CC Trains Her Eye on (Girl and Boy) Toys

CC plays with a TOMICA car and train set at B/HI Family Fun Day.

I'm always a little curious about how CC will react when confronted with trains. Not that she's afraid of them -- she's definitely not.

It's just that lately, my 3 1/2-year-old daughter has decided to divide the world up into basically two categories: Girl Things and Boy Things. And she's very firm about where certain items belong.

Light sabers? "Those are for boys," she's said. Strawberry Shortcake dolls? A definite stamp of girl approval.

So when we visited Bender/Helper Impact Family Fun Day in late September, I was a little surprised when she made a beeline for the TOMICA car and train set -- and stayed there quite a while. (I thought trains were a shoo-in for the boy-toy category.)

The marketing and communications company hosted a kid-centric mini expo in West L.A., featuring many of the companies they represent, including TOMY Toys (the Japanese maker of die-cast toy car and train line TOMICA), Konami Games ("Karaoke Revolution: Glee") and THQ (maker of another CC fave, the uDraw GameTablet Wii accessory, pictured right).

CC really enjoyed running the locomotive city, complete with pizza shop and convenience store. She loved pushing buttons that made cars stop and start, as well as watching them turn around and around on a circular ramp.

It was great practice for her fine motor skills and her imagination. Oh, and the control! I could see she delighted in that as well.

Once we got home, she couldn't wait to rip open the Tomica Patrol Liner box, holding a futuristic toy train, support vehicle and a boy-like Tomikids figure, which she received as a gift from the event.

"Is this a girl?" CC asked, holding up the figure after we assembled the train.

What could I say?

"It's whatever you want it to be, Sweetheart."