choo choo

This morning was little conductors day at a nearby museum. When I had heard about this a few weeks ago I knew I had to sign Zack up for it. He's passionate about trains. Especially Thomas of course. He was very excited this morning to go and naturally there were hundreds of other little folk also excited for this train event. There were timed sessions of an hour each for the attendee and let me tell ya, that hour flew by! When it was our turn to go in where all the train activities were held, it was a train frenzy, a blur of parents and kids all trying to get the most out of the program. Cameras were whipped out of pockets, bags and satchels ... little feet were going in all different directions and you just imagine the volume of the room.

The biggest & most popular part of the room was the Thomas the Train table. It was a madhouse. Kids were good for the most part and taking turns with trains or walking around each other to get to empty track but there were several aggressive ones who, well, it was insane. These kids were pushing and taking trains out of hands and just going about their play as if they do this every day. Sad. I noticed one little boy patiently just hold three trains on the track and not move for fear he'd be tramped. There was one parent who felt it was time for his son's personal photo shoot and probably took 200 pictures. I'm not kidding. It was crazy and too overdone. The Dad kept getting annoyed when a child would move in his way - nuts! I'm all for photographing the event but there comes a point when you let the child play and enjoy why you're there.

Zack felt the frenzy from the getgo and his biggest dilemma was he wanted to touch the moving lego trains BADLY. Towards the end he was biding his time and it was bound to happen ... Thomas was getting stopped in his tracks. No harm done but Thomas' big boy conductor had to intervene.

When everyone was ushered out at the end, I felt like I had been on a roller coaster. There had been a coloring table, a music group performing railroad-type songs, a beanbag toss through a cut out train, a mass of legos on the carpet, the train table, and the impressive moving train setup. I think Zack and I both had a dazed, glazed look when we left but he had a blast and that's all that matters.