Thomas and his friends (noticed the yellow tunnel I built for him? ^^)

As mentioned in Part 1, Darius’ enthusiasm in Thomas & Friends was revived due to the shows we had introduced to him. Through these shows, besides being able to remember most of the trains’ names simply by looking at them (even from afar), Darius is also able to instantaneously call out the number of these train accurately. Guess this is the power of kids when it comes to their favourite cartoon characters. ^^|

Darius can also vividly remember the scenes and stories in many of the Thomas & Friends shows he had watched, leading him to act out some of the scenes himself at times by making use of his track setup and trains. There was once when we purposely played one of the episodes on the iPad placed on our TV console, when he was playing his trains there. Immediately, he started taking out and arranging the relevant trains and items (e.g. toy piglets since there were piglets in the show) and started acting out the scenes while the show was ongoing. ^^

In early December, I came across a posting on a local parenting forum by a mother who was selling her child’s Thomas & Friends tracks as a bundle at S$45. As her offer consisted of a large number of tracks and even included a number of splitters (2-way, 3-way and 4-way splitters), buildings, bridges etc which we could use, I thought that was a good buy.

Although we already had quite a number of tracks then, having these new tracks and items would provide Darius with more variety in his setup while enabling us to connect all the existing loose ends due to our lack of matching tracks. With that thought, I contacted the seller and arranged with her to deal on that weekend, just a few days after Darius got his Emily train and tracks. As she happened to be driving around our vicinity, she agreed to meet me at our block, saving me the hassle of traveling to trade.

The deal went smoothly and despite already seeing her photo containing the tracks which she was selling in the forum, I was still pleasantly surprised by the large number of tracks and stuff that she had handed to me. With these, we would no longer be worried about running out of the necessary tracks to create the setup we have in mind. ^^|

Darius could now play his trains to his heart's content with plenty of tracks to run on and amenities to visit! ^^

We were so fascinated by this bridge extension that we later modified our setup to allow for trains to run beneath it (see the picture below)

In the end, we still have plenty of spare tracks and parts after completing our new setups ^^|

We changed the setup a week later to make use of the 3-way splitter and the set of yellow tracks. The bridge had 'grown' longer too. ^^

Later in in mid-December, after we knew about the Thomas & Friends show held at United Square, we made sure to visit it with Darius to catch the show. As Thomas’ portion was only one of the parts of the combined show with other characters, there wasn’t really much to see except for Thomas the train appearing behind the curtains with a puff. The Fat Controller actor was pretty interesting though, with his dancing and singing. ^^

Anyway after the show, we noticed Darius started to keep a distance from his Thomas toy train. Perhaps he was still recovering from his shock of seeing a life-size Thomas appearing before him? ^^|

Then at end-December, during our Christmas celebrations at Cat’s parents’ house, one of Darius’ presents turned out to be the Thomas Starter Kit. Although Darius already has a Thomas train, we didn’t really mind since that kit had come with two passenger carriages which we didn’t have. No harm having more tracks to play with too, I suppose. ^^

Note: Not all these presents were for Darius ^^|

Darius loved his new carriages and played with them on a tabletop. He seemed to be very particular in making sure that only one Thomas train would be in play at a time (the other ‘abandoned’ Thomas would have to be kept or hidden away from him). ^^|

The other poor Thomas train had to be kept in the red train container (another Christmas present of Darius) throughout our stay there

So that concludes our 3-part journey of Darius’ growing Thomas & Friends collection. Phew! We had not expected his collection to grow this much over such a short period either (I’m mostly guilty for that ^^|). However, we do not foresee the collection to grow much more from this point onwards, at least in terms of his tracks, since he has plenty of them already.

Hopefully, Darius will continue to show much interests in Thomas & Friends even in the coming new year, though we all know how fast kids’ interests may change at times. ^^|

Last but not least, Happy New Year to all our readers! (I know there has been lesser updates lately; hopefully we will perk up with the updates again soon!)

