Letters to our Children: Gavin

Hello my sweet boy...

It is no surprise to anyone who knows you that you thoroughly enjoy, love, and cherish your trains. ("I love trains!" was the first thing that came out of your mouth the other night when Dad said "say anything" as he recorded you---we were testing out our video camera to make sure it was working properly!) You currently have two separate set of trains; one is the larger, plastic, Thomas the Train set of tracks, trains, train cars, bridges, etc. The second set is one that was given to me by a friend when she quit teaching (she taught Kindergarten and kept this smaller, wooden set in her classroom.) You love them both--in fact the Thomas set traveled with us to Florida for Uncle Derrick and Aunt Bailey's wedding. (It entertained you in a not so child-friendly beach house, which was its purpose. :)) However, you most recently have become very attached to your "small" train set. When they were kept at my classroom, each time you came to visit you would head straight for the closet doors and would ask for the four baskets of wooden train tracks, bridges, and train cars. One day you were so upset at leaving the trains, I figured we could just bring them home "for the weekend." That "weekend" turned into weeks, then months, then eventually I ended up bringing all of the other baskets home to stay with us forever! It was the best thing we could have done, as those four plastic baskets have merged into one huge basket that permanently resides in our living room. Every day you build at least one track, sometimes more, and I often don't have the heart to disassemble it at the end of the day, so it may stay for a day or two. I have loved, loved, LOVED, watching you play with your trains. I feel like it gives me a small glimpse of how your precious little mind is working. You take your track building very seriously and have worked so hard at learning how to build them yourself, complete with bridges and criss-crosses. You always try to make a "really huge train" too with all of your train cars attached to the engine, with a caboose on the end. I see you solve the problem of the train cars repelling from one another and you swiftly spin one of them around and continue on throughout the rest of the train, spinning and connecting. I love it!

Now, as much as I love watching you play with your trains and as much as I enjoy playing trains with you--I am certainly not the master train track builder in our family. That role is filled by Dad. He is much better at it than I am (it must be his engineer, problem solving mind!) and when you ask me to make a track, I stick to the basics. I get great ideas of curvy loops and bridges and criss-crosses, but I cannot ever make them come to fruition. However, the other day you wanted me to recreate one of the best train tracks that Dad has ever made with these little wooden tracks (it had 3 loops and used all 3 of the bridges--quite a challenge!) I looked at you and said "oh, that's pretty tricky. I'm not very good at it...Dad is much better at it than I am." You looked right back at me and said "just try. Just try, Mom." Um, how can I argue with that?! (In a flash this total "Mom" thought whipped through my brain: "Aren't I always the one encouraging him to try new things?? (new food, dressing himself, etc., etc.) That certainly isn't going to go away, so what kind of example would I be setting if I did not try to build him this train track. Shouldn't he see that I believe in myself enough to do this for him?" etc. etc. etc.) So, we dove in and tried it. We worked together and we did it! We made a rather awesome train track, if I may be so bold. I was SO proud of it, you loved it....so I took pictures of it. Then I took pictures of the two of us with the train track. Then I looked at you, my sweet boy, and thanked you for encouraging me to try it, even when I didn't think I could do it. You believed in me, even when I didn't believe in myself.  Thank you, my sweet Gavin!

Love you forever and always,
Mom