Have you ever seen an 8-year-old levitate with joy? I have. 

Toby’s obsession with tractors began early and hit hard. As a toddler, if a tractor drove past our front bay window (which happens often, as we live in a rural area), he would freeze and watch, slack-jawed with awe. When he was potty-training, there was a construction site we passed on the way to his daycare. If Toby went all day without an accident, we would stop at the site on the way home and watch the bulldozers and excavators. He potty trained very quickly. He really wanted to watch tractors. 

And, guided by his father’s tastes, Toby quickly decided the blood in his veins ran pure John Deere green. In his toddler days, this passion was channeled into his electric John Deere Gator, which was a VERY welcome gift from the farrier who shod my horses way back then. His kids had broken that Gator in pretty well, but Toby pretty much drove the tires off it, with a grin plastered on his face the whole time. 

Then, sadly, the Gator suffered a fatal battery ailment. We mourned it. Intensely. Toby learned to ride his bike, which he enjoys, but it’s not a John Deere. You know, nothing runs like a Deere. 

One of the side-effects of COVID was that our “no screens or TV” lifestyle relaxed a bit, as there were times when Toby needed entertainment and we needed quiet. But, Toby being Toby, he had eclectic tastes in streaming TV as well. See previous blog about his love of a British reality show about farming. And then we discovered ANOTHER British reality show about farming (it’s a genre, apparently). 

Toby has watched the entirety of Season 1 of Clarkson’s Farm, a show about former Top Gear host and British celebrity Jeremy Clarkson taking on the running of his farm, about eight times now. The schtick is that Clarkson is clueless, and comes up with all kids of schemes, and a varied cast of crusty, been-there, done-that rural farmer types roll their eyes at him and clean up his messes.  It is pretty hilarious. Don’t worry, you don’t have to actually watch the show. If you ever see Toby, just ask him to play-act any episode. 

One of the central themes of Clarkson’s Farm is how little money is made by farming, which launched Toby on a business plan of his own for a farm. He’s plotted the farm of his dreams out. He’s spent hours googling prices of tractors, fencing, building supplies, and more. He knows what he will sell, and for what price, and he acknowledges the minimal profit margin. (Though he thinks he’ll be a better businessman as a farmer than Jeremy Clarkson is.) In his mind, all he needs to get started is A TRACTOR. I mean, of course, what’s a farm without a tractor?!

One of Toby and John’s habits is to peruse the boats for sale on Facebook Marketplace in the mornings. Toby somehow convinced John to derail that search into a quest for a John Deere for Toby. They oohed and aahed over rust buckets with traces of green paint left clinging to the steel. They dreamed about the gleaming green steeds with five-figure price tags. And then, they found a compromise between the two – an elderly John Deere riding mower in the “cheap as hell” price range. Toby got excited. 

And then the listing vanished. The “tractor” has sold. Toby was crushed briefly, but then he bounced back. His fervor was renewed, and more feverish. The next Sunday afternoon, I went for a hike with a friend. Tony and John were left to their own devices. As I was driving home, I got a photo texted that said it all. 

They found a rusty ‘90s era John Deere riding motor just down the road amidst a mass of junk that some guy was trying to get rid of. The wife was just thrilled they were taking something away. They weren’t sure if it ran or not. John and Toby got it for free, and John somehow wrestled it into the back of the truck. “Glee” is an understatement for Toby’s state of mind. A vast understatement. 

Once home, they tinkered with the mower a bit, charged the battery, and then fired it up. It started, and ran! Toby toodled down the driveway on it, beaming. We stopped him when he made a turn and the sparks started flying from the undercarriage. Toby dubbed him Curtis. He began to levitate. I believe he slept with his smile plastered to his face that night.

Toby and John worked on Curtis diligently, replacing all kinds of parts to eliminate the sparks, washing him thoroughly, spray painting the rusted parts. Toby then spent every possible moment driving Curtis around the yard.

Don’t get me wrong, Curtis is actually useful. Toby hooks up the old garden wagon to him and totes yard tools and debris hither and yon. One entire afternoon was dedicated to practicing backing Curtis plus the wagon, investigating the angles. 

And now Toby is on a mission to make his small, 20-hp, 30-year-old riding mower into a tractor capable of farming multiple acres. His solution = implements. He’s asked how we might install a PTO into Curtis. He has a list made of attachments he’d like to acquire for Curtis. He’s wondering if the farmer who farms the land behind us would be willing to let him take over a few of the acres. He’s got Jeremy Clarkson-sized plans, but he doesn’t have a Lamborghini tractor like Clarkson does (no joke!). He’s got Curtis.

But… Toby’s also been drawing and dreaming.

