Giant Child Guidance Railroad

After I had Oscar and before I had a weblog I used to sit at the computer all day, bouncing Oscar in his bouncy seat with my foot and scouring the internet for all the best baby stuff. I hunted down vintage toys on ebay, searched european toy sites for all the coolest wooden toys, had the whole Plan Toys line memorized. Now with Oscar's second birthday and Christmas coming up I find myself stumped. I have no list. No ideas. Well besides trains and cars, no ideas. Even with trains and cars I'm confused. Train table or no train table? Should I start buying up all of Percy's friends or is that more of a 3rd birthday sort of event? I could just buy 100 (more) matchbox cars and wrap them all up under the tree and call it a day but I should probably try to diversify the kid's interests. Books of course, he has more books than the library and I can't stop myself. But what else? We've got blocks, puzzles, playdoh and crayons, um stuffed animals obviously. I just need to figure out what the perfect 2 year old boy present is. If anyone has any tips I'd love to hear them.

Some (my mother) would say I'm crazy thinking about more toys. Especially since we can't help ourselves when we find great things at the resale shops. Like this weekend's find, a 1950s Sears plastic train set. Tim was sure it would be compatible with the wooden Brio/Thomas track. It isn't. The track is nearly impossible to fit together and take apart and it's missing all sorts of key pieces but still it has had Tim and Oscar enthralled. I'm in love too, with its vintage colors and the cute little faces on the engines.