Grammar! And Thomas.

This whole child rearing thing is pretty fascinating. Every day is a new adventure, and these kiddos pick up new skills every hour. A few weeks ago, Everett started speaking in complete sentences, with nouns and verbs and all that jazz! I can ask him what he did while I was at work that day, and he can answer in a somewhat coherent manner (except he was talking about walking on the roof the other day, so I should probably check in with the babysitter on that one). It is hard to believe how fast he is growing!

Then there are other things about kids at this stage that just baffle me. For example, what the heck is the deal with Thomas the Train? Why do kids think he's so special? I read Everett a Thomas story ONE TIME and the kid is friggin' hooked. Just this morning, he was dragging Jeff by the hand to the living room, pointing at the TV and saying, "Watchin' na Thomas!" It is consuming him.

Any adult who has watched an episode of Thomas the Train can agree with me when I say that Thomas is kind of a tool. I mean, he never does what he's told, his unruly actions cause extensive damage to the railway, he gets in everyone's way, he is full of himself, and to top it all off, his actions are enabled because, despite the damage that ensues, everything always ends up just fine at the end of each episode. I won't go into details or bore you with an example, but I think the show is incredibly frustrating to watch.

However, Everett loves it. And I can think of worse role models for a kid...

Source

And I can honestly say the two books we broke down and bought for him are much less frustrating than the shows. The one below is more about pictures of trains, Christmas, and rhyming, and the other is about being brave. So the TV shows do not air too frequently in our household. However, at least Everett has something he loves to keep him out of trouble...although he did get his toy train (pictured above the clown) stuck in his hair the other day, which caused a bit of drama. That aside, it turns out I have another great bribing mechanism for this kiddo: "You don't want to go to bed? What if I read you a Thomas book?" Works every time!

His most recent obsession: Thomas' Night Before Christmas.