We started with track from IKEA and simple wooden trains. This was fun.

Then my small one’s birthday came and we got some pieces from the brio network set.

The set turns your everyday train set in to a computer network complete with viruses, email, diodes, a cd-burner, and a lovely virus mobile that jumps the track and delivers chaos to your unexpected, kind, and dutiful email delivery guys.  The email reader plays quicky messages from 15 different emails. We are charmed. Bye-bye lead coated Thomas. 21st century, hooray!

(My general parenting philosophy, if not already obvious, is find the toys you want to play with too!)