We made it quite a few years without Toby actually watching any TV, but this pandemic certainly has broken us. Every now and then we turn him loose with the Amazon Prime account on my computer and let him indulge.

But he’s not watching cartoons, or any other popular kids’ shows. No, this kid is addicted to bingeing an old BBC reality show about Scottish farmers. This Farming Life showed up in my suggestions after we watched the new edition of All Creatures Great and Small together (LOVED it!), so we gave it a go. He was instantly hooked, and I have to admit, I am too. It’s a good show. With GORGEOUS scenery of Scotland, tons of animals, and typically gruff personalities featured.

THE SCENERY! To die for.

It’s hilarious, as if Toby watches an episode without me, he’ll gleefully fill me on on the adventures of each farming family (each season follows four or five families through a season). He talks about the elderly couple Sybil and George like they’re old friends.

On rainy weekends, Toby and I will pop some popcorn and hit play on Farming Life, checking in as the lambs are evaluated for the meat market, the farmers navigate all kinds of mechanical and animal disasters, and yes, the sheep and cows breed and give birth. There’s a LOT of breeding and giving birth, which is par for the course with a reality show about farming.

As the series has continued, John and I have been sure various scenes would spark questions from Toby about the facts of life. I mean, in the second episode of season 1, one character grabs the balls of numerous sheep at a sale to evaluate their testicles as she needs a male sheep for her herd.

No questions from Toby.

Thankfully, the farmer’s fiancé joking about how a ram’s job is “a jump and three pumps” was delivered in an accent thick enough that I could make up an alternative.

We see multiple births of a wide variety of species. This is a kid who used to believe that all animals hatched from an egg. And he’s watching calves get forcibly yanked from cows a couple of times an episode. I mean, who doesn’t wonder about the logistics and reasoning of that?

Toby takes assisted calving in stride. No questions about the miracle of birth.

In the “on the next episode” of one we watched together, they previewed the one farmer collecting a bull’s semen and then inseminating his cows with AI. That night, my friends, I hit Amazon and ordered some “educational” books because I was sure, nay certain, that this subject matter would ignite the reproductive questions.

But I was saved by a further progression of subject matter in that next episode. Why was that farmer collecting his bull’s semen, you might ask? It’s because his prized bull BROKE HIS PENIS while servicing a cow. I mean, he was pretty graphic about what happened. It involved a hematoma. Even I was wincing. And he talked about how now the bull can’t “service the cows naturally” but that they collect semen for artificial insemination.

Toby certainly has discussed the broken penis idea in the time since we viewed that episode. We had to talk about if it happens to men, and how it might happen (I kept it general.).

BUT NOT ONE QUESTION about “insemination” or “servicing.” Apparently a broken penis is more fascinating than reproduction.

He watched the first episode of season 2 on his own the other day. As he was giving me the update on each farmer, he brought up testicles again. Apparently, one bull had a problem as one testicle swelled and the other atrophied. The bull “couldn’t go in the field with the cows anymore,” according to Toby. And yet he still hasn’t made the leap to asking about why, or what the bull might do in that field of cows.

Maybe he knows somehow already? Maybe he’s just avoiding asking? Could this warp his future romantic life?

I have no idea. All I know is there are two and a half seasons full of testicles and birth and mating left of Farming Life, and John and I have got the books ready. Wish us luck. I do know that if we use a euphemism, it won’t be the birds and the bees.

Leading up to Christmas this year, it was a real puzzle whether Toby still believes in Santa. He’d talk about what he’d like Santa to bring, and he had tons of logistical questions about Santa and his processes. But he’s pretty bright, and there have been definite inadvertent clues. It’s certainly possible that he has doubts. He knows for sure that the “sit-on-his-lap” Santas are just representatives. 

I told John it’s actually quite possible he’s caught on to the myth and is just playing us, making us dance the little Santa dance for entertainment. I wouldn’t put it past him.

It’s hard to concoct a Santa scenario when everyone’s home, all. the. time. The vast majority of Toby’s requests from Santa came from his lifetime favorite tractor catalog. This year he upped his game from marking up the paper catalog to creating a shopping list on their website. I assured him Santa could access it. And then I had to create another account on their website to order all the items; I actually added a few small things like a few of the Schleich animals he uses in his tractor play. For fun, I threw in a longhorn steer to the cart.

I made a very brief foray into my own youth when I found some handmade tack items for Schleich horses on Etsy, and I had Breyer horse flashbacks as I selected a saddle, bridle, and halter/lead. 

I did panic a bit over the question of the truck model. Toby loves the 1988 Ford 250 that John bought at the start of 2020. I mean, he loves that truck with a passion. He told me he wanted a version of the truck in his preferred tractor size (1/32) to play with with all his other trucks and tractors. Just like “his” truck.

