Watch More TV
The boys have been watching way too much television. That’s okay, though. The act of watching television is an interactive experience for them. When they watch Pixar’s Cars, every race starts in the living room, loops into the music room, into the kitchen, into the dining room, and back again to the living room, five hundred times… for each race that’s in the movie!
Lately, they’ve been watching Thomas the Tank Engine. Ty sets up his tracks all by himself, which is a great thing. A few months ago, he was still frustrated by the building process. The tracks wouldn’t fit the way he wanted them. He has a better understanding of the physics behind (or between) the tracks now. Kyle waits until Ty finishes building and enjoys the tracks afterward. So the two of them grab a Thomas DVD and let the television play it while they act out the scenes.
For a couple of years, we’ve been pondering the acquisition of a Thomas Playtable, which has a play surface a little bit smaller than a coffee table and drawers under it for Thomas and Friends’ storage. After witnessing the meticulous building of log houses, the complicated process of assigning animals to their perspective locales, and the production of the infrastructure that is required to keep the system moving, a Thomas Playtable would basically put limits upon the minds of these intellectuals whom we call Our Children.
Today, while Dad and Taylor were out running errands, the children of Discovery City (those are Fisher-Price’s Little People) informed Ty and Kyle that they wanted to go to the zoo. Each child had a buddy, and some came in costumes. You can see the boys, who are dressed up as pirates, talking to the cows in the petting zoo.
Ceiling Fan’s View of the action:
Clockwise from top left: Zookeeper’s quarters, aviary, a stray polar bear, Ty’s feet, display of animals from the savannah and desert, panda display, the Discovery City School Bus, animals from the outback, and the petting zoo with actual farm and silo. There’s a gorilla on the roof of the farm, and Percy the Little Engine is taking a nap.
It’s not really “watching” TV when the children are using it as a radio, right?
July 21st, 2007 at 3:57 am
I love the imagination at work and I agree, that a table with “walls” would hamper this.
How long did you let them keep their little creation out?
July 22nd, 2007 at 1:40 pm
Dad and Taylor were gone for about an hour and a half… so at lease that much time. When they came home, Taylor took out some boats, and Ty directed her to put them in the “lake” with the stray polar bear and gigantic octopus.
Somebody knocked over the aviary, and in retaliation, someone else knocked over the zookeeper’s quarters.
So their “Zoo and Trains” was kept kept out for nearly three hours.