You might remember that when Ben was little, he kind of had a thing for trains. Every birthday and Christmas, he would request another item to go with his Thomas wooden railway, and after a few years he had quite a collection.
When Ben started kindergarten, though, he lost interest in Thomas, and trains, and pretty much wooden toys altogether--putting aside this aspect of his childhood to make room for his new interest in Star Wars and Lego.
I tried a few times to get Janae and then Alaina to play with the Thomas stuff--since we'd invested so much money in it, and I'd put so much time and energy into learning all of the trains' names and characteristics--but they were never really that interested.
And so the tracks and trains have been sitting in our garage for the past few years.
Several weeks ago, though, Alaina came across one of Ben's old Thomas DVDs in our box of Halloween decorations. She wanted to watch it, and then again and again. Pretty soon we were back to our old ways of singing "Boo Boo Choo Choo" and saying things like, "Bust my bumpers."
Alaina asked if we could get the Thomas tracks out of the garage, but I kept putting off bringing in the HUGE bin because I knew it would be heavy to carry . . . and it would mean a lot more clutter in our living room.
Finally, though, yesterday I got Jason to haul in the trains.
And our kids have been playing Thomas ever since.
First it was Alaina and Ben--all afternoon.
When Janae came home she joined in.
They didn't want to have their baths because they didn't want to stop playing.
And then they opted to play rather than watch a show that evening.
They wouldn't stop for a story (but listened to a book while playing, so as not to neglect their home reading completely), and we had a hard time getting everybody to leave the trains and go to bed. Janae and Alaina both wanted to sleep with the trains they'd been using!
This morning, when Alaina woke up her first words were, "Can I play trains?" And then when Ben got up a few minutes later Alaina asked him, "Do you want to play Thomas?"
After church it was the same thing. And even still, late into the afternoon, they are playing Thomas.
It's funny that toys that have been sitting in the garage could have this much appeal . . . but it's so fun to see all three kids playing together and having such a good time.
Ben remembers his youth.
Janae gets to exercise her dramatic abilities.
And Alaina has lots of new characters to capture her imagination.
I don't know how long it will last--but at least for now, it's good to be back on the tracks :)
