a LOT-cough* .  And he kept saying, “Hoppy baardeey”.  Cute, I tell ya, cute. 

Busy, Busy, Busy

Well, life sure has swept me off my feet lately, or at least kept ‘em moving. I have a LOT of activity going on, but so far am handling it pretty well! Although I still haven’t finished unpacking from the beach…

Last week Thomas started back at preschool. I had prepared his teacher for his anxiety, and warned her that sometimes he is genuinely scared, but sometimes just manipulative (he says, “I’m scared!” when he doesn’t get his way). I also warned her about his sensory issues, aversion to being dirty, how he won’t do finger paint, etc. I asked her to please CHALLENGE him to overcome his fears while also being sensitive. Tricky! As school approached he got increasingly anxious and told me, “Mommy, please don’t leave me all by myself at school!” I remained positive for him, even though my heart ached, and thankfully there were minimal tears at dropoff the first day. Later at pickup I braced myself, only to hear, “He was my star student!” The teacher said he listened (what? whose child is THAT?), he was the line leader (it was a TRAIN!), and he even did a HANDPRINT!! Last year he refused to do the handprint. I was thrilled! He has LOVED school every day since then, and when asked who his friends were at school he named 2 buddies AND his teacher.

I had FUN at the beach!

I just got back from a long weekend at the beach, and I had fun!  Some of you may be thinking, “Well, DUH!” but to me this is a big deal.  Last year when we took a family trip there it was almost more work than fun.  This year we had a blast, and it was relatively drama-free!

Let’s rewind to a year ago.  My youngest was still drinking from a bottle, sometimes still taking 2 naps a day, and both he and his older brother were still in diapers.  Things were further complicated by the fact that one child was overly fascinated by the sand, the other terrified by it.  Percy sat and ate sand by the handfuls, while his poor older brother Thomas wandered around, crying, trying to walk without his feet actually touching the sand, muttering to himself, “Dirty, dirty…”  

Some good, some bad…

Let’s start with the good, shall we?  My 27-month-old Percy, who was just diagnosed last week with an Autism Spectrum Disorder, just peed on the potty for the first time!!! And it was totally on pupose!  He was concentrating so very hard, it was adorable.  You can thank all the times he has watched his big brother (and almost gotten a faceful!).  I was so happy, I really needed something positive and encouraging.  I screamed so loud that he stopped, though. OOPS! 

3-year-old Thomas has done some really sweet things lately.  Last week while we were in the grocery store I spontaneously hugged him, and he smiled and said, “Awww, I love you Mommy!”  *melt*  Another day when his brother woke up from his nap Thomas said, “There’s Percy!  He’s my favorite brother!  Percy’s my best friend!”  What more could a mother want?