As an adult, this is horribly embarrassing, but I am almost beside myself with impatience. I am taking a little weekend trip in September, and I can’t wait.

I bought my son tickets for a ride on Thomas the Tank Engine.

Nashville is the closest place that he will be coming, so September 6 was the earliest Saturday I could get tickets. Nashville also has the side benefit of letting us visit with our friends Steph and Carson, whom we don’t see nearly as often as we used to.

I bought the tickets before I read Amalah or Jodi’s experiences with A Day Out with Thomas.

And now, well…

…I am STILL excited.

I don’t precisely know why, but despite my adult tendencies toward entertainment of the classical music/winetasting/museum variety, I cannot escape the fact that I grew up staunchly lower-middle-working-class. I never attended a single event requiring tickets that was not a Disney movie. I don’t know if it is my desire to willfully recapture a shortened childhood that makes me an easy person to amuse, but ask anyone who knows me best and they will tell you that I get ridiculously excited about the smallest of things.

This also makes me a HORRIBLY easy mark when it comes to my kid. I don’t know what flavor of overcompensation it is – only child/older mother, deprived childhood history, you take your pick – but the net result is that I get stupidly disproportionate joy from indulging my son. In my favor – I am pretty firm in other areas, like courtesy and personal hygiene. I am not so good at teaching that deprivation and disappointment are pretty much facts of life.

Those lessons he can learn somewhere else.

We’re going to ride with Thomas.