William Thomas The Train Addington

Sometimes when Will’s antics summon up a firm tone from me, I call him William. It’s nothing intentional, just some kind of habitual formality I can’t quite kick.

But I never do the double- or triple-name thing. So he never hears William Thomas unless we’re having a discussion about his name, which we often neglect to do for fairly long stretches of time. Sometimes I wonder if he will have forgotten that his middle name is Thomas (my dad’s first name) when the topic arises after a month or two in dormancy. Today when Will and Rob started discussing full names Will recited his, “William Thomas Addington” no problem. Then Rob asked if he knew why he had his middle name – who he was named for.

“Thomas the Train!” Will exclaimed with certainty.

We told him of course, as we do on these too rare occasions, that Grandpa’s name is Thomas.

“Remember how Grammy sometimes calls him Tom," I said.

“Yeah,” Will replied, “and Percy and James and Gordon,” he said rattling off all of Thomas the Train's friends in his memory.

(This, by the way, is all my mom’s doing. She bought Will his Thomas the Train track and two books to accompany it – never even considering how she was subverting my dad’s place of honor in the center of his grandson’s name.)