Related posts:

1. Evolution of Darius’ Thomas & Friends Collection (Part 1) Till just recently, Darius only had two trains from Thomas...
2. Evolution of Darius’ Thomas & Friends Collection (Part 2) After seeing how much Darius liked his new Percy companion,...

After seeing how much Darius liked his new Percy companion, Cat and I started discussing if we should be getting James for him too, in case these starter kits went out of stock. On the other hand, since we were going to Kuala Lumpur for a short trip soon after, we thought we might be able find an even better deal for Thomas & Friends toys over there. As a result, we held off our buying decision.

When we returned from our trip, we did not buy him any new trains since prices were either in par or even more expensive than in Singapore. Instead, we got him a Thomas & Friends book from MPH at Mid Valley Megamall.

Darius enjoys reading the book but was resistant when we tried to read it to him initially. Recently, he started to take the initiative to ask us to read the book to him, but is selectively in deciding which stories (there were several stories in the book) and even which pages he wanted to read.

About his next train James, I then went ahead to get him his Starter Kit from Kiddy Palace on my way back from work, exactly a fortnight after he had gotten Percy.

When I showed him his new present when we were home, he was of course very happy and excited once again, eager for me to open up the box and play with its contents. We made sure he finished his dinner before he was allowed to start having fun in letting each of the trains interact with one another on his further expanded railway tracks.

Darius' 'Island of Sodor' was expanded further

We also added some farm animals to help liven up his setup ^^

Later on that Saturday, when we were at Marina Square for some shopping, we passed by the Kiddy Palace outlet there. Recognising his ‘train haven’, Darius quickly rushed towards the Thomas & Friends section to start admiring all the boxes of tracks and trains again. ^^|

Throughout the week, Cat and I would always hear him mentioning the name ‘Emily’ whenever he was playing with his trains or watching the Thomas & Friends shows. Logically, we thought Darius would ask for his next train addition to be Emily.

To our surprise however, he went for Gordon instead, a similar looking engine to Thomas, except that he is a bigger engine, as the shows have always emphasised. Of course, since Darius had clearly indicated his preference despite us confirming with him several times (‘What about Emily?’), we bought him Gordon, which was sold individually (i.e. the train doesn’t come with any tracks).

Darius couldn't hide his joy while holding Gordon

By then, he already had five trains for his Thomas & Friends collection, namely Thomas, Stepney, James, Percy and Gordon (not counting Stanley though), which to me, is considered a big collection already (especially when each train costs nearly S$30)! On the other hand, I have no qualms emptying my wallet, seeing Darius is so enthusiastic over his trains. ^^|

On the following Tuesday, after our dinner at Northpoint, we went to the Kiddy Palace there to buy him some milk accessories. Not surprising, he headed for the toys section with Cat while I looked for the accessories.

When I returned from the cashier after payment, I noticed an Emily Train Set placed above the pile of Thomas & Friends merchandise at the toys section, near where Darius was standing. He was not tall enough to notice this set. Anyway, this was the first time Cat and I had come across this set that came with tracks, so we had always thought Emily was only sold separately.

Thinking that we would kill two birds with one stone since besides able to get him another of his favourite trains, we could also get more tracks to further build up his track setup, we decided to buy the set for him. It was an added bonus that this set was on a discount then.

Adding on these new tracks of his, we could now build a bigger setup which was covering the floor space in front of our TV (we have to watch our feet when crossing over there) so that his trains have ample space to move about.

If you look carefully, you will notice that some tracks were actually leading to dead ends. Although these could act as the resting points for the trains, they were actually there because we were lacking the matching tracks to link them up with the other tracks.

All this while, I have been the one planning and connecting the tracks for Darius. It was at this point that I realised I shouldn’t be helping him too much since track-building is a good activity to build up his creativity and motor skills. He should also feel more fulfilling if he was able to play his trains on a setup that he had created himself.

