ROBOT SMALL

Tip for Parenting a 21 month old: Do not ever show your young and impressionable child the YOU TUBE. Especially YOU TUBE of his favorite thing in the whole wide world, TRAINS.

Trains are a pretty common thing for little boys to be interested in, I guess... Since when am I the child expert?! But when the daycare lady hinted that Ivo was a little more obsessed with trains than she had previously seen, and she has had a whole army of kids in and out of her daycare for years... I started to worry.

Yes, the first thing he says when he wakes up in the morning every single morning is "BIG TRAIN."

Yes, the last book he reads at night is THOMAS THE MAGIC RAILROAD. By the way, this is seriously the most psychotic book I have ever read in my whole life, and it is written in such a way that you JUST CAN NOT UNDERSTAND IT, even though all the sentences are written correctly, and in English, with subjects and verbs, but the thoughts are so fragmented and schizophrenic that you might as well be reading Henry Dargers monsterpiece, "In the Realms of the Unreal." Look for a book review later this month.

Yes, he listens for trains at random times during the day... dead-stopping what he is doing and going into pointer dog mode, and (THE BEST) holding a tiny finger to his tiny lips and saying, "SSSHHH. Listen... (cupping his hand behind his ear)... BIG TRAIN."

Ah, Thomas, you demonic train, may you just be a P-H-A-S-E.