Thomas Mania Strikes!

Move over WonderPets, Henry is now officially obsessed with Thomas the Train. This development happened pretty quickly... in the past 2-3 weeks he went from knowing nothing about the "Really Useful Engine" to a 24/7 obsession that leads him to shout "Thomas! Gordon! Percy! Toppem Hat! ALL ABOOOOARD!" at the top of his lungs at all hours of the day. It's pretty amazing how he can pick out all the characters just by sight. Maybe it's a girl thing, but they all look the same to me!

In short, the kids looooves Thomas, as you can see from the Thomas paraphernalia we have at home. We have a cute little train set that my mom picked up at a garage sale, along with some Thomas books and a Thomas pillow that Henry sleeps with every night (thanks, Rena!). Even a singing Thomas toothbrush - which I have to admit, has made brushing his teeth much easier!

So, hoping to get Henry his Thomas fix, I took the boys to the Barnes and Noble at Eden Prairie Center yesterday, since they have a Thomas the Train table that I thought Henry would like to play with. Well, he loved it... and I was thankful to sit in a chair and rest for a while as Teddy slept in the stroller.

Henry played and was in Thomas heaven. The table has everything - lots of train bridges, a roundhouse and other fun things - which for the posted bargain price of $800 for the whole set, I guess it should! However, after about 45 minutes, we had a few other errands to run and had to pack up and leave. As you can guess, that didn't go over very well with Henry! He started crying immediately and scooped up all the trains to take with him. After asking nicely, I had to pry them from his little fingers and explain that we would go home and play with his trains, but we couldn't take these with us. Well, he wasn't having it. So I had to pick him up and carry him out, all the while he was shouting "Thomas, Edward, Bertie!!" throughout the store. Thankfully, the tantrum stopped pretty quickly and we were able to do our errands without any more tears.

Honestly, I felt bad to tear him away from his beloved trains, but it was kind of humorous - I just wonder what everyone else in the store thought was going on! We must have been a sight to see. I guess if they have little boys that love trains, they hopefully understand!