Christmas Trains

My little guy loves, loves trains right now.  He reads the Polar Express every night before bed and sometimes throughout the day.  And he constantly talks about going to "Willem's/Neil's/Maka's house to play trains".

For several months before Christmas I had been doing my research on trains.  Ha.  Sometimes I admittedly get a little obsessive about things.  I had looked on craigslist and online and kept my eye out for the right thing for him. I had talked to my "expert" friends about different types of train sets.  I finally found the "perfect" thing -- I found a set at a children's resale store.  About a week before Christmas, Jared and I got the set out and decided what exactly we would give him for Christmas, changed the batteries on the parts that needed them and then packed it up to take to Utah.

The next week I was frantically packing clothes and Christmas gifts and, without communicating with Jared, figured that he was going to put the trains he had packed into the car.

About 5 hours in to our 7+ hour trip, Jared started asking what we had done for everyone for Christmas and what we had brought for the kids (we had left a few things under the tree for when we returned).  Side note:  Someday I hope that the Christmas planning and buying will be a little more of a shared thing, but really we usually set a budget and I do the rest. "You packed the trains, right?" I asked.  Silence.  "Me? Was I supposed to?"

As silly as it sounds, I started to cry.

It was the only thing we had for him for Christmas morning and I was so excited about him getting it.  I was probably a bit stressed as well, but I cried and cried.  Even while I was crying I knew it was silly.

Eventually we got to my parent's house and I stopped crying.

Christmas morning came and both Jake & I survived without the wooden train set.  Luckily, my mom had a few things up her sleeve to make him feel special.

He got the set as soon as we returned and has played with it every day since.