Caltrains after school

Evan has gotten into the routine of going to watch the Cal-train almost everyday after school.

It all started several months ago (around end of summer) when Wai-Gong was picking up Evan from Google daycare using the bike trailer.  Because Evan often didn't want to leave school, Wai-Gong started using "let's go watch Cal-train" as a way to motivate him.  On the way back from school, Wai-Gong would take a detour to the nearest railroad crossing to watch the trains pass by.  They would usually stay for 15-20 minutes and enjoy a snack together as they waited for the next train.

As the weather got colder and days got shorter, Wai-gong can no longer pick up Evan by bike, so I've been carrying on the "tradition" that they started by car instead.  I usually get to Evan's school around 5:30pm and if pick up goes smoothly we can arrive at the crossing (Mary & Evelyn) at around 5:50pm.  I usually drive over the crossing first on Mary first, then make a u-turn to go home and go over the crossing one more time.  Evan finds it thrilling to drive over the rail road and he likes to check both sides to see if he can see any trains coming.  If we don't encounter any trains after we've done this loop, then we would wait in the 7-Eleven parking lot at that intersection until we see a train.  On a good day we can see 4 trains come by between 5:50 and 6pm.

On some days Nathan would come with me to pick Evan up, but on most days it's just me and Evan waiting for the Cal-trains and I've really enjoyed our special time together.  Since my maternity leave ends soon we won't be able to go everyday like we have been, but maybe once a week we still do the detour to see caltrain after school.  I think both Evan and I would like that.

After plotting out the route we took on Google Maps, I just realized it's actually quite a detour that we take:

And a picture of the actual crossing.  This is probably what Evan dreams about in his sleep:

Arm painting

Whenever there's face painting, Evan's choice is to have a train painted on his arm.  It all started last year at a Nutmeg friend's birthday party.  Evan had never done face painting before so Nathan held him while he got his arm painted:

Now it's become a standard theme for Evan whenever face painting is involved.  Here at Nathan's school Halloween celebration, Evan requested a blue train.  The high school student volunteer was a bit nervous at first since it's not "on the menu" and she had to improvise on the spot.

"I like it!"

We've noticed that when Evan doesn't always say what he means.  Often at the dinner table when we're trying to get him to try a new food, he would say "I like it!" after the first bite (while the rest of us applause, but if we ask him to have another bite, he would politely say no.  I guess the positive reaction he gets from grown ups combined with his eager to please nature causes him to a tell "white lie".

Smile

It's harder and harder to get photos of Evan now.  Whenever we ask for a smile, these are the typical faces we get:

Lego train creations by dad

James has made several Lego train creations for Evan in the last couple of months.  My favorites are the crossing (using gears from mindstorm set I gave James almost 12 years ago when we were just dating) and a choo-choo train out of most lego bricks.

Evan loves these of course and has started making his own crossings and train tracks out of Duplo.