Trains, Trains, Trains

If you go into Sava's room these days, this is the kind of scene that is likely to greet you. He's been passionate about trains since he was about two years old, when we gave him a train table for his birthday, but his truly engineering spirit has only blossomed in the last couple of months. Thanks to several second-hand purchases, he now has enough tracks to build elaborate shapes that take up the whole free floor space in his room. He has learned how to make loops, use switches, create underpasses, etc. He almost likes building the tracks more than he likes driving the trains on them.
For the past few months, he and Rado have also been watching train DVDs every morning while eating breakfast (yes, a taboo on many parents' lists, but you gotta do what you gotta do to make the kid eat his oatmeal; we don't watch TV anyway). At one point, we had all train DVDs owned by the Mountain View and Los Altos libraries in our house. Sava can speak at length about the differences between steam trains and diesel trains, knows fine distinctions between different sorts of steam trains, and often walks around the house puffing like an engine.
While he went through a brief Thomas the Tank Engine phase, he now much prefers what he calls "trains without faces" and truly dislikes the "trains with faces." We are fascinated and puzzled by his aversion to Thomas & co., since most children his age seem to like these trains (when we went to get his hair cut yesterday at a kids' hair salon, the hairstylist asked him what he wanted to watch while she cut his hair, and he promptly responded, "Not Thomas!"; so, we watched Caillou). Truth be told, though we have nothing to do with it, I find slight gratification in my child's rejection of a popular commercial brand that has become a monster industry targeted at preschoolers and their parents. Maybe some day he'll build himself a cabin on a lake...
The best part about Sava's passion for trains is that it is unconditional, boundless, and creative. For however long it lasts, it deserves awe and admiration.