A few of our favorite toys.

I was recently asked to write a guest-blog post for City Mommy, a local community website for moms in cities and towns around the country (you sign up, and access forums for local groups, and so on — a virtual coffee shop for moms). Anyway, I thought for a bit about what I might want to write about, and for some reason, toys leapt to mind.

Just the other day, on my way into James’ preschool for pickup, I ran into another mom on her way out with her son. They were happy to report that they were on their way to Toys R Us for a treat, because the boy had worn his new prescription glasses all day (no mean feat for a 5-year-old!). Said Glasses Boy’s mom: “When James heard me say we were going to Toys R Us, he said, ‘My mom never takes me there.’ ”

True!

Glasses Boy’s mom thought this was hilariously funny. “I told James you probably go there plenty without him,” she said. I just shrugged. Not really.

What I find with my sons — and I know I’m not alone here — is that they’ll rediscover toys they haven’t played with in months. Right now, their latest must-do is setting up train tracks (thanks for those, Aunt Debbie!), and re-creating scenes from “Thomas and Friends” with their small collection of trains (thanks again, Aunt Debbie, and whoever else gave us Thomas trains over the years!). Here’s this morning’s setup:

Hours of amusement (well, an hour at least).

We have what I think is a perfectly acceptable amount of toys, but the vast majority of them — I’m no mathematician, but I’m thinking about 90-95% — were gifts. (That number got a big bump up after I threw the boys their first kid-birthday party last fall.)

So that’s what I wrote about in my guest-blog post for City Mommy. Go take a look, then come back and tell me about the state of your toybox.