I searched. And searched. And searched. There are lots of diecast Ford truck models out there, but none of an ’88 and definitely none of an ’88 in 1/32 scale. The closest I could come was a 1979 in 1/24 scale in close to the right color. It would have to do. I ordered it. Next time Toby discussed the model truck and his Santa hopes for it, I told him that Santa might have some trouble tracking down exactly the same truck in exactly the right size. He looked at me like I was an idiot and said, “What are you talking about, the elves will make it exactly right. That’s what they do!” Touché. Touché. (Dammit.)

I had the majority of the Santa loot shipped to a kind neighbor to keep Toby from seeing the package arrive at the house from the tractor catalog place. He kept an eagle eye on packages, so I think it was a worthy precaution. As I wrapped gifts, I stashed them under the guest bed, and I think he found them. But I didn’t include any Santa gifts there. For those, I waited until John and Toby were out hunting, retrieved them all from the neighbors, and wrapped them frantically in the sole new roll of wrapping paper I bought this year, the one I didn’t let Toby see. The Santa gifts and stocking stuffings went into the guest shower, with the curtain drawn. I don’t think he found them there. Fingers crossed. He definitely checked a lot of places we’ve hidden things in the past.

It all seemed to go according to plan on Christmas Eve and Day. Toby left not only a note for Santa, but also a riddle question (and told Santa that if he wanted to know the answer, he’d have to wake Toby up. Tricky.). He also left a list of questions like how old Santa is and how many elves there are. The offerings included the ritual cookies and eggnog. 

John assumed the role of Santa, writing the answer to Toby’s riddle and another riddle back to him, and answering all the questions (we googled the answers) in cursive, which is as disguised as we can write. Toby seemed to accept that Santa had written the responses, and he was delighted with the answers. He was thrilled to see his tractor wish list come to life on Christmas morning, and apparently didn’t notice the scale and year discrepancy on “his” truck model. Victory! Santa lives.

But the real kicker came about a week after Christmas, after some pretty intense tractor scene play. Toby told me casually that he’s impressed at how well Santa reads his mind. I asked what he meant, and he told me that a few weeks before Christmas, he’d been playing with his Schleich cows, and he’d said to himself, “I really wish I had a cow with bigger horns.” 

“And Santa must have heard me somehow!” he said, with a distinct tone of wonder in his voice, the very wonder that used to haunt his Santa discussions in years previous and had seemed to be fading. “I didn’t put it on my list or tell him. He just heard me think it!”

That impulse buy of a longhorn is paying off dividends. All the hoops I jumped through and contortions I made to keep Santa going this year, and a damn plastic cow wins the day. Take the wins where you can find them! I was feeling a bit of thrill, then I realized it all starts all over again, and I have to conjure up Santa again next year. Only 356 days to go!

For the first five or so years of his life, Toby had no idea McDonald’s served food. He’d been through the drive-through many times with me, but as far as he knew, the place was a giant soda fountain, as all I ever got was Diet Coke (trust me, McD’s Diet Coke is better somehow). As a family, we don’t eat much fast food at all. 

One day when Toby was about 5, he and John had been fishing and gave me a call on the way home. Toby gleefully told me that he’d had THE BEST lunch, with really good chicken fingers and “so good French fries!” I had a sneaking suspicion where they might have dined. Then Toby told me his meal “came in a cute little box, and there was A TOY in there, too!” The delight in his voice was palpable. John was chuckling nervously in the background.

“Toby, did you have a Happy Meal?” I asked. “Why, YES, mom, it WAS a happy meal,” my son replied without any sense of irony or catch-phrase. John burst out laughing, yet was still aware of the severe disapproval that lurked under my amusement. Apparently they’d both developed a severe case of the hangry and McDs was the only game in town.

Toby still raves about that first McDs meal. He’s also become enchanted with their cheeseburgers, as he and John sneak around behind my healthy-food-dedicated back and indulge themselves every now and then. We eat a lot of chicken, salmon, and broccoli. His main guilty pleasure is pasta. He’d eat pasta for every meal if he could. Straight up, no sauce. Sometimes it doesn’t even have to be warm.

Toby lives a bit of a monastic life compared to most 7-year-olds. His world has not included television until very recently, when quarantine life has called for some desperate measures. He’s probably the only kid who has gone to two Paw Patrol live shows never having actually seen an episode of the show. He has read the books though! He’s never played a video game. 

Toby’s lack of exposure to TV has for sure helped him be innovative in his playing and ensured he enjoys the outdoors, but it’s also created a few hurdles I didn’t anticipate. In the summer after his kindergarten year, Toby went to his old daycare for the days, and they had weekly field trips. One day, Toby told me they were going to a movie theater to see Penguins of Madagascar. “Is it scary, mom?” he asked me. I had no idea, never having seen it. But how scary could it be? It’s an animated movie about penguins! “Not scary at all. You’ll be fine,” I told him.

