For the Bomber's first Christmas my mom and my sister decided it would be a good idea to get him an electric train set that they could add to each year. Frankly, I think they were looking for a way to make their Christmas shopping easier... "Oh, and for the Bomber... another train car!" In any case, in December 2006, an enormous box of trains and tracks and such arrived on our doorstep (clearly marked "For Ages 8 and Over," by the way) and was quickly deposited under our bed, where it resided for several years.
One day this summer, though, H-bomb was looking for a lost ball under there and made an incredible discovery... "Mommy! There's a TRAIN under here." Yes, yes there is... thanks so much for that Grandma and Aunt Courtney. Naturally he wanted to play with it, but I told him it was for when he was a little older. That kept him quiet for approximately four hours. "Mommy, am I old enough now?" Finally, in desperation, I told him it was a Christmas train and we couldn't use it until December, in hopes that he'd forget about it before then. Those of you with small children should stop all that laughing, right. now. Thank you.
Anyway, after months and months of nagging, last Saturday we we finally broke down and set up the Bomber's Polar Express train. I'd bought the movie for him about a month ago (by then I'd already conceded that he wasn't going to forget about that train) and he was absolutely mesmerized by it. He also has a small Brio Polar Express set that he got from Aunt Terry last year, so now we're All Polar Express, All the Time.
It's a Lionel O gauge set - for those who don't know model train gauges, those are the big suckers. It came with the engine from the movie, a coal tender, two passenger cars and the observation car. The engine has a whistle and makes smoke. It has four figures from the movie, and a big bell that's supposed to be the one from Santa's sleigh. There's also a non-Polar Express caboose with a moving Santa figure on it. The whole setup is pretty primitive right now:
That piece of plywood was so big we had to borrow the neighbor's pickup truck to get it home. It's mounted on two metal sawhorses which are each set on two of those foam squares you can fit together to make a child's play mat. Larry already has big plans for next year, though - at the very least we're hoping to paint the board green and put something around the edge of the board. We've already ordered some more track and a set of caribou figures (also from the movie). Holy cow, that stuff is expensive! You could seriously spend a small fortune on this hobby.
Anyway, the Bomber really liked it. As you can see, he asked for it first thing Sunday morning, before he'd changed out of his jammies or even brushed his haystack hair:
And he figured out how to work it pretty quickly:
He's also been surprisingly good about not touching the tracks or train while it's running, and not getting splinters from the board. He can't seem to stop himself from handling the train and cars when it's not running, though, which is driving Larry demented. That said, it's actually worked out pretty well, considering he's really way too young for it.
So I guess you're off the hook, Grandma and Aunt Courtney... at least this time.
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