For Those Who Think There Haven't Been Enough Everett Stories. . .

It has been over a year now since I wrote my weekly 'Dad's Eye View' columns detailing my adventures as a stay-at-home-dad with Everett. My attempt when the column ended was to keep on writing articles about my time with Everett and chronicling some of his important milestones. I haven't actually turned out to be as successful in that endeavour as I had hoped.

I have recently received a few emails wondering if I'll ever write more stories about Everett. And the answer is that I most definitely will be. I might even have a few new ones coming up this week. There are always unexpected stories waiting to burst out when I spend an entire day with my little adventurer.

But I also wanted to alert those same people that I have written a few stories on Everett the past few months. I detailed his first experience with Santa. I also talked about Everett's special relationship with his stuffed cat, Crosby. If pictures are more your thing then I've showcased his adventures with jam and displayed how his holidays turned out.

You may not know that I actually wrote two other stories for the site. They were part of my five thousand words plus "20 Random Things I Should Have Written About a Long Time Ago." I'm still not entirely sure what motivated me to write that massive piece. Despite it actually having a high view rate, I can understand if one didn't dare to try to read the whole thing. If they didn't then there is a strong chance the stories of Everett were neglected.

As a service to my readers that just come on here to read about Everett and could care less about pop culture or my writing career or my thoughts on news, I'm reposting the two stories that were initially trapped inside the grips of my massive post of random ramblings.

Here they are:

The Great Train Story:

Everett ended up getting several train sets for Christmas, because apparently, it is time to get his career path set now that he is two. His career obviously being one that somehow finds a way to get paid while playing with train sets. The plan had been to return some of the sets and exchange them for things that didn't inspire my son to scream out "choo-choo."  Not that we were opposed to that, but there is more to life than train noises. There are always airplane noises and cow sounds too. Anyway, Emily went back to work and Everett went hard to work convincing me to open up one of the train sets that we left in the living room. He convinced me with the solid and impossible to beat argument of "Open peese daddy."  I challenge you to find a counter.

So, we opened the box, and I quickly realized it was not one of those magically assemble on their own sets. I told Everett he had to put the train track together himself, and he responded by going off to sit on the dog's head. I was left staring with my mouth wide open at the box and trying to figure out which of the various configurations would be the easiest. While building with things that aren't words and ideas is far from my passions or skill set, I actually found myself engrossed in trying to get a track set-up. To the point it became my toy while Everett made stuff cats fly and blue cars dance.

Eventually, I accomplished my task, and I have to admit to some pride of actually successfully assembling something, even if it was designed for those between 4 and 10. It looks great, and the toy train ran on it fine.  Everett was quite happy to see a fully functional train track. He quickly realized it looked just like the one we have in the family room.  So, he ran off to look at that one. He then came wandering back with the train from that set in his hands. He made the "choo-choo" sound while the train chugged along its new track.

It actually fit on the track fairly well, despite being a different make.  The really important thing to Everett was if it could fit in the tunnel. Except it didn't. He tried pushing, jumping and singing to convince the train from the other set to fit through the tunnel.

During the fracas, he remembered he had a third train. It was a Fisher Price train that popped up coloured balls, and was about 10 times bigger than the other two trains. But it was a train. Everett decided that it should go on the track and go through the tunnel. His face scrunched up when discovering the massive toddler toy couldn't fit through the tunnel. He asked for assistance, because he obviously mistook me for Rick Moranis from Honey, I Shrunk the Kids.

This was the day Everett learned not all trains are created equal.

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"Oh No! Mommy! Dead!" 

About two months ago, I knocked over some smelling oils all over the kitchen island. Considering this isn't where they are supposed to go, I uttered something like, "Oh no, mommy is going to be mad and I'll be dead." Everett thought that was a great thing to declare and yelled over and over, "Oh no! Mommy! Dead!" For the rest of that week, any time I dropped or spilled something, or it could possibly look like I accidentally laid something down, Everett would yell out, "Oh no! Mommy! Dead!" It isn't usually good to teach your 2 years old that his mommy is homicidal, but it was fun.

Then before Christmas, Summit decided to help himself to an entire box of chocolates. Considering chocolate is toxic and deadly to dog, it may have been less stressful if he ate the entire turkey instead. We decided we wouldn't call the vet, but just keep an eye on him instead. The next day I was talking on the phone and Everett was doing his usual laps around the house. I then suddenly heard him yelling over and over in an exasperated tone, "Doggy! Doggy! Doggy!" I then went into the living room to discover the side effects of a dog eating an entire box of chocolates. It was quite the unpleasant mess that I now had to focus my attention on.

Since I was not expecting it and probably because it is always good to identify what you see, I blurted out without thinking, "Oh Shit!" Luckily, Everett seemed to mishear me, and instead said, "Oh Sit!"  He then promptly sat down. He then had a moment of clarity come across his face and he jumped right back up to yell out, "Oh No! Mommy! Dead!"

I then got to hear him yell out that chant while I tried to prevent a stain on our rug in what is supposed to be the fancier room of the house. Nothing quite says class like a giant brown stain on the carpet. As I continued to scrub, Everett helped by doing his new chant. He then realized one of the words in his chant, "Dead!" Then every time after saying that word he'd dramatically throw himself to the ground and lay out just like he'd been shot.