Thomas the Rain

Yesterday we went to A Day Out with Thomas the Train in Baldwin, KS. We took all the kids and went with our friends Candice, Erik, Chase and Reece. The event cost quite a bit of money and you got a train ride on Thomas and then got to do other activities, like jump on inflatables, face painting, playing with train tables, a petting farm and more! On our way there at 8:00 in the morning (because we wanted to change our tickets from 3:30 in the afternoon to 9:45 in the morning to escape the heat) it started to sprinkle. Not a big deal, they were running the event "rain or shine" it said on the website. We pressed on and got there around 9:00 to wait out a slightly harder rain shower under the lifted tailgate of the van and SUV. That let up so we opened up all five of the umbrella's the Johnsons had in their SUV (they are always prepared, and we are not), and walked in the sprinkling rain to change our tickets.

After changing our tickets, I went to nurse my 2 month old Hudson in the convenient nursing/changing tent they had up at this family friendly event. While doing so, he proceeded to explode poop up the back of his diaper with such velocity that it reached his neck and got all over one side of my shorts. I stopped feeding him to change him into a clean diaper and wipe the poop off the back of him. I realized the extra onsies I had for him never made it into the diaper bag and were laying on the changing table at home, when in walked Candice (whom I earlier mentioned was always prepared) to tell me they were boarding the train. She pulled out an extra t-shirt she had packed for her two and a half year old son (who does that?) and we put that on Hudson and ran in the sprinkles to get on the train. I went to park our stroller in the stroller parking under a tent and it was full, so I parked it outside by the staff RV. (remember this for later)

We all got on the train and started off backward for our Thomas the Train ride. Which is really just an old train with a little Thomas engine attached to the front of it. We slowly went backwards for about ten minutes, all the while looking to the west were the sky was BLACK with rain clouds. Then we stopped and the kids had to yell "Pull Thomas Pull" to get the train to go forward and back to the same place we started again. The whole while Hudson is upset and crabby because I only feed him a little due to the diaper explosion.

We get back to the station and it was an instant DOWNPOUR coming from the west. Well, we need to get off the train on the west side, so the decide to keep us on the train a while until the rain "dies down". That would be all fine and good, but I have one hungry baby in my hands. I would just sit in my set and put my hooter hider cover on and nurse him there, but there are these older men (the "engineers") that keep walking around making sure everyone's okay. So I decide I can just take an umbrella, get off the train, and make a run for the nursing tent. I go to get off the train and the "engineers" stop me saying I need to wait until the rain stops. I nicely tell them I need to get off the train to go feed my baby. Being just like guys, the immediately turn to a corner and avoid eye contact and tell me to do whatever I need to. One brave little "engineer" tells me I can use the staff room on the train to nurse him "if it won't take too long". So I get all settled in the staff room and they knock on the door and tell me I can leave the train now.

I grab the hooter hider, which is about as thin as a piece of paper, cover Hudson's head with it, (at this point I have given the umbrella back to Shelby who was screaming that I took it in the first place) and make a run for it in the pouring down rain, which has NOT let up at all. I have to run down about five train cars and up and down a line controller thing and over to the tent which is the farthest tent away. Hudson and I are both soaking wet at this point and he is screaming his head off at this point from being hungry and wet. Too make a long story not much longer I feed him in the tent with a guy that walked in to get out of the rain, found Kevin with the other kids, and the stroller, which had been out in the rain this whole time, and went to eat at Pizza Hut and watch the rain that continued while we ate lunch and all the way home.

It was clear and sunny by 3:30, when we were going to do the train ride in the first place. We went swimming.