Every Wednesday night our mokopuna, Siagogo, comes to stay while his mother attends her Institute classes. It also happens to be the night that Dougie attends his Ara Reo classes, and that leaves us free to play while all the cats are away.
Today we went shopping and bought ourselves a Deluxe Thomas the Tank Engine set complete with battery-operated Thomas, Bertie the bus, Harold the helicopter plus Annie and Clarabelle the carriages.
After dinner we set the whole thing up and I was amazed at Sia's adroitness and understanding when it came to the assembly. That involves over 3 metres of figure 8 track for Thomas that runs beside, then bridges, a separate roadway - Bertie's domain. There's also a train stop on the bridge overhead, plus a train station on the other side. Two D cell batteries fit under the station. When they're turned on they drive a shaft that exits from the chimney, into which one end of a boom fits. Harold slots into the other end of this boom and when the battery is switched on the shaft turns, the boom rotates and the helicopter flies round and round. The noise they all make is very satisfying and reminds me of the song lines, "It went 'zip' when it moved, 'bop' when it stopped, 'whirr' when it stood still. I never knew just what it was, and I guess I never will."
We played with it for hours until the batteries on Thomas and Harold were getting flat and they were slo-wing dow-own. But in the end Sia's batteries have died before theirs, so now I've got to disassemble it myself. No way will I leave it till the morning, otherwise we'll never get out of this house.
If there was only one good reason in the world to have children it's this - you get to play with Sia and his Thomas the Tank Engine set, then eat goody-goody gumdrops ice-cream with chocolate chips at 10 p.m. when he should be in bed fast asleep. It can't be beat really.
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