My 7-Year-Old Talks About Train Stations Nonstop, And I’m Not Dealing With It As Well As I Thought I Would
I burned my thumb on the electric kettle this morning, and I’m pretty sure it’s entirely Leo’s fault. I was halfway through stirring oatmeal for breakfast, trying to remember if I replied to that client email about the logo revision last night, when he climbed up on the counter next to me and started in again. “Did you know the Greenfield train station has a vending machine that’s been there since 1998?” he said, leaning his whole weight into my arm so I spilled a scoop of oats on the floor. “It still sells those candy things that look like cigarettes, the person who runs it won’t get a new one. I looked it up on Google Maps street view and you can kinda see it through the window.” I jerked my hand back from the kettle and that’s how I got the bright red blister right on my thumb pad. It’s fine, it’s just a blister, but it’s also the third time this week an obsessive 10-minute tangent about rural train stations has messed up my routine.
I know, I know. I’ve seen all the posts in the mom groups I’m in. “It’s just intense curiosity! It’s normal for neurodivergent and neurotypical kids alike! Nurture their passion!” And don’t get me wrong, some days I do. I’ve sat through at least seven full recitations of every station’s platform length, I’ve driven 45 minutes out of the way just to drive past one that got a new roof last summer, I even bought him that giant fold-out state train map he saw at the visitor center that won’t fit in any of his desk drawers so it’s spread across half the guest room bed. But other days? I just want to talk about something else. Anything else. Like the weather, or how the goldfish we won at the fair is still somehow alive after three months, or literally anything that isn’t the number of parking spots at the Westbrook station.
Last week I ran into Mrs. Henderson from down the street at the grocery store, the one who brings us extra tomatoes from her garden every summer. She stopped to say hi, asked Leo what he’s been interested in lately, and before I could cut in he launched into a 12-minute monologue about the new bike rack they’re installing at the riverfront station. 27 spots, he told her, that’s 12 more than the old one. He explained why the old one was bad, how people used to have to lock their bikes to the sign pole because all the spots were full. I stood there holding a bag of apples, smiling so hard my cheeks hurt, kept trying to nudge his shoulder and say “Honey, Mrs. Henderson is busy” and he just didn’t stop. I wanted to crawl into the cooler with the ice cream. I apologized the whole time after we walked away, and she was nice about it, said she thought it was cute, but I still think about it when I see her out getting her mail now.
I worried for a minute, you know? That it was too much, that something was wrong. I brought it up at his last checkup, all awkward, like I was being the bad mom complaining about my kid’s hobby instead of praising it. The nurse practitioner just leaned back in her chair and laughed. She said her own 11-year-old son talks about local garbage truck routes every single dinner. “They latch onto something that makes sense to them,” she said. “It’s orderly, it’s all stuff they’ve memorized, it feels safe when everything else about being 7 is confusing. Most of them grow out of it, or at least dial it back, by the time they hit middle school. Unless you want to start worrying about middle school angst now, I’d just breathe.” That made sense, I guess, but it doesn’t make the 10 a.m. tangents any easier when I’m on a deadline for a client and he’s sitting on the other side of my desk just talking. I work from home, remember? I’m the target audience 90% of the time. My husband works outside the house, so he gets to come home and get a 15-minute recap after dinner and act like it’s no big deal. We fought about it last week, actually. I said he never has to listen to it while he’s trying to work, he said I’m being too impatient. We made up an hour later over takeout, but it still stings a little, because he’s right that I’m impatient, but he’s wrong that it’s not tiring.
Yesterday we had to go pick my sister up from the dentist, which meant we drove right past the Greenfield station. Leo started screaming from the backseat before we even turned onto the road, pointing and yelling that that’s the one with the vending machine. I had 10 minutes to spare, so I pulled over. We got out and walked around the little parking lot, and he pointed out every single thing he’d talked about for months. The chipped blue tile by the front door, the bench with J + M carved into it from 1987, the crumpled candy cigarette wrapper stuck in the vending machine slot, just like he said. For a minute, I got it. It’s quiet there, no one ever goes, it’s this tiny piece of local history that no one else cares about except my kid. I even took a picture of him leaning against the vending machine to send to my sister. But then we got back in the car, and he talked about every other station between Greenfield and the dentist office, every platform, every vending machine, every bike rack, the whole 28 minute drive. I turned my podcast up just a little bit so I could half-listen, and he didn’t even notice.
I don’t have any big advice for anyone else who’s going through this, if your kid won’t stop talking about whatever their weird little thing is. I still hide in the bathroom for five minutes just to get five minutes of silence. I still sometimes snap and say “can we please talk about something else” when I’m tired, and then I feel bad about it afterward. It’s not a cute quirky thing all the time, and it’s not a sign that something’s wrong, most of the time. It’s just… a thing. A messy, annoying, sometimes sweet thing that you just get through day by day. People say you’ll miss this when they’re older, when they won’t talk to you at all, and I know that’s probably true. But right now? I’m still waiting for that break to come a little bit. No shame in that. (Word count: 1128)
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