Ever since you’ve gone to Chai Tots, I’ve worked Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and stayed home with you on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Last week I decided to make Tuesdays a day we take the train somewhere.
Last Tuesday we took the R train to the Transit Museum. The train was packed full of commuters, but we found you a seat between two plus sized women with big puffy coats and big hair where no adult sized passenger would fit. It was a tight squeeze even for you, but the women kept you steady through all the rocking turns and starts and stops, squeezed between their jacketed hips. Daddy had to go to the city, so we all rode the R together until you and I got off at Court Street.
It was a terrible day to do anything. We were experiencing the most intolerable of all winter weather patterns, the “Wintry Mix.” This is a mix of rain, sleet, hail, and snow, accompanied by strong winds. It's the type of weather that renders an umbrella completely useless, so you really just have to accept that going outside will make you wet and cold and mad. By the time we got to the subway our mittens were soggy and our pants were drenched from wading through slush. Daddy thought this whole outing was a terrible idea, but my mind was made up. It was the Inaugural Tuesday Train Day, we had to go.
We got off the train and walked a few blocks to the museum, which wasn’t open yet. The Wintry Mix was in full swing, and we huddled in a doorway with two other boys and their babysitter. The boys were 3 and 4, and when I told them it was our first time at the museum they got really excited and started telling you all about it. By the time it opened they had taken you under their wing. They waited patiently for you to work your way down all the stairs, and showed you all their favorite exhibits. There are old turnstiles, trolley cars, buses, stoplights – everything functional and real. Except for the pretend crate of dynamite, which I’m guessing was used to make the tunnels. Keeping up with you didn’t give me much time to read the markers.
Finally, the boys were ready to show you the best part – the trains! We went deeper underground to an old subway station where different kinds of trains sat on the track, from the 1920s onward, their doors open and welcoming. You ran in the first one you saw, climbed in the seat and said, “train go?” And I told you the train couldn’t go, because it was stuck between all the other trains, and we walked to one end of the platform so you could see how the track ran out against the wall. You seemed unconvinced so I told you that all these trains had the day off. That seemed to do the trick. You walked into each train and proclaimed, “this train not go. This train resting.”
The boys told you that there was a train that looked just like James at the far end of the platform and off you went. You deserve to know the truth: that train looked nothing like James. He was red, but that was it. But you were ecstatic, and cried for James when I finally had to carry you away.
I'm not going to lie - the commute home was terrible. The Wintry Mix never let up, so I put you in the ergo to speed up our time outside, but by time we got to the station my fingers were frozen into stiff claws. It took a couple of tries to free my metro card from my pocket, and when I finally swiped it and it blinked "INSUFFICIENT FARE" I wanted to cry. Accessing my wallet would mean taking you out of the ergo, unbuttoning buttons and unzipping various zippers, and there was no way my numb fingers could navigate all that. I got help from a stranger and while I refilled our card you stood at my side, patting my leg and saying, "okay mommy." Maybe I wasn't keeping it together as well as I'd thought. Or maybe you just knew I needed some comfort.
Walking home from the R train, uphill the whole way, your 30 pounds limp in the ergo, my feet slipping backwards through slush as if I were walking up a sand dune, the loathsome Wintry Mix dripping down our faces, I thought that maybe this would be the first and the last Tuesday Train Day. But later that day, you woke up from your nap and said, "go on train?" Go on train with Mommy?" as if it was this fabulous new idea and we hadn't spent our entire day doing just that.
I knew we would do it again. Next Tuesday.
Because I'd need a week to recover.
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