Well, apparently there’s an evil octopus in Penguins of Madagascar. Didn’t see that one coming. 

All other kids, immune to a little theatrical bad-guy suspense due to their experience with the genre, were enjoying the movie. Toby? Toby was hysterically sobbing and terrified by the octopus and had to be escorted out of the theater and returned to daycare. Ooops. He still occasionally brings up that I lied to him about the penguin movie. “It WAS scary, mom.”

With quarantine becoming our new norm, we have resorted to letting Toby stream some shows occasionally. There is only so much Lego play an only child can do alone while his parents are work-from-homing. His new kick is Dirty Jobs, which he’s enjoying immensely. It’s also led to some interesting dinner-table talk, as he tells us of sewer cleaning and “how they put baby cows into tubes and then put them into a mommy cow.” So my kid hasn’t had the birds-and-bees talk yet, but he’s watched a little artificial insemination. Eh, there’s worse parenting, right?!

As a child, I wasn’t allowed much TV myself. I never watched cartoons, and the only shows I remember from my youth are Little House on the Prairie, which I was somehow allowed to watch, and the Lawrence Welk show, which I watched when I was with my grandmother. I have very vivid memories of the bubble-filled dance floor. I can only imagine what Toby’s memories are going to be—the interior of sewers, chimney sweeping, the life of an avian vomitoligist (really. season 1, episode 17)—with this Dirty Jobs bingeing. I can just picture him trying to find common ground with his peers as a teenager. It’ll be interesting.

The other night we ordered Chinese takeout from a place we just discovered. We usually get Thai food, or Mexican, when we order out. We hadn’t realized Toby had actually lived to be 7 years old before he first had Chinese food. It became obvious when he was surprised and delighted by the iconic boxes. And then the fortune cookies?! That sent him over the top. 

It’s becoming clear that the real fun part of depriving your child for years isn’t necessarily their keen ability to self-entertain or their lack of interest in screentime. The real reward is that every so often, you get to really blow their mind. 

#thetoby has a burning desire to catch a leprechaun. Burning with the intensity of a thousand suns. Last year, his obsession reached new heights with construction of a trap, the lure of some coins, and a LOT of conversation about how the leprechaun would be captured.

We fed the flames of his quest by leaving plenty of evidence of a leprechaun on St. Paddy’s Day morning last year. We’d been caught relatively unaware of the elaborate nature of his trap and the parental demands of St. Patrick’s Day, resulting in a late-night trip to Dollar General and liberal application of cheap four-leaf clover decorations. We blamed Biscuit for the leprechaun’s escape, explaining that she must have heard him, come downstairs, and scared him away. He accepted that as fact and was beyond delighted at the debris/proof of leprechaun life. 

And immediately began planning for this year’s festivities. We were now committed to an annual ritual of fabrication of leprechaun evasion and evidence. 

This year, I was prepared. A few weeks ago, I bought one of everything from the Target dollar bins dedicated to this Irish holiday and stashed the bag in my trunk. Toby began planning his trap right after Christmas. There was, shall we say, a lot of discussion about the physics of a leprechaun escape.

By the night before St. Paddy’s, he’d constructed a new trap with an alternative capture system to last year’s. This one involved fishing line with tiny Christmas bells attached, as a trip-wire to alert us of the leprechaun’s antics. There were four, count them, four notes to the leprechaun. The most involved one of which made sure to inform the the leprechaun that Biscuit was in the house and upstairs, so she didn’t spook him again. This kid doesn’t make the same mistake twice. He also made me promise to close the door to our room to keep her upstairs. That scapegoat was off the table. 

His note also stipulated that all he wanted was a photo of the leprechaun, though he told me that was “just a trick” and that he really wanted to own the leprechaun body and soul and have him sleep on his pillow every night. Slightly creepily manipulative. Note to self. 

For some reason, he also decided the leprechaun might appreciate some new outfits, so he stapled a construction paper suitcase together and filled it with a short-sleeved shirt and shorts, a long-sleeved shirt and pants, and a hat for the leprechaun, all cut from construction paper and stapled together. His sizing of these items revealed that he imagines the leprechaun to be about 2” tall.

So, as my entire household slept, I triggered the leprechaun traps, sprinkled shamrock necklaces and chocolate gold coins about, applied gummy St. Patrick’s Day message letters to the floor and door, and dyed his milk green. It looked like the Target dollar bin had vomited on my kitchen floor. Which it had. 

