Talking Trucks

I find myself missing fairly entertaining comments from Q on a regular basis, only figuring them out later. Earlier this week I explained that his dinner was a little hot, but in the meantime he could eat some tortilla chips. He asked, “Is it the Mean Time now, Mommy?” I thought he was asking if it was evening time now. J helped him out, “Yes, now is the meantime.”

He’s also been asking, “Is N happy? Is N happy, Mommy?” He’ll ask this about the cats, his sister, J, or me. The other day he asked me if I was happy, just as I had the two kids in a golden snuggly moment. You bet kid.

He’s suddenly launched into a new phase of imaginative play. He will describe a book as if he is the main character. “Then I found a stick and I whacked the tree with it, and the snow fell down.” (The Snowy Day) “I climbed up on the river bank into the reeds and something screeched in the sky above me.” (Come Along Daisy!) A boy after my own heart.

Lately he’s also been pointing at pictures and saying, “I’m gonna play with dat truck/tractor/excavator.” He points to a window on his train station, “I’m gonna look out dat window, Mommy.”

And his trucks are taking on more and more personality. “Excavator was spitting up on the spit cloth.” I asked if Excavator felt better now. “Excavator and Articulated Dump Truck were crying…”

Articulated Dump Truck was a gift from friends upon Q becoming a Big Brother. In case you are not up on your trucks, an articulated dump truck is the type that is jointed between the cab and the bed, so it can bend in the middle.

My father, hearing the truck’s name, was confused. “Is he saying, Tickle-A-Dump Truck?” Um, well, that’s what it sounds like most of the time. And when he can enunciate well enough to say ‘Articulated’ articulately, I think I’ll sob.

I doubted that Q had really gotten the meaning behind Articulated Dump Truck’s name. We have a glamourous truck book that explains these details, but he is only three, after all. At the Haddam Neck Fair, however, he pointed to a tractor, he announced it was articulated. Skeptically, I watched the tractor for a minute, and realized he was right. The tractor was jointed in the middle.

Before I had my son, I really don’t think I would’ve realized how cool that is.