A Purple Crayon, A Purple Train and his Uncle

The day after Thanksgiving, I sat down with #1 mini and we drafted a letter to Santa.

He asked for the following things:

One purple crayon.  

One purple train  #Charlie

Family: aka his uncle

A purple crayon, a purple train, and his uncle (who lives across country.)  Fair enough little man. 

 I went to his hallway play space and found his purple crayon that he already owns.  I hid it until it made an appearance in the tree Christmas Day.  Done! 

A couple of weeks before Christmas we received a huuuuuuuge train table and buckets of trains and tracks from friends whose oldest mini-human is more a trash truck kinda guy.  These hand me downs did not include a purple train.  So I called Target and asked for the specific purple train.  On Sodor the purple train is called "Charlie" and of course Charlie the train talks (#kidcrack).  $10 for Charlie the purple talking train.  Done!

Luckily for us, his uncle had chosen to fly in for the holiday to meet #2 mini and spend the holiday week with the east coast family.  We told mini-human #1 that as long as he was playing nice and that his uncle was playing nice that there would be a chance that Santa would pick him up in his sleigh.

I love the leverage that we have when Santa has not yet come to town.

Christmas day arrived and we pulled up the driveway to my in-laws house. #1 mini-human burst out of the car and into their house to look for his uncle.  He ran through the front door furiously pumping his arms and calling for him.  He was there!  Then the moment he saw him, like any normally gregarious two year old, he suddenly became Mr. Shy Guy.  He buried his head into my husband's neck for a few minutes and whined in indecipherable mumbles.

As the day progressed, #1 mini talked to his uncle and opened presents with him and even ate his homemade pumpkin pie.  It was such a gift in itself to watch them interact and I felt happy just thinking about the memories that would be generated from this week of visits.

I think the only way the day could have been better (in #1 minis eyes) would have been if his uncle had dyed his hair purple. No pressure uncle.