I also took a photo of this year’s trap and found some clip-art of a leprechaun online. My graphic design skills are very, very minimal, but I was able to cut and paste the leprechaun onto the trap in a way that made it seem he was sitting on it realistically. I printed the photo out, wrote a “note from the leprechaun” on the bottom, and set it up at the scene. It wasn’t bad for a bleary-eyed 11 p.m. project.

St. Paddy’s Day morning went to plan. Cue the delighted child finding all his leprechaun loot. His disgust at the green milk was a bit unexpected, but quickly smoothed over. He was annoyed that the leprechaun didn’t take his offering of a flashlight (momfail) but really loved his St. Paddy’s socks, Irish flag glasses, and shamrock scarf. He was intrigued by the photo of the leprechaun, mystified as to how he took it and printed it out, but also pretty convinced there’d been a 2-inch tall Irishman in our kitchen. I patted myself on the back for a win.

Too soon.

Toby also spent all day here at the house with me, as schools are closed and I was working from home for the day. He asked me to get him set up on his school learning apps, and I said sure and opened my personal laptop.

What was the last thing I’d used the laptop for? Photoshopping the leprechaun onto the trap in the photo. Ergo, the photo of the leprechaun sprang up bright as day as the MacBook lit up. Shit. 

“MOM, HOW DID THE LEPRECHAUN PHOTO GET ON YOUR COMPUTER???”  

Toby was astounded. I went with it. “Did he USE MY COMPUTER? I did leave it on the kitchen counter. I bet that’s what he did. That little bugger!”

There was a split second where my kid contemplated, and then decided to stay a kid for a little while more and bought it. But he’s older now, so magic must be explained. 

“You’re going to have to change your computer password, Mom. You don’t want him to be on there again. That was sneaky! How did he take the picture? Did he use the printer? How did he reach the printer? How did he know how to use a computer? How did he get the computer open if he’s so small? Did he jump on the keys or use his fingers? Look, he left fingerprints all over your screen!” 

All. Day. Long. He hypothesized how the leprechaun could possibly have taken that photo and printed it. The blind acceptance of the drawn leprechaun image within a photo dissipated and he began to doubt if the leprechaun was real, or if the photo was real. I stopped patting myself on the back for a rare momwin. 

By the end of the day, he was still skeptical, but it was more of a “the leprechaun made this out of a photo” and not “the leprechaun wasn’t here and mom planted the photo,” so I reckon I’m still kind of ahead. 

But I’m truly screwed next year, as he’s already planning. And he’s decided that if the leprechaun leaves a photo again, it will have to be of his whole family. Bring on the clip art. 

I was at a complete loss the other morning. Toby stood in the front room, sobbing and screaming, “I’m HUNGRY,” over and over. I knew he needed food. I’d opened and stirred a container of yogurt, putting it at his place at the table. I was making pancakes and sausage to go with it. But I just couldn’t get him to actually move and start to ingest it.

He’d gotten out of bed with his grump on full blast after a night of “monster nightmares.” And, I didn’t realize it at the time, but the night before, he hadn’t liked the flavor of the rice I’d made as a side dish, so he’d been on an unintentional keto diet for 12 hours. Minimal sleep and no carbs did not add up to a sane, rational Toby. He’d shriek, “I’m hungry,” and I’d simply say, “Then go sit down and eat!” I was at a loss.

Then John swooped in. He grabbed a granola bar from the kitchen, unwrapped it, and shoved it into Toby’s mouth mid-scream. Toby chewed and swallowed, then took another bite. He inhaled the bar in about 10 seconds, and stopped screaming. After a few more bites, he quietly sat down at his place, downed the rest of the bar and a container of yogurt, then demolished three link sausages wrapped with pancakes. Then, and only then, did the Toby I know show up.

Living with two males who have the metabolism of a hummingbird has its challenges. It’s more like living with velociraptors at times. The hangry is real, and apparently it’s genetic. Toby recently told us that his favorite holiday is Thanksgiving, “because there’s so much food.” When he was a toddler, and daycare sent him home with a sheet chronicling his activities, I remember a few times notes appeared in the margins marveling at the amount of food he’d ingested.

I myself have the metabolism of a sloth. I very rarely actually get hungry, and when I do, I am always able to function normally despite the pangs in my stomach and the urge to consume calories. I had no concept that a human being could morph into a raging, irrational beast just because they need to eat. It took me years of dating John to figure out that his mood was inextricably linked to his blood sugar, and I’m still amazed at the speed with which the hangry can rear its velociraptor head.

Toby is both lucky and doomed to have inherited John’s supersonic metabolism and ability to consume ridiculous amounts of food. If this propensity continues, he’ll be just like John in his capacity to devour 5,000 greasy calories a day and still lose weight. But he’ll also have to learn to handle the hangry, and given how the hangry still manipulates John on a daily basis and how clueless I am about hangry, I’m not optimistic that he’ll effectively tame the inner velociraptor.

