Bus Obsession

My daughter Arden is obsessed with busses. OBSESSED. I do not use the word lightly. It all started when Preston brought her a toy double decker bus home from a business trip to London. She had it for a while without really treating it any differently than any other toy. Then one day she was happily pulling all my books off of a shelf and she ran across a book about London from a trip Preston and I took there a couple of years ago. She pointed to a picture of one of the double decker buses, and then to her nearby toy bus and yelled "BUS!" I hadn't heard her say that word before and thought she was brilliant for noticing that the picture and her toy looked the same, so I told her (as I often do) that not only is she beautiful, but a genius as well. Little did I know what had begun.

As the days went by, she would return again and again to that London book on the shelf. She would pull it down, flip through the pages until she found a bus, and yell "BUS!" It was cute. Then, whenever we were out driving and we were lucky enough to actually see a real live bus, she would get really excited and shriek "BUUUSSSS! BUUUSSSS!" Soon this led to a regular chant of "bus, bus, bus, bus" when we were out driving around even if she couldn't see one, as if by just saying the word over and over (and over), she could make one appear. The London "bus" book became her favorite book, and I have to tell you I have probably flipped through that dang book about 500 times (I wish I was kidding, but I am not). She has the book pretty much memorized and knows the exact locations of every bus in it (there are 35). About every other page has tape on it, but she loves it so much she even took it to bed once, hugging it like a doll. This has gone on for over 2 months now, and I am beginning to hate buses even more than I did before. (I don't like buses because of some past experiences involving a sleeping bus driver and a couple of sick bus buddies, but those are stories for another day.)

Anyway, I am wondering if anyone who has had toddlers before knows how long this will last? I was hoping it was going to be a short phase, but as the days go by her love of buses only grows stronger :) In the picture above she is happily reading her beloved bus book surrounded by some of her bus paraphernalia.