Playin' Trains With Sadie Grace

The train was for Benny. He ignored it for months, though, so I put it away. Last week he dug it out of the closet and set it up, played with it. The train seemed to experience of renaissance of fashionableness. Benny plays with it by the hour.

Then the other day Sadie disappeared. Couldn't find her anywhere. Heard the little telltale clicketty clack. My my. There she was. Little tiny girl playing with Benny's train. She'd figured out how to make it go forward and backward, how to add and subtract cars, how to put people on the train and take them off. How to roll lumps of coal down into a train car. She was deeply into it at age two.

This morning as soon as her mother and Benny left for Benny's violin lesson, small Sadie Grace said to me, "Tummon, Ahno. Fowwow me," and she stumped upstairs, calling over her shoulder, "Porque!! Tummon, baby dog." To my surprise, Porque obeyed, dashed up the stairs and sat waiting for Sadie who paused to pat little dog and say, "Dood dog. Sit. Stay," as she moved on trainward.

Once in a while she precipitates a terrible accident and then sits there, the image of mock tragedy, throws both hands out to the side, shuts her eyes and throws back her head as she wails, "I tant DO it!" I always say, "Sure you can. Fix the trains and use the controller." She always replies, rolling her eyes dramatically, shaking her nead, "No, Ahno. I tant DO it." So I go ahead and fix everything, ask for the controller, turn on the train and Sadie shrieks joyfully, " I DID it.!"

By now Sadie is in her second hour of train play. She sends the little cars this way and that, runs them off the track and shrieks, "Oh, NO! Wait. I'll det it. LemME fix it." She puts everything back on the track and holds up the controller, "I dot it. I dust LOVE it." She hugs the controller to her heart.