Thomas the Train--Peep! Peep!

Peep! Peep! Joe and I spent a perfectly beautiful afternoon recently driving out to Union, Illinois to the railway museum for a Day Out With Thomas. For those of you who are not familiar with Thomas the Train, he is the object of much adoration from little two and three year-old engineers around the world. Thomas is a little British train based on a series of books written years ago that has been turned into a multi-million dollar enterprise of books, movies, tv shows, and--of course--miniature train sets that cost lots and lots of money.

I don't want to be a negative nellie to something that seems to have captured AJ's interest, but I can't quite figure out what little kids see in Thomas. The dialogue in the skits on the DVDs uses lots of old English words from years ago that I doubt the kids understand, although I am sure they pick up the meaning from the context as they go. And since little kids are always learning language, maybe it doesn't annoy them when they don't know a few words here and there. For example, the little trains are always "cross" with one another or something that is going on the in vingette, and they say things like "bother!" when they are annoyed, or better yet, "cinders and ashes!" They are always--always--doing "naughty" things like purposely bumping freight cars off the tracks or hooking a car of bananas onto another enginge instead of the car of bricks that was needed. There are generally consequences to these actions, but it doesn't seem like they are always enough to fit the crime, so to speak. And the fact that Thomas just keeps being naughty over and over and over has started to annoy me. I guess I am from the Midwest--we love our well-behaved children and trains. Compared to the educational value of Sesame Street, which is the gold standard in my mind for children's programming, Thomas seems like a waste of the 30 minutes that I let AJ watch tv a day. As a parent, I am amazed that children's programming has not been able to improve upon Sesame Street in the past 30 years. I guess that is evidence of the quality and innovation of Sesame Street.

But I digress. Back to the trains and the Day Out With Thomas. AJ enjoyed himself and the day, and his enthusiasm was contagious enough that Joe and I enjoyed it as well.