Welcome mamabird! I had one obsessed with trains too and I also got a wee bit tired of it. My oldest also played this imaginary game about two of his friends at pre-school and we played that almost daily for about 3 years. He could bring it up and my eyes would begin to flutter with sleepiness. I definitely got very tired of that one.

Science museums, art parks, touring a nearby dairy, concerts in the park, even children's theater plays can all be appropriate for a 2 year old if they have any sort of interest or attention span for that kind of thing. Sporting events, air shows, etc. All of these we did with my DS10 when he was 2 or there abouts. He had an amazing attention span (longer than mine usually!) and would want to stay until the very end. Just go with your DS's interests and attention level and you can't go wrong.

Ooh, we didn't have trains, but we did have construction trucks ... ds was hardly talking at 2.5, but was peeping up from the back seat as we drove:

"Giant excavator truck!"
"Double drum compactor truck!"
"Skid steer!"
"Articulated dump truck!"

We've got an omnivore, by and large, though.

We had the constructon vehicles obsession, too, when DS6 was about 18 months. That was one of my favorites, actually, in part because of funnies like this:

DS pointed to the shirt of a much older boy--he was probably a 5yo--which had pictures of construction equipment on it. DS said "That's a bobcat." The older boy looked mad and said, "No, that's a digger!" He started lecturing DS about it, and DS didn't know any better but to politely disagree. Naturally I stepped in.

All this happened in line for a visit with Santa at a playgroup meeting. Santa, played by the dad of one of the kids, overheard and laughed to me, "Your son is right. That's a bobcat, plain as day."

My DS10 was also obsessed with construction vehicles. When he was about 2 he and my dad got into an argument about what type of loader something was - a skid steer or a front end - and I told my dad I would have to go with DS as I was sure he was right! My dad just laughed but my husband confirmed it was a skid steer just as DS said. We had these great little videos, I Love Big Machines, that he loved to watch over and over. They played the William Tell Overture in one part and he'd stand there and run in place to the music while watching the machines. Aaaaahhhh......memories

Funny how several of them liked the construction vehicles!

I have two goals for the weekend:

One is to go to the library to check out a book about train parts. My son keeps asking what all the little parts of each train are and I have NO idea! He will comprehend and remember the real thing, so I figure I am better off teaching him the right things to begin with.

Second, we have all sorts of boxes from lights and ceiling fans from our latest project at our house. I think I am going to link them all together with rope and cut out the bottom of the front one so my son can crawl in and pull the train! Perhaps I can even turn it into something of a arts and crafts project and let him decorate the boxes.

Oh - your DS sounds just like mine at 2! When DS was just 3 we moved from a house with a furnace to a house with a boiler. Whenever anyone asked how he liked his new house he'd say "I miss my furnace". He loved to watch it cycle and would run down to the basement when the vents came on. But on the other hand our "new" old house has this antique toliet that DS would pull the top off of and explain the works to every person he could drag in there. You son sounds very sweet! I miss those days. My DD3 is so not that way. But she cracks us up in other ways.

Kriston - I like the Omnivore/Obsessive classification. I think I'm a closet Obsessive type and so is DH. DS seems more Omnivore right now though but has Obsessive streaks! DD is TBD. Seems obsessive on all things girl to me.

And Mamabird - I live in St. Paul MN just a couple miles from the free zoo! I initially was afraid of divulging my location but what the heck. I know there is no teacher or administrator from our school lurking.

Feed that current passion (trains). I had trouble with fighter jets because all the specs and artillery didn't interest me. Luckily DH had some interest/knowledge. I saw an amazing train museum out near Amish country in Pennsylvania. It was so cool. I've taken the old-fashioned, coal train from Durango, CO to Silverton (really neat). People come to the middle of absolutely nowhere NM (90 miles from here--practically nowhere) to watch trains, because evidently it's cross roads for ATSF & several others. I met an older gentleman once who was describing his upcoming vacation--taking a train cross-county, then back (no anticipated de-training, just the ride--isn't that strange?). Passions are funny, and safe to say, some come and go. DS13 who knew every single thing about dinosaurs at 2 doesn't remember any of it.

Just to clarify, so no one thinks that *I think* these are rigid categories, each type of GT person has some of the other aspect.

I'm a serial Obsessive, but I'm curious about everything. (So is DS6, BTW.)

In conversation, I often ask lots of questions, so the person I'm talking to thinks I want to pursue the subject "for real" and begins giving me lists of resources, contacts, etc. Then I have to either pretend to have a lasting interest that I never intended, or I must confess, shamefacedly, that no, I don't want to actually go back to school to become a _______; I'm just a curious person.

In the field of English--my obsession--I wanted to be a generalist because I couldn't pick one major field of study over the others. Asking me to choose between Romantic lit and Modernism was like asking me to choose my favorite child! Unfair! So there I felt like an Omnivore, though in a very limited arena.

As I say, totally unscientific...but still potentially useful, I think.

Oh, and mamabird, if I had a dollar for every library book we checked out to figure out the terminology for some obsession, I could probably buy the library!

Oooo Kriston - I totally do that conversationally as well.

And point taken about being unscientific, but I do think it is useful! I like it a lot.

Thanks.

It's at least another way to think about these kids, and it's never bad to have another tool in the old toolbox.