Playing Cars

One thing all 3 of our boys love to do is play cars--and it all began with Braylen. As a baby he had a fascination with the wheels of his stroller, the makes and models of cars on the road, and of course--his toy cars. Kaleb and Aaron love cars just as much. They know where their cars came from: grandparents, friends, McDonalds, etc. They have favorite "fast" cars and favorite crash cars. Days and days worth of time have been spent playing cars over the years. They always want me to play cars with them, and I have to admit, everytime I play I wonder what is so fun about driving these cars through the carpet? So we acquired quite a collection of roads to drive the cars on. We pick out which cars we will have, where we will work and live, and then we chase bad guys and pull them over. We go through the car wash, we go to the gas station, we go out for lunch...in other words, we create a mini-story as we play. When Daddy plays cars with them, they zoom the cars on the carpet and ramp them off of other cars. They make lots of noise and there's never a story or a house or a job or a restaurant to visit. It's so different!

Each boy plays cars differently too. Sometimes when I play cars with Aaron, he won't let me drive my own cars. He wants to do it. But if I get up and walk away, he's sad I'm not playing cars with him. So I just sit there and watch, and he's happy. :) With Kaleb, I have to do my own driving, and I have to make sound effects. Even with all my years of practice, their sound effects are so much better than mine. I'm convinced they're born with that ability! Braylen played like Aaron does--having me there was his number one wish.

After all of the times I've played cars, today I did something new. I arranged all of my cars according to the colors in a rainbow. When Kaleb walked in to the living room and wanted to play, I let him have my cars. Before surrending them to him I said, "See how they're lined up like a rainbow, Kaleb?" He looked at me like I was an alien. My husband looked at me like I'd lost my mind. You'd think that after 9 years of playing cars I'd figure out that my boys don't care about things like that. But if I don't teach them to appreciate things like that, who will? :)

Aaron and Kaleb with one of our roads

My rainbow lineup on the left, Aaron's cars on the right