The Train Table

Do you remember a few months back when I wrote about how sometimes love means tolerating each others' meltdowns? One of the biggest fights we've ever had came when Tracy covered our living room in black rubber mats to protect our son's head when it would inevitably hit the floor as he toddled on his wobbly one year old legs. I've never wanted a living room that looked like a playroom. There are toys in my living room but they are in baskets that fit into our decor and look like they could easily contain adult items. Not adult adult items. You know what I mean.

Lately Mac has been obsessed with trains. Or choo-choos as he adorably calls them. Obsessed in the way that only a toddler can. We're talking shaking and squealing with delight at the mere glimpse of any train. Toy or real.

If Tracy and I could wrap up all the trains in the world and drop them at his feet we would. But I was less keen on the idea of actually putting a train table in my living room. In comparison, Tracy was itching to get out her craft supplies super-butch-power tools and build our train-obsessed boy his very own choo-choo.

And so, like any couple in a healthy relationship, we discussed it calmly and rationally. Just kidding. We got into a pretty big melt-down-y fight about it. I desperately wanted it anywhere else. She felt like I was trumping her in the decision department. It was bad.

Finally, we came to an agreement that she could build it for him but it would go in his room (where he rarely plays and only goes to sleep). She wasn't particularly happy with this outcome. I wasn't particularly happy with her pouting.

Begrudgingly she went shopping for supplies at the craft store hardware store. And then set out to start painting, cutting, sanding, re-appholstering, and assembling our son's very own train table. Our house is small so there was no hiding the process from Mac. And I watched as, at every step along the way, his tiny little hands shook with excitement and his knees buckled beneath him. His eyes grew wild and then he smiled so big that they disappeared completely.

When it was all done my wife looked at me with big, brown, pleading puppy dog eyes. And my son looked at the table like he had just won the lottery. And, in Tracy, he truly did.

Consequently, we are now the proud owners of living room with a loving-ly built train table smack dab in the middle of it all. Sorry friends who want a place to put a drink down for the next few years. If you had seen their eyes you would have done the same thing.