Traveling with the two of them this summer was a challenge. One morning, when we left the Outer Banks just after dawn, our trek down the road toward any kind of civilization was punctuated with Toby saying every three minutes, “I thought you said we were going to get breakfast.” And on our #weekinthecartogether voyage, I had to strategically plan our relatively remote route down Skyline Drive around both scenic outlooks and acceptable restaurants.

I’m the kind of person who can pretty much wait until a promising-looking establishment comes along. They… are not. They’re beasts that must be fed on a very regular schedule. I feel like there should be an app for route-creation that includes timely velociraptor feeding. Until there is, I’ll continue my strategy of keeping Goldfish and granola bars in the car to fling to them when the situation gets dicey.

I am lucky in that Toby is an equal opportunity eater, thank god. The things he won’t eat are few and far between, and he’s perfectly happy with a relatively healthy menu on a daily basis. He definitely has his favorites, and while he ate the same flavor of Chobani yogurt for the past three years (a flavor that’s blended, not-fruit-on-the-bottom), he’s branched out to a few other flavors as well recently. I just have to stir them up before he sees them, so he can pretend they’re not fruit-on-the-bottom. This little mental trick might have come from me, as I can only eat meat that doesn’t involve a bone. You know, so I can pretend an animal wasn’t harmed. Genetics are weird.

Toby’s dinners usually involve adult-size portions, and it’s rare he doesn’t finish them. He sometimes asks for more, especially if pasta is involved. He’s six. They say teenage boys eat like ravenous wolves. I am a bit worried about my grocery budget.

He’s also not too worried about variety. I’ve packed him pretty much the same lunch every day for the year and a half he’s attended school. He’s totally happy with that plan, and usually says no if I ask if he wants to change it up for a day. For breakfast, he alternates between three different options. Or, if it’s a hangry morning, he eats all three options in one sitting.

I really can’t adequately describe the feeling I had when I popped the trunk open and saw no suitcase. From the look on John’s face, he had exactly the same feeling.

It was 8:20 a.m. John, Toby and I had tickets for the 8:30 Amtrak train from Ashland to D.C. We were 20 minutes from our house. We were spending two days and a night in D.C. And I’d thought John put the suitcase in the car, while he thought I had done it. Somehow, we both walked back and forth by the carefully-packed-the-night-before suitcase (and shoulder bag with Toby’s camera, iPod, and lovely travel guide crafted by my aunt Liz) sitting in the middle of the kitchen floor without actually grabbing them and putting them in the car.

Given the tight timeframe, we silently somehow agreed to skip the accusatory back-and-forth, ran through a few options, then decided we could manage 36 hours without clean clothes and we could buy toothbrushes and toothpaste in D.C., so we’d hop on the train and carry on. I had the book I’d been given for Christmas, the train tickets, and our three rain coats. That’s all we boarded the train with.

I’m really hoping Toby uses it in the future as a learning moment—not to let details like clean underwear derail your plans. Going with the flow and figuring it out as you go can be just as valuable as practical planning and preparation. Well, those lessons and to always make sure your bag is in the car.

My parents have been great about the idea of giving Toby experiences, versus ‘things.’ Sure, they do still give him some ‘stuff,’ but they do like to go on adventures with him, so this Christmas, we decided Toby was old enough to enjoy a trip to the Smithsonian museums in D.C. So, Mom and Dad gave Toby a two-day foray into D.C. on the Amtrak for a gift.

He loved the train, but he really wants to marry the Metro. The combination of escalator entrance and a little G-force on the acceleration made him grin like the proverbial Cheshire Cat.

Two hours on the train plus a few stops on the Metro brought us to our hotel and meet-up with Gran and Grump. We grabbed some lunch there (somehow finding a bacon cheeseburger that John didn’t like) then headed to the Smithsonian Museum of American History for the afternoon. On the way, we walked past what Toby called “the giant toothpick sticking up.”

We really enjoyed the 1/100th of American History I feel like we saw, but after a few hours, Toby was saying, “I think we’ve seen everything in here. Time to go.” He wasn’t as fascinated with the prototype generators and light bulbs as Grump was.

We’d logged about 12,000 steps by the end of the day. My planning didn’t include making dinner reservations, and the Friday night D.C. scene was busier than I anticipated, so we ended up walking about another 1 1/2 miles to dinner. My brand-new Fitbit told me we finished out the night with about 20,000 steps. Then again, when I woke up in the morning, the FitBit tried to tell me I’d already walked 142 steps in my sleep, so…

When I went to put him to sleep in the hotel room (in his very own queen-size bed, which he considered VERY exciting), I told Toby that we hadn’t brought any books, so we couldn’t read before bed. “You’re wrong, we have a book!” he told me, pointing at the copy of Michelle Obama’s autobiography I’d brought along on the train. So, I read him the first three pages of Becoming and he happily drifted off to sleep.

