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Choo Choo Day For My Birthday Boy

Friday gone was Felix's 2nd birthday. In keeping with last year's post here's an updated montage of photos taken exactly a year apart. I'm starting to wish we'd found a better position for the shot, as it's proves harder each year to keep him still long enough. It's going to be interesting to see whether I can get him to agree to the photo each year throughout his adolesensce.

felix_0-2

Although the difference between 1 and 2 isn't as obvious as between 0 and 1 I think the obvious change is from baby in to boy. Oh, and he's got teeth now too. Having a boy makes you realise it's no coincidence it's boisterous and not girlstrous.

For his birthday I took the day off work and we all (Granny and Granddad included) caught the choo choo to (Old) York.

intrain

Felix is obsessed with anything choo choo. Sitting on the table in one and watching everything rush by seemed to make him as happy as Larry. Little did he know that when we got there we'd be going to the National Railway Museum.

ontrain

In the shot above he's on the class of (if not the) train that his Great Great (Great?) Grandad, Solomon Howlett, was the fireman on at the turn of the last century.

Needless to say he loved it.

It's always amazed me that he's so in to trains. How can he have any concept of what they are? Apart from a trip on the Eurostar to Paris, which I don't think he'll remember, he had never actually been on one before Friday or seen that many in real life. Somehow the Thomas franchise must have a real grip over young boys.

Comments

    • avatar
    • Philip King
    • Mon 15 Dec 2008 07:58 AM

    I used to love the railway museum in York, it seemed huge as to me as a child.

    Back in the UK later this week, any chance you are in the city at all?

    //Philip

    • avatar
    • Jake Howlett
    • Mon 15 Dec 2008 08:27 AM

    London? Not likely. Get yourself to Shottingham. It's where it's at.

  1. @ Philip - Sounds like a nasty bug is going around London - keep clear!

    Great photos Jake. I remember riding on a working steam locomotive at Huckleberry Rail Road near Flint, Michigan, as a boy... loved the smell... till I got a cinder in my eye. It was coal fired and a rough ride in open carriages, but what a neat thing to do. I also got to ride on the last run of a restored "modern" era steamer, I think it was the 611, from Ypsilanty, MI to Ft. Wayne, Indiana, when I was about 12. I'll never forget it. That was the last run for that steamer, it's in a museum now. At the yard in Ft. Wayne, we all got off and were allowed to place copper pennies on the rail as the train came by for a photo op - we then went looking for our coppers, flat as pancakes, some of them never seen again.

  2. All my daughter asked Santa for this year (she is almost 3) is a Train. ???!!???!!???? She has seen a handfull of Thomas videos, but watches Bob the Builder and Dora the Explorer religiously... yet.. wants a train for x-mas.... and that is all she has asked for. No backback, no tractor, no hard hat... just a train.

    Seems to me, kids just love trains!!

  3. I was at that train museum earlier this year when I was in the UK on my honeymoon. Great place! I can definitely understand why the kids love it. We also got lucky in that we actually got to see one of the steam trains being let out on the tracks through York for a run. It went under a bridge right near our B&B.

    • avatar
    • Caroline
    • Tue 16 Dec 2008 02:00 AM

    We took Alex for his 3rd birthday on Hallowe'en this year. He liked the trains but he and big brother James (5) seemed more interested in the Thomas they have parked near Eurostar and the playpark outside. Oh well! Mummy and Daddy liked the big trains, in particular the Royal Trains.

    • avatar
    • Ben
    • Tue 16 Dec 2008 06:43 PM

    I don't know what it is with kids and trains either - my 2.5 y/o son's also obsessed with them. Which is fine by me - trains are awesome :-)

    Ben

  4. Forgot to mention - last time I took my two preschool girls to a toy store, it wasn't the stuffed kitties or horse's or dolls... it was the wooden trains. Doug and Melissa make a decent train set for about $100 with enough parts to keep Dad interested. :-)

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Written by Jake Howlett on Mon 15 Dec 2008

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