A boy's interests

Our son's favorite toys or interests change over time.

Thomas the Train
Since he was 11 months old, Thomas the Train and co. have been among his favorite toys. At about this time, the thrift store where I volunteer gave me a box of wooden tracks. His collection steadily grew over the next 2 years. He still plays with them, but over the past 5 months, he has been more interested in the larger battery-operated versions of the trains put out by Tomy.

Bob the Builder
He got into BtB several months after Thomas. And when he was two, someone gave him a special BtB DVD that kept his interest going for several months. He only plays with these toys intermittently over the past year.

Cars the Movie
Cars has been a favorite with his whole pre-school class, at least among the boys, since shortly after the movie came out. He hasn't played with his Cars toys as much since just before Christmas. Although, most of the pictures he draws are about Lightning McQueen and Leakless racing madly in circles.

Dinosaurs
Last fall, we would hear him reciting in a low voice a history of the dinosaurs. Eventually we found out that they've been listening to a book on tape in his class. I don't know how many times they played it, but he and some of his friends had it memorized. Since then, we've checked out just about every dinosaur book in our local library, went to the see the unveiling of the newly discovered Nigersaurus at the National Geographic building, and went to see the dinosaurs at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. He is pretty much an expert at this point. One of his favorite Christmas presents was a paleontologist kit where you chisel through a chunk of rock to find the 6 dinosaurs buried within. Once retrieved, he painted them up. The dinosaur craze went pretty strong until about 2 weeks ago.

Animals
As noted above, about two weeks ago he got very interested in animals, kicked off by a few factors. First of all was Zoo Tycoon. I bought the CD-ROM game last fall with him in mind but saved it for several months, finally broke it out 3 weeks ago. It is a great game, too advanced for him to play by himself at four years of age, but it is fun to play together. We've been learning a lot about different kinds of animals and what kind of terrain and habitats they prefer. I am thankful for the Control-4 cheat key so we don't have to worry about the finances of the zoo!

The second factor was a Christmas gift I got from my folks, BBC's The Planet Earth. An amazing documentary set. My son and I have been watching an episode each week.

Another factor, I think, has been "movie night". I've done painstaking research to find decent G movies that he can watch. Three we've seen lately are adventure stories featuring house pets: Homeward Bound, The Adventures of Milo and Otis, and Napoleon.

He says he likes animals better than dinosaurs. He is working on reading through all of our library's animal books now.

Ninja Warrior
This is a fun Japanese show broadcast on one of the cable channels. Contestants have to traverse through increasingly-difficult courses and obstacles. We watch it mainly on Saturday afternoon around lunch time. Now whenever he goes to the park or plays in the yard, he does his own Ninja Warrior challenges.

3 Weeks 'Til Ultimate Fun!

I went over to the Ross store to buy for my son a Tomy battery- powered Thomas the Train set that came with a station, a bridge, and a tunnel for about $25. His birthday is coming up and we already got him some other Tomy trains and tracks from the Thomas universe so I was going to save it for Christmas, assuming he is good through the rest of the year.

But after I picked up the box, checked it over, and was about to make my way to the register, I spotted this hidden in a corner:
The Thomas Ultimate Set! Thomas and eight of his friends plus Cranky the Crane and a Troublesome Truck, a suspension bridge, a little bridge, a station, a crossing, and a couple of tunnels. A good deal at 50 bucks. Now this will be his b-day gift, [don't tell him!] and all that other stuff can wait 'til the 25th of December.

Thomas the Tank Engine Recalled!

The Chinese have done it again. More dangerous products Made in China have been imported.

RC2 Corp. in cooperation with the Consumer Product Safety Commission issued a recall for several toys in the Thomas the Tank Engine set that may include lead paint.

The affected 1.5 million toys recalled include:
Red James Engine & Red James� # 5 Coal Tender
Red Lights & Sounds James Engine & Red James� #5 Lights & Sounds Coal Tender
James with Team Colors Engine & James with Team Colors #5 Coal Tender
Red Skarloey Engine
Brown & Yellow Old Slow Coach
Red Hook & Ladder Truck & Red Water Tanker Truck
Red Musical Caboose
Red Sodor Line Caboose
Red Coal Car labeled �2006 Day Out With Thomas� on the Side
Red Baggage Car
Red Holiday Caboose
Red Sodor Mail Car
Red Fire Brigade Truck
Red Fire Brigade Train
Deluxe Sodor Fire Station
Red Coal Car
Yellow Box Car
Red Stop Sign
Yellow Railroad Crossing Sign
Yellow Sodor Cargo Company Cargo Piece
Smelting Yard
Ice Cream Factory.

The toys were sold during 2005. RC2 recall web page, http://rc2corp.com/company/recalls.asp, isn't working at the moment, probably crushed under the traffic load. They can also be reached at (866) 725-4407.

The press release says that packages coded "WJ" or "AZ" are not included in the recall, but who saves the packages over 2 years? Are there Thomas geeks like the Comic Book Guy who preserve Percy, Mavis, Toby, et al. pristinely in their original packaging?

Here is a picture of the leaden toys: