Choo Choo Train June 1 - 26, 2005 About a historical railroad in Felton, Tom learning to read, and grandfather's arrival

	Tommy is fascinated by the engine ... and scared.

I'm sure that you must be somewhat bored by my whining about the most beautiful time in any woman's life, but stay with me for another paragraph, please. Every time I tell myself it can't get any worse, Mother Nature convinces me otherwise. Hence to all my other pleasures, I added swellings. I have been unable to pull down my wedding ring, and in the evening I'm altogether able to half sit - half lie - with my feet up. Only Sid's t-shirt can accommodate my belly now, and I often have a problem to discern on photographs whether the familiar shape (widest in the middle) is me or my two-hundred-and-sixty pound Hippo. I had never loved house chores, but occasional moping up did not seem such a problem, until recently. Well, it's not been a problem even now, but with a medicine ball in place of my waist, I no longer manage the preparation phase -- i.e. collecting thousands of Tom's toys and general stuff, which our junior liberally distributes throughout our home.

I have been only so-so able to go on family outings, trying to ignite in Sid even a spark of enthusiasm for trips to our nearest surroundings. There are not that many places to go for a beached whale. So far I have managed to lure him out to Roaring Camp Railroads in Felton, promising him a curious steam engine. Roaring Camp was founded in 1830's by Isaak Graham. In 1842 Graham built here a first log mill west of Mississippi. A part of local redwood trees was preserved from cutting and only twenty five years later they became the first protected coastal redwood growth.

	Dixiana.

We owe it to Mr. Clark -- his wife Georgiana, actually -- for preserving the historical railroad. Her husband died shortly after he purchased and opened Santa Cruz, Big Trees & Pacific Coast Railway Company in 1985 - and so she took over at the helm of the enterprise. The company gradually obtains and restores historical railroad engines. The most famous among them is Dixiana Shay. Lima Locomotive Works had probably never regretted to employ Mr. Ephraima Shaye - the designer of the most popular geared engines used among western logging companies. Shay made use of three vertical cylinders mounted just ahead of cab on the right hand side, which instead of directly driving the wheels, drive a horizontal crankshaft connected to a lineshaft, and transferring power to all axles. The engine is designed to master up to ten degrees of slope, at the price of slower speed limit. Individual machines were custom made, and none among the 2,761 engines built between 1880 and 1945 are exactly alike. Dixiana left gates of Lima Locomotive Works as number 2,593 on October 12, 1912. Before reaching California, she served on six short lines, including the famous Smokey Mountain Railroad, but she was named after now abandoned narrow-gauge mining railroad in Dixiana, Virginia.

	Close-up of the steam engine and gears.

My plan to entertain the male part of our family worked out apparently well. Tommy was afraid to get closer to the noisy engine and demanded to keep a respectful distance, but since then he understands that a steam engine makes choo-choo-choo-choo hoooooooo. I'm not entirely sure if he was not entertained by geese and ducks on a local pond, and by walking atop a fence more than by historic technology, but he certainly had fun.

Taking Tom to the ocean shore became a routine. When we do, it's an internal fight between a worried mother, who is disquieted by the water temperature and subsequently by the temperature of a soaked child, and a proud mother of an attentive and nimble offspring. Tommy has discovered the magic of low tide pools and points his finger at attractions from the underwater world -- snails, stars, anemones, tiny crabs, mussels and various kelp -- and he runs from one pool to the next, shouting with joy. So far we failed to raise his interest for sand and mud pies, but since neither one of us parents would normally sit in one place anyway, it seems that we passed it on to him. I'm not trying to deny at all here that at this whiny phase of my pregnancy I would much rather prefer to have a less action-oriented child; nevertheless from a long-term perspective it will be better this way.

	Tom watching geese.

Tom tends to be incredibly active right in the morning. Alas, he expects the same enthusiasm from us. We thought that we take him into our bed and he would happily participate in our process of slow waking up. Not that he would shy away from cozying up, but a few seconds later he crawls out of the bed, brings Sid his glasses and watches from his night-table, and thenafter considers his father up and ready to live. Then he turns to pull me out of my bed by my hand. He almost tolerates changing his diaper, but he impatiently glances towards the fridge, saying "mooooh" (the box with milk sports a picture of a cow), and then "hoooooh" -- that's heating up the milk in microwave. Tom has perfectly mustered all food affairs and parents beware to fall behind the schedule. The other day in our favorite Vietnamese restaurant he would not be bamboozled by crackers, and so he kept on pointing his little finger at the table and an empty soup bowl. His sign language was determined and clear: no crumbs -- bring me my soup into this here bowl as is proper.

It appears that Tom has developed a very good memory -- at a grocery store, when mentioned during my light conversation with my toddler that we need potatoes, Tom marched directly to the correct veggie shelf and actually brought back the correct kind and amount of potatoes. Then he insisted on buying a cucumber -- which I granted him. So I went ahead in experimenting -- and Tom found and bought milk, yogurt and bread. There he hesitated a bit -- we take different kinds, depending on mood, and decision was not so easy. But it really seems he understands it all, even complicated direcions (take grandfather and bring apple juice from the garage). There's just no progress in his speach, but you would not believe how effectively Tom can command the whole family around, using only a handful of words and a multitude of gestures.

