We Have the Biggest Bus in Town

My son’s toys talk now. His animals, cars and trucks. They talk to him; they talk to each other. It is really quite funny to watch! The little guy even does different voices for each of the toys as they “talk”. They usually say things like, “Come on! Let’s go!” or “Growl”. Today at lunch even his tortilla chips had a short discussion before hunger prevailed and they were silenced forever. I’m just relieved that all of his battery-operated toys have not squelched his imagination.

When we went to the store the other day I absent-mindedly pushed my shopping in front of a lady who was browsing to pass her. I forgot to excuse myself, so my two-year-old took the liberty to do it for me. The woman was so impressed by his manners that I figured mine could be excused on the grounds that he learned to do so from my example in the first place.

Little kids learn a lot by watching. I try to make sure my son isn’t in the room before I do things like stand on a chair to close the drapes because I know that as soon as I put the chair back he’ll have it halfway across the floor so as to climb on top of it in front of the window. I’m also leery about clipping the baby’s nail in front of him. I don’t really want him to try and do that any time soon.

All children go through a bossy stage. I can see it starting already when my son attempts to pass along my commands to one of our two cats. It appears that he believes himself to be rid of obligation to follow the instruction if someone else obeys it. If I tell him to come upstairs or to sit down he immediately forwards the message along to a cat and generally does not comply without distress if the cat is not made to respond as well.

A rather cherished past time in our family is to replace the standard words of any given song with our own. It may seem silly, but we enjoy it because we are all rather silly. My son has started dabbling in this by just adding things and not actually replacing any words yet. After he has heard or read (he has about one dozen books memorized) four or five bedtime stories he generally likes to sing “The Wheels on the Bus Go Round and Round.” By the time he falls asleep it is not uncommon for his bus to be loaded with the traditional wheels, wipers, money, babies and mommies, but also with cars, bears, hippos, and trains among other things. The cars on the bus go beep, beep, beep all through the town. That must be one BIG bus.