So I started off by disconnecting some of the tracks and letting Darius’ creativity run wild.

An interesting layout by Darius, which reminded me of a growing plant ^^

(to be continued)

Related posts:

1. Evolution of Darius’ Thomas & Friends Collection (Part 1) Till just recently, Darius only had two trains from Thomas...
2. Evolution of Darius’ Thomas & Friends Collection (Part 3) As mentioned in Part 1, Darius’ enthusiasm in Thomas &...

Darius and Friends

Till just recently, Darius only had two trains from Thomas & Friends which could be used on his tracks, one being the protagonist Thomas and was given to him by Cat’s sister during our last Christmas celebration. The other was Stepney, the first train Cat and I randomly chose and bought for Darius.

There was another train named Stanley which Darius had received as a Christmas gift too but it was too big to fit onto the railway tracks as it was manufactured by LEGO Duplo.

Humble beginnings back in December 2010...

...which then gradually expanded to this

Then back in September, after Darius had a renewed interests in Thomas & Friends, we started introducing him some of its videos on Youtube via our PCs or the trusty iPad 2. That bolstered his interests further and he became very enthusiastic over his trains again, often requesting to watch specific episodes of the show via the iPad. Through the shows, he became particularly interested in several of Thomas’ more prominent friends, namely Percy, James, Gordon and Emily.

He actually had this electric train which I bought him a while back too but he wasn't interested in it any more, knowing he wasn't part of the 'Thomas Family'... -_-|

One evening at the start of November, we were in Metro departmental store and after passing by the Thomas & Friends shelf at the toys section, he was reluctant to move further. He then started picking up one or two boxes containing a train each and did some role-play with them on the spot.

Looking at how much he was into the trains, Cat and I decided to get him just one train to add in to his collection. However, none of his favourite trains were among those that were sold there.

As a result, we decided to move over to the Kiddy Palace store next door instead, after convincing Darius that there were even more trains over there (we weren’t really sure of that then though ^^|) before he was willing to leave.

Fortunately, there were indeed more stocks and variety of Thomas & Friends merchandise, and Darius immediately fell in love with that place. We managed to find all of his favourite trains available there, and each train was sold as stand-alone packs. Just when we were deciding to buy one of the these trains for him, I spotted a better deal with the starter kits located on another shelf nearby.

On closer examination, we realised there were three versions for the starter kits, with each peack consisting of both a train and some tracks. And as its name imply, these starter kits come with one of the three famous trains from Thomas & Friends, namely Thomas, Percy and James. Furthermore, these kits were selling at roughly the same price at those individual trains which we had just seen earlier! We were so glad to have looked a bit more before confirming our purchases. ^^|

No doubt these starter kits were a much better deal for us, especially when we were already decided to get either Percy or James for Darius. Darius then indicated his preference of Percy over James and after knowing that we were going to buy it for him, Darius was so happy and excited that he kept hugging the box till we paid for it at the cashier. ^^

Holding his prized possession close to him ^^

Upon returning home, we reminded Darius that he had to go for his shower and drink his milk first before he could play with his Percy, which he reluctantly but obediently followed. Later on, while he was drinking his milk on the sofa, I helped expand his track setup by adding the new track pieces that came with Percy’s Starter Kit.

More tracks for the trains to move around now

Welcoming the happy Percy to his new home

Anyway, Darius still gets very upset whenever we switch on any of the trains and let it roam by itself on the tracks, just like how he reacted last Christmas. We still ain’t exactly sure of the reason behind his behaviour (maybe he only wants to control his trains all by himself?) and we have not been able to convince him to act otherwise so far. -_-|

After he finished his milk, we gave him approximately 30 minutes of play time before he had to go to bed, since he still had to wake up early for CC the following day (it was a Tuesday then). He cried and whined but we firmly told him not to stop complaining or we would not be buying new trains for him any more. He soon calmed down and felt asleep not long after.

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