The Train Table

You may or may not know that Santa Claus brought Landon a train table for Christmas. I did lots of research before I gave him the list and decided on a small square train table that converts to a Lego table and is much smaller than the other tables I saw. Plus, it got awesome reviews. Unfortunately, Mommy chose wrong and Landon showed little interest in this table. His entertainment was taking the pieces apart and sliding them through the hole and then requesting (well, demanding) that we pick up the top of the table so that he could retrieve the parts. I admit that I regretted not getting (ahem, asking Santa)the larger table. My regret dramatically increased one day as Jimmy and I took Landon to Toys R Us to buy a birthday gift. He laid eyes on the larger train table and we couldn't pull him away from it. Well, I bargained with Jimmy and we decided to sell the table from Santa to a friend and we bought the larger table. It was the first big gift that we bought for Landon and Jimmy and I were so excited for him to wake up one morning to find his new present. It took us 2 nights to build this table and as Jimmy and I carefully placed the pieces in their proper place on the table we knew that we were in for trouble. First off, putting the track together was quite a task. We decided at that moment to do everything in our power to stop him from taking the track apart (particularly after we tossed the instructions in the garbage can). Jimmy watched me carefully place the train conductor with the train station and said, "this is going to make you crazy!" See, my husband is well aware that in my brain, everything has a place. There is a bucket that holds Landon's bigger cars that go on the "road carpet" that he has and the small cars go in another bucket. Balls have their own basket and small toys go in the drawers under the toy box. Well, the small toys go in one side and Mr. Potato Head and his accessories go in the other drawer. Do you see where this is going?

Now I will tell you that my child has picked up a bit on my neuroticism, but please make no mistake, Jimmy may not care which toys go in which basket but my dear husband, not long ago, asked me if my friend and I were making drinks while she was visiting because the bottles in his game room were out of place. He also knew that Rocky and a dog that came to our house to play with Rocky (yes, I used to have play dates for Rocky) was running near his grill because it was a bit crooked. Yes my friends, it's not just me...

Anyway, so here is my message to my beautiful little boy...

"Dear Landon,

I am so happy that you love your train table. But, is it necessary to take the train track apart, any time you have an unsupervised moment, and put it in the laundry basket or heaven forbid, in the basket that is supposed to hold balls? It really gets to a point where Mommy has no idea where the pieces belong. I don't mind so much that you want to put the gas station attendant in the place of the train station attendant, but must you make your train bust through the train station taking out all of the little trees and the people who are positioned so nicely? And the helicopter pad... how is the helicopter supposed to land when all that is there are poles that are meant to hold the landing spot? And on that note, the helicopter always seems to disappear in the drawer or under the train table. What do you have against helicopters? I'm sure you can understand that this causes your Mother unnecessary stress. I just hope that you an consider my feelings. That is all.

Love, Your Neurotic Mother"