Puppydog Tails

The old Nursery Rhyme says it all--Little girls are as different from little boys as sugar and spice is from snakes and snails! As I have written in this blog, I have five granddaughers, and one grandson. So I have been immersed in the "Sugar and Spice" years, with three girls coming along in a three year span.

Then came Cade. As soon as he became mobile, we could observe a very different play pattern. He was thrilled by anything that moved, made noise, or preferably, did both. Where the girls were content to sit and color pretty pictures, he was more about throwing the crayons, or grinding them down to a nub on the paper. He wanted to growl and pop and squeak, and drive the crayons along the table.

At 3 plus years now, he is in love with the Cars of the Pixar movie by that name. He has a small collection of them, and carries them around in a little canvas case all day. His favorite is a red racy car named "Lightning McQueen", and when we play, Cade is always Lightning. There is a green Mustang named "Chick Hicks" and a towtruck named " Mater", and a Ferrari named "Luigi". There is another Italian car named "Guido", and a slinky blue Miata-type car named "Sally" as well as a model T named "Liz" and a 57 Chevy called "Ramone." One of them is a blue Transam Cade calls "Mr. The King." I am not sure why he calls him "Mr."

As I said, when we "play cars" Cade is always Lightning. I often try for Sally, as I love the look of her, but he always assigns me Ramone, which he somehow seems to know is the same vintage as I! Chick Hicks has a way of being left under the sofa, and it seems we are always looking for that guy. Mater has a loose tire, and Guido and Luigi are always racing around the coffee table.

For Christmas, I am making him a Lightning McQueen throw for his bed. He thinks he should be able to get a Lightning McQueen scooter, and a Lightning McQueen backpack, and when his sister got the first Bible of her very own, he asked if he could get a "Lightning McQueen Bible"!! I know this will probably pass, as something new catches his fancy. But it amazes me how much he knows about all these little cars, and how he has memorized the book about them. When we "play cars", he lines them up across the coffee table, and then we push them all off the other side onto the floor. He picks them up, lines them up on the opposite side, and the whole operation is repeated, amid much laughter and joy.

Since he is the one and only so far as grandboys go, I am enjoying each phase with him. I tell him always that he is my favorite grandson. And I guess it is ok that he sees me as the 57 Chevy. They were hot, weren't they?