Lex’s first few days with his train set
were interesting. He was adamant about building it like the
instructions say (and the picture on the box) and he refused to
mix together the KidKraft set and the Thomas set. Poor Thomas
couldn’t even drive on the bigger KidKraft set. I was slightly
worried about his lack of creativity and whether or not having
a complete set instead of just pieces was stifiling his
imagination (my neighbor insists it does). But after a few days
he started to loosen up on the rules and let Thomas drive on
the bigger tracks, and started mixing up the tracks, and now
look what he’s doing.

I love it! See the trees and road signs along
the way? I think he just needs to have a good grasp of the
intention of things before he’s willing to deviate from it. Or
something like that. Anyway, several weeks post Christmas and
he is stilling loving the trains. We put them away each night
and each morning brings a new and creative layout. Such
fun!