My Little Man's Treasures

     It all started with buying VCD's for our little boy. I remember the very first VCD we bought for him was Barney, a couple of it when he was one year old. He enjoys every episode of it, and was able to memorize every song Barney sang, even some lines from the show.  We also bought several Disney Movies, to name a few were A Bug's Life, Monster's Inc, Toy Story, and Cars. Then came Dora, Diego, Spongebob, Backyardigans, and a lot lot more. Of course we also introduced him educational VCD's for kids his age where he later learned his ABC's and Numbers. But with all of the cartoon tv series, disney movies, and children's show that he has seen there is one character that caught his interest, it was Thomas the Tank Engine, the blue painted fictional steam locomotive with his running number 1 printed on his side. Of course every kid knows who Thomas is, all kids from different part of the world surely go locko with him, with the television series and  with the range of toys and railway characters they have in store. Parent's like me and my husband begin to like and enjoy Thomas since we know that Thomas cartoons is not just the usual cartoon series on tv, it does teach kids values and will never be showing violence and disturbing influence on kids.

     Thomas then became one of his favorite character of all the engines, he became a huge fan. Even me and my husband became a fan too. He has seen the Thomas series in VCD's so many times, watched it over and over again without even getting tired. At times i would ask him "anak di ka ba nagsasawa paulit ulit na lang yan?" he would answer me "hindi po. mama pagpunta natin sa sm bili mo'ko ng Thomas ha."  One time we went to the mall and bought him his very first Thomas train.

Joshua with his pullback engine's

James, Percy, and Thomas.

     Thomas pullback engine was his very first Thomas toy. A speedy little engine that you can pull backwards and watch them go. There were two other pullback engine, Percy and James. I guess the cheapest Thomas in store which only sells for 249 pesos if i remember it right. Well, we we're quite low on the budget that time so we weren't able to purchase the three, we only bought him the Thomas pullback so just to make him happy i guess. Later on when we had the money we then bought the other two that completed his adorable pullback engines, which of course made him a lot happier. 

     The next Thomas he had was a bigger Thomas, i don't exactly remember the name but it was a battery operated Thomas accompanied by a silly truck. The silly truck had four mini disc's containing eight musical tracks from Thomas cartoon series which u can play on Thomas since the engine was a mini cd player of some sort. 

     A few months before our son's second birthday, my husband and I planned to buy him another Thomas present. To lessen the guilt of buying a quite expensive toy for a 2 year old kid and since it was out of the budget we decided and initiated a piggy bank savings. We started saving every 5 and 10 peso coin we have everyday. Surprisingly after a couple of months we have already saved a thousand pesos, and just before his birthday we were able to buy him the Thomas Starter Set. The starter set includes of course the little blue tank engine Thomas with his two faithful coaches Annie and Clarabel whom Thomas loves dearly. The two coaches carry passengers for Thomas. The set also comes with a miniature tree, a miniature sign post or whatever they call it, and several pieces of blue track of varying shapes.

Joshua with his big engine 
Gordon.

     Another Thomas present came on his third birthday. Actually it was a money present from her Ninang Dang which was deposited in my bank account. Since it was a birthday present for my son and because a three year old kid won't have any idea what to do with a 500 peso bill, well then I decided to use it to buy him a Thomas toy. We went to a toy store at SM City Fairview and found one of the most popular characters in the railway series, locomotive number 4, the big engine Gordon. 
    

     After the pullback engines, the mini disc player Thomas, and the big engine Gordon, we've added a few more character engines from the Railway Series. He has James the number 5 Red Engine, Percy the number 6 Small engine, steam engine Donald, crane engine Harvey, diesel engines like Mavis and Salty, and super cute and adorable Bertie the bus. He also has the Talk 'N' Action Magic Rail Set which consists of 26 pieces of blue tracks, 6 magic interactive green track pieces, an easy to assemble tunnel, a battery operated Thomas with his faithful carriages Annie and Clarabel, a station house and 5 trees. I had to buy him a long rectangular plastic caboodle to store his Thomas toys. 

     Each Thomas became an addition to his toys to play with. But for our little boy, it's not just toys to play with but it became his little treasures. It was a little expensive yes, but  buying it doesn't mean that we intend to spoil our son with toys, definitely not. It's not like we purchase one every time we wan't to, we can't afford to buy that often. We only purchase when we have extra savings from our budget which only happen once in a blue moon i think. But all in all, what's important to us is not the idea of making it a some sort of collection, but to make our little boy happy having a variety of Thomas toys to play with.