Far, Then Near, Then Far

Who's been teaching my kid synonyms for the dirty-dirty?

THE ASH: Henry, what are your trains doing? What are your trains doing?

THE HOLMES: Fornicating?

HENRY: Boinking?

Wha? Where he got that silly word from is a mystery. This term, "boinking," we do not use this word in our house. Also a mystery is what possessed me to blurt out that the trains were fornicating. We all know that trains, like teenagers who have had abstinence-only sex education, don't engage in that sort of thing. Unheard of. Maybe I was secretly hoping that Henry would pick up on it and start repeating it at random, and I could be all "that's right, four syllables baby."

Oh, and check this out. This is a picture of Henry playing his newest game:

It's called Blind Thomas Bumper Ghost. The object is to walk around underneath a Thomas blanket and not bash your head into a doorknob or fall down the stairs or otherwise injure yourself in a manner that could have been avoided if you didn't have a blanket over your head and could see. I suppose I could have done something more to intervene besides steering him away from the more dangerous blocks in his path, but that would have ruined the fun for everybody. Every obstaculary encounter was met with an examination of the obstacle in question and a stoic declaration of "I'm okay!", followed by immediate return to gameplay. I want to believe there was a time when I was this easily amused.

One of those wholesome family days

So even though it was like a bazillion degrees here in lovely Austin, Texas today, los Holmeses managed to get out to Zilker Park early and catch the Zilker Zephyr. Catching the train isn't really that impressive of an accomplishment since it runs every half hour or so, but the fact that we made it down there several hours before noon is really quite amazing.

I hereby decree that all cities should have a park with a train that the kids can ride. It really should be recognized for the urban necessity that it is, like utilities and public transit. Henry had a good time watching the park go by, and waving at all the folks big and small, even the guitar-harmonica dude that apparently just stands at a particular bend in the track waiting for the train to pass so he can play a quick tune for the passengers as they go by. With every group of human beings that we passed, Henry pointed and excitedly informed me that they were, in fact, "People! People!"

After the train, we let little dude chase a few pigeons around, then run wild on the playground for a bit to burn off some of that crazy baby energy. I'm one of those dads who would often like to be right there on the playground equipment with the kiddos, but they're usually so crowded with, you know, other people's kids that I'm paranoid about barreling one of them over with my clumsy self while running for the monkey bars. Today though, even though there were a lot of kids at the park, there were surprisingly few actually on the playground, which I took as license to get up on it.

On the way out, I just had to get a picture of Henry on Philosopher's Rock. Three old dudes sitting around hashing out the meaning of existence. If I have my way, that's exactly the kind of old dude I'll grow into.