Chugga Chugga Choo Choo….Rosie you go over the bridge and drop off the ice cream. Thomas you help Salty move the coal cars. Chugga Chugga Choo Choo.  We’ll all meet at Brendon Docks and have a party. Chugga Chugga Choo Choo.

Zachary spends hours each day playing with his trains. On his belly pushing them. Making up stories for them. He doesn’t watch too many Thomas videos anymore, he knows most of them by heart and re-enacts them every day.

So whenever anyone asks “What should we get Zachary?” The answer is always the same trains. He’s loved trains since the first day he laid his eyes on one. Now at a few weeks shy of 4, he’s still enamored with them.

Did you know the Barosaurus has stones in its stomach that helped ground up the whole branches and leaves that it ate? Or that T-rex was the largest land-based carnivore and weighed about 9 tons? I didn’t either until Jonathan’s love of dinosaurs took us from plastic play figures to books and games and endless episodes of Discovery Channel documentaries.

At almost 7, Jonathan’s love of dinosaurs has turned into a quest for knowledge. It’s amazing to see the progression of a chubby toddler clutching his plastic dinos to the 1st grader that seeks out all the books and videos he can on these giant beasts.

And then there’s Jacob. It’s not fair. You never buy me any toys. As I survey his relatively sparse toy bucket and compare it to the others, I realize Jacob doesn’t have an obsession, per se. His toy bucket is an eclectic mix of action figures and popular cartoons. There is no one thing that stands out as being his favorite.

And trust me, it’s not for lack of trying.

So while he thinks we’re remiss in our parental duty to buy him toys, the fact is while Jonathan goes straight for the dinosaurs and Zachary goes straight for the trains, Jacob goes with whatever happens to strike his fancy.

One day it’s Pokemon cards, the next it’s wrestling figures. Mini-skateboards or army men. 15 minutes of throwing a football around and then it’s riding his bike to the park.

He is partly right that I generally won’t purchase a new toy for him simply because he says he wants it. We’ve repeated the pattern too many times – buy him a toy he says he really, really wants – only to have it tossed to the side 5 minutes later because he’s grown tired of it. His attention span is short and the supply of money for useless toys is even shorter.

It’s discouraging for both of us.

What he doesn’t see are the hours I spend scouring the internet for ideas. Book suggestions, activities, and yes, even toys, that might spark his interest. And while I have found find things that he has enjoyed – I have yet to find something that continues to hold a fascination for him.

So I continue to search, in the hope that sooner or later I’ll find that one thing for him.

Do your kids have toys, hobbies or activities that they love? How do you find new things to spark their interest?

This is an original post written for World Moms Blog by Amy Hillis from Ohio, USA. When she’s not keeping up with her boys, she can be found at her own website, Transplanted Thoughts, Facebook and on Twitter @transplantedx3 .

Photo credit to the author.

Amy Hillis (USA)

Amy is a native Chicagoan that currently resides just outside of Cincinnati, OH. A city girl, through and through, she’s still adjusting to small town life. Amy has a Bachelor’s degree in Fine Art with a minor in French from Elmhurst College. She was working on her Master’s degree at the School of the Art Institute in Chicago, when she became pregnant with her 3rd child. Although this angel boy was only here for a very short time – he left quite a legacy. Nathaniel was born with a rare genetic disorder called Citrullinemia. Amy and her husband, James, went on to have 4 more boys, 3 of whom were also born with Citrullinemia. In January 2011, her youngest son, David passed away from complications of a liver transplant performed to 'cure' the Citrullinemia. Now a stay-home mom of 5, she started blogging in October 2010, while David was still in the hospital. Two of her other sons have had successful liver transplants to cure their genetic disorders. Her 2 older children still live in Chicago. When not hanging out with her kids, she spends her ‘me’ time writing, sewing, reading & walking. Amy also spends a generous amount of time online. She can be found on Twitter @transplantedx3. On Facebook and on her Website <a href="http://mytearstainedlife.com"My Tear-Stained Life

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