A Very Useful Engine!

In December Harrison was 22 months and he LOVED wooden Thomas the Tank Engine trains (still does). We go to a local indoor play area with friends once a month. It’s great; it offers swings, climbing mats, tumbling mats, ball pits, and a plethora of other activities -including a Thomas the Tank Engine train table. We usually spend 2 to 3 hours there, and what does Harrison do? He plays at that table until he can’t see straight (up to the 3-hour mark!).
So I tell daddy this, and he offers up, “Maybe we should get him one for Christmas?” Wait, What? Since I bargain shop, I’ve been done shopping for toys for months! But then I realize I could just push those things to his birthday and that shopping is done, too!


Well, we get the table and the thing I love about having a young toddler is that you can hide something right in front of them and they don't know a thing. As was the case with Harrison and the train table; days before Christmas it sat, packed in the box, in our office. Harrison would come into the office, intently examine the box and say, “train”, he would pat the box a couple of times and go off to play. That was that.

The trains and track however, had been temporarily put in a plastic bin with another bin on top of to detour Harrison from taking the lids off them. Later we moved the bin outside to the porch – forgetting to Harrison-proof it – and on Christmas Eve, without attracting any attention, Harrison made his way through the dog-door out to the porch . When we realized it was far too quiet, as it gets when kids do things they are not supposed to, we looked around and found Harrison sitting outside, giving him self a preview of his Christmas gift! That night he went to bed with a wooden train round house, not the coziest of choices to snuggle with, but hey, what ever it takes!