Thomas the Train...

Need I say more?? :) lol...

Hunter fell in love with Thomas at a very young age, can't remember when he didn't like Thomas actually, lol. It’s a clear obsession of his, most on the spectrum have one thing they obsess about. If we walk through Toys R Us he will not acknowledge a single toy unless it is a train. There are benefits to this. We went to a huge neighborhood garage sale when he was about a year old and same thing happened. He was silent as he strolled along accept when he saw a Thomas train, and there is NO leaving until you give it to him and buy it! When shopping we’ve since learned to carefully scan the isle ahead of us to be sure there is no Thomas seen.

We've heard from many that ASD children often have a special gift in something. We've known for quite sometime that Hunters gift is the ability to scan quickly an area we are in or passing by. I recall very vividly the day my husband and I walked through a toiletry isle at the grocery store. He was maybe 1.5 years old. We were passing through and walking fairly quickly, even I would have had trouble reading or picking out items on the shelf if I had been looking for something. All of a sudden he screams "Thomas!" We stopped and looked and looked and looked some more. We couldn't find it. We spent several minutes trying to find it and low and behold back a few feet there it was! It was a small child size tooth paste tube. Are ya kidding me?? So small that it was really hard to see, ESPECIALLY on the move! He has amazed us many times with his ability to do this.
Often times my pre-scanning fails I’m obviously not as good at it as he is, just when I think the coast was clear, there is a Thomas the Train item….

DAMN!…

My husband and I were beside ourselves one day as we were walking through Home Depot one time. (Hunter is always in a shopping cart so he also has to turn his head as he looks around). Same thing, we changed isles and he cried and cried. We couldn't figure out what set him off so we went back to the isle we had been in, "THOMAS!" He yells... We were both baffled; why on earth would there be a Thomas item at Home Depot? Sure enough there was. It was a Thomas the Train play mat in the flooring department. Good Grief!

While Hunter does play with other items but they are on a much smaller scale. Thomas is the main caboose, no pun intended. Other toys are pretty mute by comparison. When he was an infant we began to call him our Choocha man. This was before we knew he loved Thomas and long before his diagnosis, pretty appropriate huh? That nick name has SO much more meaning to us now and it totally fits him!

We've found in Hunters case that the link described by professionals between Autism and Thomas truly describes his attachment to the trains. He loves the colors the faces, the stories etc. He has actually learned some of his colors because of them. He knows Thomas is Blue, Molly Yellow, Percy is Green and James is Red. Trains are also very predictable and all lined up and autistic children/people find this to be very calming.