My 2-year-old son has already gone through many phases.  When he first started becoming mobile and active, he really liked to play on his aquarium floor mat, spin in his exer-saucer, push around his blocks and watch Baby Einstein DVDs. A few months later, he moved on to cars, the ball popper toy and Little Einsteins.  Finally, up until a few weeks ago, he was in a phase where he loved anything that he could band or make noise, and he was absolutely addicted to Pingu.

Pingu is a cheeky penguin. He goes around getting into trouble all of the time, messing things up and, then, finding a way to make everything all better again.  Along the way, he squawks mmwwaaahh-whaaah and a bunch of other gibberish with his family and buddies.  In short, it is the dumbest kids show on the planet, but my son would ask for it multiple times a day…every day…for months.

Thankfully, the times they are a changin’, and he has moved on to a couple of new favorites.  Here are…

My Toddler’s New Top 5 Favorite Things:

1.  Trains - he absolutely loves trains.  He went through a short Thomas the Train phase, but he much prefer’s to play with the toy trains and ride on grocery store things that look like trains (I don’t really pay for him to ride on them, instead I let him climb on and then I shake it back and forth to make like it’s moving – he doesn’t know the difference).

2.  Magna Doodles - he loves to draw things, but more than that, he loves to ask me and my wife and his big sister to draw things for him on these magical magnetic boards.  “Draw truck.” “Draw train.” “Draw head-eyes-nose-mouth.” “Draw Daddy.” “Draw Mommy.” “Draw Sissy.” “Draw baby.”  We draw a lot around here lately.

3.  Books - “Read book, daddy.”  “Daddy, read book.”  It’s hard to resist, even if I’ve read 5 books to him in the last 15 minutes.  I definitely want to encourage him to read as often as possible, and he does seem to be catching on to the concept of letters making words.  It’s fun watching him learn new things and remember things we’ve seen or read about previously.  The only problem is that the books don’t last very long before he decided to rip the pages or destroy them in some way – “Uh-oh, daddy. It broken,” he says, as he hands me a ripped page.

Ten Little Dinosaurs Picture Book (Wiggle Eyes)

4.  Go, Diego, Go! - it’s fascinating to me to see how quickly my son is picking up Spanish, and it is refreshing to be watching a show that actually uses real words and not some made-up blabbing of arctic animals.  He will sit entranced in Diego’s adventures, and it’s funny to watch him repeat the words and behaviors of the show.  He also busts a pretty cool dance move every time the “Rescue Pack” character comes on the scene.  (In addition to Diego, he also has started to watch Dora too, and he really likes shows when they are on them together)

5.  The Backyardigans - this show taps into the imagination of my son like no other.  He dances, sings, claps, imitates, sneaks and crawls around our living room as if it were the same backyard all of these animal characters were living in and exploring.  I love to stand off to the side and watch him when this show is on because he gets transported to another world, and it is one that makes him happy and excited.  Sometimes, our eyes will meet and I see it – the innocence and enthusiasm for life that only a child has, and it makes me feel young again.  Unlike Pingu, I don’t want to shoot myself after watching the third episode of this show, you know what I mean!?!

These are my toddler son’s new Top 5 Favorite Things.  Do you have a toddler?  What are his/her current favorites?  Please share.

Also, if you’re concerned that Pingu has completely annihilated your child’s normal verbal skills, vist the homepage of this site and take the “What are your child’s language acquisition skills?” quiz from The Savvy Source for Parents and Leap Frog.

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