Autobahn

I have no credibility with my son. I try my angry face, my stern voice, threats, reasoning, bargaining, whatever.* He knows Mommy is full of crap and won’t follow through on her threat to “never sing the car song again if you come out of your room ONE MORE TIME”.

He is the King of Excuses, *which is hereditary I’m afraid, though I use my powers to get out of exercise and always readily go to sleep.

There’s the usual stuff, like “I need more water” or “I need a new diaper”, but now that he knows those work, there’s the phantom poop, where he swears he has soiled himself and needs to be changed because he knows we will always respond to that one. Then he moves on to “wha’s happen a’mosser truck?” (I threw my monster truck under the bed and demanded you come in to help me search for it)*, “wha’s happen a’peeyow” (I tossed my pillow out of the bed, and for some reason pronounce it with the Spanish double L), and my personal favorite,* “bwoken fenger!” (maybe my finger is broken, and I know you’ll check because you are a mom and it would worry you all night if I was telling the truth and you didn’t take me to the hospital and now my finger has to be amputated so kiss it better immediately). I have been putting Jackson down for a nap for an hour and a half now.**

We got Jackson into Matchbox/Hotwheels because they are cool, cheap, and available at baby stores and Target* in case of shopping meltdown emergency. I thought hey, they’re like a dollar a piece so if he loses one it’s no big deal. I was so very wrong. He must have 30 cars at this point of various brands, and he knows each and every one. For example, he currently has 9 cars in and around his bed for nap time, but he came out crying that he didn’t have his Trail Tracker, one of the 5 piece Fire Safety set vehicles that my Dad explained drives on the dirt (off road) to fight fires. Jackson finds the very thought of driving on dirt, touching dirt, sitting in dirt, dumping dirt from a dump truck, absolutely fascinating.* He also finds fire trucks to be one of the very best safety vehicles, before police cars and ambulances. So a fire truck that drives on dirt is almost too much to handle. After a thorough search, I found the Trail Tracker in my purse, along with 6 other cars. SIX, one of which is 5 inches long and blows bubbles. Perhaps my initial estimate of 30 was a tad conservative.*

Don’t get me wrong, I would much rather have a purse full of cars than baby dolls or tutus or whatever garbage girls have to play with these days.* And if someday we have a girl, I’m giving her the cars first and if she really hates them, then we’ll see about a kitchen set or something somewhat unisex. But my idea that buying tiny cars in bulk would solve a lot of toy problems was total crap.*** Last night he ‘needed’ a dump truck. I searched the box of cars and produced FOUR dump trucks, but not the CORRECT dump truck. Panic ensued. He definitely has his favorites that I always keep an eye out for in case he asks for them, but he knows them all and will not be satisfied with the yellow Mustang when it’s the yellow Thunderbird he is looking for, even though he doesn’t know the names and Mommy is getting too old to read the tiny print on the bottom of the cars.*

Each car has special meaning to him, though we often don’t know why. He recently began pointing out his own junk “Jackson’s weewee!” his brother’s junk “Archie’s weewee!” and after bursting in on Daddy in the shower, “Hello, Daddy’s weewee!” (sorry Robby). He considered asking Mommy about a possible weewee she may or may not have, and then promptly turned over his trucks (the more manly vehicles, hmm…) and said “truck weewee!” So, while that’s pretty weird, it shows me that his trucks are next to human. He was never one to sing along, but has recently started singing Happy Birthday to himself, to Mommy, Daddy, and Archie, and next it was to his cars. “Happy burday dump truck!” I mean really. It’s weird, but adorable.

So I will continue to buy him tiny cars because he loves them more than anything else he owns, but I’ll stick to the ones that can be easily replaced. I got him a slightly larger Hotwheels vintage black Corvette and it somehow fell apart. He was devastated and still asks about it. “Black car bwoken? Oh…” But I cannot find it in stores and I can’t remember what year it was to search the internet, which is totally overwhelming, and if I get the wrong one HE WILL KNOW. I felt so bad I got him a 5 pack of little ones, but it didn’t fill the vintage ‘vette sized hole in his heart.

Jackson hasn’t come out of his room in a while, but I know he isn’t sleeping, because he is talking to “Bubble Car” and “Mosser Truck” and a yellow car, but I’m not sure which. He knows, though.

* Each asterix represents Jackson coming out of his room while refusing to nap.

 

For those playing along, The Car Song is as follows:

(I swear this isn’t a song parody blog, just a weird coincidence)

To the tune of Wheels on the Bus:

The wheels on the car go round and round, round and round, round and round

the wheels on the car go round and round, all through the town.

The wipers on the car go swish swish swish etc.

The Jackson in the car goes Oh! School bus! Oh! Backhoe! Oh! Wheel loader!

The Jackson in the car goes Oh! School bus! All through the town.

The Daddy in the car goes vroom vroom vroom, etc.

The Archie in the car goes Waa waa waa etc.

The Nana in the car goes Oops! U-Turn! etc.

The Baba in the car goes Hit the gas! etc.

The Boogie in the car goes Look! No Hands! etc.

(Slowly)

The Mommy in the car says Go to sleep…etc.

 

Two hours later, he’s still not asleep. But he’s happy as a pig in mud.