Dinky-Dinky-Doo

Yesterday I finally got Micah to Snip-Its; he was desperately in need of a haircut. With the stretchy headband for his BAHA pushing his hair up, he looked like a demented Muppet. Thea wanted her bangs trimmed; she always has a strand here or there that somehow managed to elude the scissors. Fortunately 'our' stylist, Flo, was working. She loves Thea and has kept up Thea's wedged bob for almost a year. Both were well behaved while the scissors and razor were skimming around their heads. Micah scammed a lollipop from Flo; he's been high on lollies since Friday and has been raiding the leftover Hallowe'en candy basket with such determination that it finally got relocated to the top of the TV armoire.

As a reward for behaving during the haircut (since this is only Micah's fourth haircut or so), we went to the Princeton NJ Transit Station and bought tickets for a round-trip on the Dinky, the short (hence the appellation "Dinky" who says Princetonians aren't creative as well as smart?)NJT train that runs between Princeton and Princeton Junction, the station on Amtrak's Northeast Corridor. $3.50 for me, $1.75 for the children - and Micah probably didn't need a ticket, but if Thea's going to have her ticket punched, Micah will want to have it done, too.

The train to Princeton Junction was near empty, so I wasn't too bothered that Micah was yammering "CHOOOO, CHOOOO" every five seconds. On the way back, the train was filled with student types returning from their weekend jaunts, acting world-weary ("Uh, I'm still on Paris time." Poor thing.) They seemed annoyed at Micah's joyous exclamations about being on a train, which made me enjoy him that much more. The Dinky left Princeton station at 4:30 pm, and we were back in the car heading home at 4:48 pm.

The unfortunate thing about the Dinky is Steve's office is right by the train, so tonight when we went to his office to pick up Thea, Micah started up again with "MI-cah RIIIIIDE CHOOOOO CHOOO?" Not tonight, peanut.