The Museum of Natural History the next day was definitely more Toby’s speed, with intriguing creatures with teeth. A surprise hit of the day was the live butterfly exhibit, where Toby was delighted to see two butterflies land on Gran. He was entranced with the butterflies. He also was really interested in the room of amazing photos in the Nature’s Best Photography exhibit, which made me happy.

We ended Day 2 with a ride on the Circulator bus to the Lincoln Memorial, which was far more crowded than I expected. By the time Gran and Grump dropped us off at the train station again, Toby was definitely running on fumes. He face-planted into the seat and zonked out just a few minutes into our train trip home.

John carried him from the train to the car, where he slept the whole way home from Ashland, and then again from the car to his room. Toby somehow got himself undressed, and as he was sitting on the toilet, swaying back and forth in a bit of a stupor, he asked me with alarm, “Are we back at our house??!!”

I told him we were, and he exclaimed, “But the train doesn’t come to our house! How did we get here?” He was truly worried and confused. I assured him that we’d driven and that he’d just slept through it. He nodded and promptly nodded off. I had to hold him upright to bush his teeth as he stood at the sink, and after I plunked him down in bed, he was snoring before I shut the door. He slept for 11 straight hours.

In the end, we made a lot of jokes about our missing luggage on our trip. We had a great time, laughed a lot, learned a lot, and answered about 2,864 questions from Toby. But what I really hope our trip taught him was that even if you don’t have your luggage, just get on the train and go. It’s when the best things happen.

#thetoby and I were having a chat this evening. He’s been sleeping well (think a solid 12 hours a night) and as such he wakes up chatting and does. not. stop. all morning and all night.

So, he was nattering on about something he and his seat mate on the school bus, Joshua, were talking about and he casually says, “Well, that’s because Joshua doesn’t know my lying face yet.”

We were in the car. I swiveled my eyes to the rearview mirror. He did the same. We locked gazes for a few seconds. There was silence.

I could SEE the wheels turning in his head frantically. “Oh my God, I just admitted to my mom that I lie. I let her know I’m so experienced at it that I know I have a ‘face’ for it. Jesus H, what do I do now?!?! Do I lie? But then she’ll see my lying face. Aaaggghhhhhh!!!!”

“What do you mean, your ‘lying face?’ ” I queried in a light-hearted tone.

His inner debate found him coming down on the side of brutal honesty. I have to give him credit for that.

“My face does something funny when I lie, Mom,” he said solemnly. “I try not to lie, but if I do, my face feels weird.”

“What does it do?” I asked, gently. This was getting amusing, because he was simultaneously embarrassed, chagrined and remorseful.

“It gets all hot,” he said earnestly, gesturing to his cheeks. “My face gets really warm. I don’t know why.”

By this time I was almost crying laughing. I had totally been expecting him to have a poker face he uses when he lies, but no, he’s inherited my over-enthusiastic facial capillaries. I flush at anything, and it would seem that he does as well.

“That’s OK, bud, that’s a totally normal reaction your body has to lying. It happens to mom, too,” I assured him.

“Oh, I know,” he said.

Silence. “What do you mean, you know?” I asked.

“Your face gets all red when you lie, too,” he retorted.

“When do I lie to you?” I said, trying not to think about all the parenting white fibs that go on. It’s one of the first things you learn when you’re a parent—lying is your friend.

“You know, like when you tell me that I won’t get any presents at Christmas if I’m bad. I was really bad last year and I still got plenty of presents, so when you said that this year I knew you were lying.”

Ba dump bump.

Needless to say, I changed the subject pretty darn quick. Thankfully, 5-year-olds are easily distracted by flashing holiday lights.

But now I know #thetoby’s tell. And he knows mine. So it’s game on.

#thetoby needed a school-friendly costume to wear to kindergarten today for Halloween. He wanted to be Marshall from Paw Patrol.

We found out about the “dress like your favorite book character” theme on Sunday night, which started the Marshall train rolling. While I technically could have wielded my Amazon Prime power to get a Marshall costume to the house on time, I am the epitome of an “okayest mom ever.” I just didn’t want to spend another $25 on a costume when my kid had so conveniently decided to be a cow this year for his trick-or-treating escapades. You see, we already had a cow costume (that he’d worn to pre-school last year) in the closet, and it still fit him. I mean, that’s the very definition of no-effort, okayest mom. #winning I couldn’t sully that lack of effort by conjuring up a Marshall outfit at the last minute. I mean, he might start expecting me to be more than okay.