	Experts are fixing my computer to make it hum less.

What amused us most when Tom gave us a very efficient weapon against parents and grandparents of all those little geniuses. What if Mary had memorized at Tom's age the whole Humpty Dumpty? Pah! Our kid does not speak, but he can READ!!! In places where sewers run under the sidewalk in our street, there are large S letters embossed in the concrete. Tommy caught fancy in seeing this shape repeat itself at intervals in the sidewalk. Then he discovered that the same sign can be found in books. He asked us a few times, whether g or number 2 are "tc" (as he pronounces it) too, but since then he rarely makes a mistake. It's his attentiveness that is a real problem -- suddenly he starts waving his hands and should excitedly, tc, tc -- and we slow adults then take long time to locate the culprit letter. It's everywhere -- in street signs, on the STOP sign, on our U.S. map in our family room, on food packaging, on our book covers, on sides of passerby trucks... we often get pretty busy to keep up with Tom's "reading".

On the general account of training Tom in various new skills, we "arranged" for him to have a grandfater for a fortnight. Granddad brought Tom a toy tractor that can be disassembled, which had been for two days taken apart and rebuilt with such a devotion that a plastic thread gave and the cab is definitely removed now. We took them to a small airport (hard to say who liked the little planes more) and to the ocean, where Tom demonstrated his new beach shoes with Elmo, and granddad showed Tom skiping pebbles.

	An amazing take-apart tractor will soon give under the attack of our toddler.

Thanks to a full grand-parenting squad, I could give my Hippo leave for a trip. Granddad has not gotten to the Eastern Sierra Nevada during his previous visit in May 2003 due to snow, and so we thought that by the end of June and two years later, an expedition to Mono Lake, Bodie, Virginia Lakes and Eastern Yosemite, could be somewhat more successful. Yet it's been a strange year -- in the middle of June there was a snowstorm in the mountains, and Tioga Pass opened on June 24, i.e. just in time for Gramps' and Hippo's trip.

Granny and I planned an easy ladies-only weekend with Tommy. Suchýš from Prague visited on Friday night, we went over his plans to explore Nevada, and I tried to pry some information on mining engines from him for this journal. I was quite content that granny took care of Tom, and I could sit around and chat. There have been days when I felt quite well, but this Friday was not among them. At ten p.m. Suchýš left, I stumbled to bed at about eleven, where I got regular contractions. When I consulted them over the phone with my doctor, she told me that I was probably in labor and that I should immediately drive to the hospital. I did not want to wake up Tom, and decided to leave him at home with granny. Then there was this problem of my transportation for I was not feeling up to driving and having a baby at the same time. I did not reach any of my residents on standby, locals having either left for the weekend, not picking up the phone; or it seemed dumb to call up someone with their own little kids. There was only Suchýš - childless and peacefully sleeping at a nearby hotelu. He took it as fun -- you will surely agree -- who can have the luck to fly around half the earth on a business trip, just to be available to drive out to assist a delivery. My female friends claim I'm spoiled -- to have a private driver to the hospital come all the way from Europe...

	Granddad teaches Tom at the Pacific Ocean how to throw pebbles.

At the hospital I had to hold the nurses, who were eager to put a wristband on Suchýš -- fathers are issued identification, so that the staff knows to which mother and which baby they belong. I don't know how could Suchýš possibly survive at home if he became a father literally overnight, by chance and without any guilt on his part. After I explained the situation (the happy father to be spends the weekend somewhere near Yosemite, out of the reach off the cellular signal, so he's perfectly clueless; even if he knew, it's about eight hours drive to the place of action), the nurses' admiration to Suchýš only increased. They kept him supplied with blankets an coffee, and tried to make his waiting comfortable. We were waiting to find out if it was a false alarm and we would be going home, or whether I was really having my baby now, in which case Suchýš could drive back to his hotel, to later cope with his Saturday business meetings.

	A family attraction: Palo Alto Airport.

A monitor confirmed my regular contractions, but a more detailed examination showed that I was not to give birt in any immediate future. A nurse said that it could be caused by my cold -- my body has gone haywire and began to react funny. I received an injection to quiet my contraction, and after another hour and my insisting that I WANTED to go home, I was released. Suchýš is of course convinced that our little Hippo wanted to get out into the world just -- I quote -- "to personally meet this lunatic". I am convinced otherwise -- our little girl knows well when she gets outside the reach of her father's authority and she would use this chance to misbehave (for it has happened before).

On Saturday afternoon, Hippo with grandfather finally drove into an area civilized enought to have cell signal, and received my text message, so they arrived shortly before midnight back home. Subsequently our daughter could now be born. My doctor gave me a clearance, we have reached the end of 36th week, which they consider the threshold of full term here, so it's been really just an issue of having Sid around when it happens. Murphy's Law applies, naturally; our daughter has ceased to want to see the world again -- my personal guess is that unless I send Sid out on some trip again, I shall be still pregnant by Christmas time.

Copyright © 2005 by Carol & Sid Paral. All rights reserved.