Trains

Last year, my formerly-obsessed-with-trains son informed me that he was no longer into trains.  He said he liked Mario instead.  Super Mario Brothers had replaced Thomas the Train.   

It is true that he has become quite the video game champion in recent years.  (Let's just say that the college guy who works at the gym's arcade childcare program looks forward to my son arriving during his shift, because they provide an element of competition to each other.)

Let me take a moment to add that even though I am not really a fan of video games myself, I am pleased that the Mario Brothers are fully dressed.  Thomas the train was always dressed modestly too, so I did not have to worry about such things like I do with the popular characters for girls.  (Such as when did Tinker Bell undergo breast augmentation?)  

It took me a while to reach this conclusion, but I decided it was time to get rid of the train table and majority of the train stuff.  Trains have been a huge part of our life, due to Jersey #3's obsession, for the past 4 years.  His younger brother does not seem as interested.  Although he likes trains, Jersey #5 loves cars instead.  Keeping with my major spring cleaning goal this month, it was time to let go of the train stuff. 

I told Jersey #3 to build me a big oval track in our living room, and then we would put that amount of track into a container, along with a few handfuls of his favorite trains.  We made a real nice container of train items to store on a shelf and bring out randomly.  I decided to sell off the rest of the train stuff.

Jersey #3 had a blast putting train track together.  For a kid who was no longer "into" trains, he sure enjoyed himself with the task.  I have a feeling that when I bring out the train bin once in a while, he will still enjoy building tracks and running trains along.