We cleverly came up with a compromise—he could wear the firefighter outfit he got at Christmas to school and sort of be Marshall. If Marshall were a tiny human instead of an animated Dalmatian. Kids learn quickly what a compromise is when you’re content keeping the momming at okayest ever level.

So this morning, Toby was decked out in his fireman’s outfit, which is really quite elaborate, with all kinds of tools and a pretty heavy duty helmet. My mom (who likes to label presents “From Santa”) had given it to Toby at Christmas after I’d procured it. Toby examined the large badge on the front of the helmet carefully, then asked me, “Why doesn’t this badge have my name on it like the ones on the helmets of the real firefighters?”

In the middle of fixing his lunch, I blithefully replied, “Oh, there wasn’t an option to add a name when I ordered it.”

There was a pretty weighty silence from his direction, and I glanced up at him. He was leveling me with a stony glare.

“But mom, SANTA got me this.”

Shit.

I had zero memory of what the tag said on that present 10 months ago, but believe you me, I am 100 percent sure my kid remembers what it read. “Oh, that’s right,” I babbled. “Well, I think maybe the elves in Santa’s workshop didn’t have time to add your name.”

“Why did you say you picked it out if the elves made it?”

You know how they say that when someone’s lying, they add too many details? Yep, I fell in that trap. I kept going. “You know,” I said. “Santa talks to Mom before Christmas to find out what you want. You send him a list, but sometimes he needs more information or I give him other ideas. I think I suggested the firefighter outfit to Santa for you.”

Another long silence. I nervously glanced over at him, eating his breakfast with the wheels in his brain spinning.

“But Mom, the firefighter jacket is too big for me. If you talk to Santa and tell him about me, why didn’t you tell him my right size?”

Seriously, people, what would YOU say to that?

I was pretty stumped, but I think I came up with, “Well, Mom just wanted to make sure you had room to grow into it so you could wear it for a lot of years.”

He just sat and stared at me with an inscrutable gaze. I honestly cannot tell you if he still believes in Santa and was genuinely asking questions, then pondering why my answers reeked of bullshit, or if he’s sussed out the Santa thing and was epically trolling me. His expression revealed no indication either way. But I have a pretty good feeling that with his freakish memory and my sloppy Santa narrative, we’re hurtling headlong toward the Santa myth being debunked far too early.

Last weekend, my brother-in-law brought Toby a book. A book he’d had when he was a kid. But a book from when he was an 8- or 9-year-old kid.

It’s a book about the Titanic. Which I’m not sure is appropriate reading for a 5-year-old, but Toby saw the picture on the front and decided the book would be his new favorite. So, we’ve been reading Robert Ballard’s account of the demise and finding of the Titanic—with the description of the sinking written in pretty stark detail—two pages at a time each night.

For the first few nights, things were fine. Toby really enjoyed hearing about the construction of the ship, asking questions and perusing the illustrations and photos. He loves boats, and this was a BOAT. He was fascinated.

Then they hit the iceberg, and we had a ton of explaining to do about physics and how a ship that big could start to sink. Let’s rewind a minute and mention that Toby’s in a “particularly prone to bad dreams” phase. Thankfully, his dreams seem pretty mild, but they wake him up enough for him to call for me and need a reassuring hug in the middle of the night. And at this point, we were just at a slight list with the first few watertight compartments filling with water.

As one can imagine, a nightly tale about mass death + bad dreams = a bit of a worry. I had some reservations about, you know, the pages with hundreds of people freezing to death and drowning to come.

I was chatting about this this morning at exercise class, and someone had a great and hilarious suggestion. “He can’t really read yet, can he? Well then make it up!”

A bit of revisionist history. BRILLIANT. “The boat sank, but everyone made it off safely and was picked up by another ship.”

Then I thought about a friend of mine whose mother told her, in adolescence, that her period wasn’t actually blood, but some other substance, to avoid her being creeped out. And it wasn’t until she was in COLLEGE that the grim truth became clear to her.

I didn’t want Toby going through his younger years with the content conviction that everyone on the Titanic lived happily ever after then get brought up to speed with reality that hit like the cold water that turned Leonardo DiCaprio into an icecube. I don’t think he’d forgive me! That kid likes him some truth.

And I pictured the moment when as a teenager, Toby makes a reference like, “And it has a happy ending. You know, like the Titanic,” and then realizing my deception. The teenage years are going to be hard enough. I don’t need to add in any more awkward moments.

So, page by page, we’ll factually convey the Titanic’s true fate. I’m sure there will be a lot of questions. And perhaps some bad dreams. It won’t be my finest parenting moment. But he’ll at least be accurately informed.