Friday, January 14, 2011

Sleep

The latest bedtime demand works like this: Iain wants you to climb in bed, lay next to him, and tell him about something.

Usually, the topic is his birth. As in, "You were supposed to come on April 10. But did you come?" "No!" "That's right. You were late. So..." and onward through his birth, first bottle, stay in the hospital, and eventual trip home.

But he loves trains. You knew that.

And I got bored with the birth story.* So I've been telling him about our trip to England in 2007. We took the Chunnel train, we rode on the Metro, and we traveled by TGV. That's a lotta trains for a little man.

The change of subject has had an unexpected benefit, though. Unlike the birth story, which gets him all giggly ("And I was CWYING! HAHAHAHA!"), he finds my tales of Europe intensely boring. He falls asleep. Every time.

Maybe it's my memory for detail. The story goes like this: We left Oxford by bus. We rode the bus into London, got off at Victoria Station, walked past Scotland Yard, Big Ben, Buckingham Palace, Boadicea, and across the bridge to Waterloo Station. There, we bought tickets, walked into the waiting area, onto the platform, got on the train, stored our luggage, rode through the city, the southern countryside, and into the chunnel. Then through the French countryside, the suburbs of Paris, and to the Gare du Nord. The Metro (he likes to try to say "Metro") across Paris to Montparnasse, where we bought burned croissants (I think the girl gave me the wrong change. On purpose.), marveled at the nasty birds on the tables, purchased chocolate for Brian and Dominique, went up to the platforms, boarded the TGV, and proceeded through Le Mans to Angers.

By the time I get to "We visited Richard the Lionhearted at Fontrevault..." he's snoring. Snoring.

And you?




*In case you're wondering, I leave out the whole failed-anesthesiology-emergency-C-section-after-24-hours-of-labor bit. Because that's too many things to explain.

2 comments:

Bart said...

You left out Ireland. Have you blanked it from your memory? :¬)

Fiona said...

Where? I never heard of such a place.

Also, we did not take a train there. Keep in mind the fact that Iain cares only for train journeys. So next time we come to you, we have to take a train someplace.