ROOKIE MISTAKE

October 10, 2007 by
Filed under: Around DC, preschoolers 

Note to self: make sure your child is really excited about something before you travel 2 hours for it.

Last summer I learned that Thomas the Tank Engine was coming to Cumberland, Maryland. Conor loves Thomas and I was excited that a full-size Thomas existed. I read that it makes stops all over the country to historical railroad stations. So, wanting to give my child a wonderful experience, I bought tickets online… and then looked at a map. Cumberland is FAR from Bethesda where we live, as in about 2 hours and 15 minutes… and that’s without stopping. Still I thought, Conor will love this, he deserves this.

We talked about it with Conor who was 2 ½ at the time and he seemed to like the idea.

We set out that Saturday and after driving for a full hour out I- 270 Conor announced to us, “I do not want to ride the train”.

My throat closed up. I couldn’t breathe. My husband gripped the steering wheel. We didn’t look back at Conor, we just looked at each other. John took a deep breath, and mouthed, ‘relax’. I took a moment and looked back at Conor and cheerily said, “We’re just going to take a look at it, I think it will be fun!”

Another hour and 15 minutes later we were in Cumberland. The railroad was great, but we were holding our breath. We walked without saying much up to Thomas and waited in line to board. I brought a small Thomas along with us that Conor played with while we waited in line. As he played with the mini version of what stood beside us, John and I just kept looking at each other and crossing our fingers.

We boarded the train, Conor was a little fidgety, but cool. The train started, “We’re on!” I thought. Thomas the Tank Engine then went about 10 minutes down the track, then stopped and then went in reverse back to the station. Honestly, Conor liked running around the little hay-bale maze afterwards much better.

FAST FORWARD TO LAST MONTH-

I got an email that a movie theater was doing a special debut of a few new Thomas episodes at 10am on a Saturday in Gaithersburg.

So, I looked at a map… THEN I bought the tickets. We went, NO traffic since it was Saturday morning. We bought popcorn, watched Thomas on the big screen and had a great time.

I learned from my rookie mistake and didn’t repeat it… Yey- Victory!

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