Charlie likes cars too

Cars, cars & more cars

I don't think we expected Zach's love of cars to continue as long as it has. It's not like he doesn't have any other interests - he's recently discovered the fun of assembling his wooden train tracks in different configurations, is constantly drawing mazes and asking me to create some for him, always wants to play any sort of board, dice, or card game, and of course, loves any sport. And you'll often find him poring over a book. But his go-to source of entertainment remains cars.

I was trying to think of when this obesssion started. I don't remember when he first saw the movie. What I do remember is that in the summer of 2009, when he was two and a half, he showed interest in my parents' Lightning McQueen and Doc Hudson cars. So much that when we all met for a vacation in the Dells in August, my parents brought them along. And they never returned to their original home.

I wrote what follows last summer. I never posted it, thinking "I've posted enough about Zach's love of cars, it's boring." But then the other day I looked and found Zach doing this:

The cars were celebrating Snot Rod (the one in the middle; yes, that really is his name), who is apparently the best basketball player. So I thought - ok, I HAVE to write some more about cars. It's been such a huge part of his childhood thus far. And having just seen Toy Story 3 - now I'm feeling quite sentimental towards those little die-cast toys, wondering if Zach will be taking a select few with him when he goes off to college...

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Geniuses at Disney Pixar (written in the summer of 2010)

As we walked toward a store the other day, I looked down at Zach and had to laugh. He was wearing a Cars t-shirt, had a Lightning McQueen thingamabobby in his crocs, and a Car in each hand. And I knew underneath it all he had on Cars underwear. I also knew he could have had on his Cars shorts, sweatshirt, and sunglasses. Or perhaps his Cars sandals. Why was I laughing? Because I can remember looking at little kids covered in some cartoon character outfit from head to toe and thinking - that'll never be my kid. And here he was. Mine*.

And this was just what he was wearing that day, it doesn't take into account the other 3 or 4 shirts, the pajamas, the sweatshirts, the vest, the books, the cups, bowls, and plates, or the sheets, the potty seat, the Legos, the Geotrax set, the computer, the doodlepro, the dominoes, the playing cards, the markers, the endless assortment of stickers and coloring books... all emblazoned with Lightning McQueen and/or his friends. Oh - and let's not forget the jump rope. And it certainly doesn't count the cars themselves, of which he has just about every character. Nor does it count the toys that go with the cars... are you getting the picture?

So I have to marvel at the marketing geniuses at Disney/Pixar. They are brilliant. They've stuck that red race car on anything they can think of, knowing perfectly well that a parent/grandparent/friend will buy it for their child who happens to love the movie. Or, worst-case scenario, will buy it for the child to prevent a meltdown in a store after the child has seen it and is insistent upon having it. (I'm happy to say we have been able to avoid this particular scenario.)

And even more genius... they now create toy cars for characters that are barely in the movie! A friend of ours bought a little pink Cars car for Zach, to marry his love of Cars and his love of pink. And of course, he was thrilled. But we, including Zach, had NO IDEA who this little car was. And we've seen the movie zillions of times! Scott sort of recognized her, and when we searched on-line, there she was... Chukie, the Japanese news reporter who is in the movie for all of 2.3 seconds. I kid you not. Yet there on the shelves at Target was Chukie, and Zach is now a proud owner. (an update... now in February of 2011 Zach has about 10 of these types of cars - ones who barely register in the movie)

And now those marketing gurus have gone beyond the movie. Zach's current favorite (ok, second-favorite) car is one that does not even appear in the movie. Nope, not at all. So who is she, you ask? Well, she's in one of the short films Pixar has created to tide all these kids over until the second full-length feature comes out (Cars 2 - appearing in probably every theater near you on 6/24/11). Zach has not only seen this short film on YouTube, he also owns the book. Yep, a book and a short film. You read that right.

I confess letting my kid be a walking advertisement for Disney/Pixar is only one example of things I thought I'd never do as a parent. It just seemed so commercial and so... unnecessary. Indulgent - and I am not an indulgent person. So while I can honestly say I've bought less than 5% of the Cars merchandise and paraphernalia Zach now owns, that's not even the point. Because I understand WHY everyone loves buying Zach Cars things, I truly do because I'm constantly tempted to do the same. And the answer is so very simple - because NOTHING makes Zach happier. True, down-to-his-toes happy. And who doesn't want that??

And the truth remains, I will always be grateful to both the creators of Cars and those marketing geniuses. All I have to do is remember the five long weeks Zach was in that [expletive deleted]cast. When watching the movie or playing with his new cars was the ONLY thing that would bring the spark back to the unfamiliar, pale imitation of the boy he'd been before he broke his leg (see the picture at right). The child he is now, when he's on the floor, using his imagination to create all sorts of conversations and scenarios as he races those darn cars all over the house, the car, the driveway, the new slide. So bring on more cars, bring on the Lightning McQueen toothbrush, socks, shampoo - whatever. My son is happy.

*yes, I am aware that Zach has two parents; I give full credit for many things to Scott. And while Scott may or may not agree with what I write on this blog, I prefer to just represent my own views!

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Back to present day. Zach and I finally tackled something I've been meaning to do for a while - count how many cars he actually has. The final count:

Disney/Pixar Cars (ie the ones with eyes): 44

Hot Wheels and similar cars: 48

Grand total*: 92

* This total does not include the other various cars, trucks, and certainly not the trains he owns; nor the Lego or the Geotrax Disney/Pixar cars. I know for sure that we are currently missing some, like DJ and the original Doc Hudson; who knows how many faceless ones are hiding somewhere in the nooks and crannies of our house and cars. A safer estimate is probably a solid 100 cars. Wow.

10

In honor of the Charlie-buggles turning 10 months old, here are 10 random things about our boy:

1. He thinks the 4 o'clock hour is morning. He's wrong, but we're having a hard time convincing him of that.

2. Charlie appears to have had a growth spurt in the last month. He weighed 17 lbs 5 oz at his nine-month appointment, and when we weighed him last weekend using our friends' baby scale, he was 19 lbs 5 oz! He had pjs and a clean diaper on, but still - that's a big change. We may need to graduate to the bigger carseat soon, which I think we may do anyway since he's getting way too heavy to lug around in the infant seat.

3. Charlie's head/scalp is apparently quite sensitive. He rubs his head when he is drinking his bottle. He always has - he did the same thing when he was nursing, although that was usually both hands. When he's laying on his back, his head goes back and forth, checking out whatever surface is beneath him. He'll even rub his head on your chin when you're holding him. And when he was given a sheer scarf to play peek-a-boo with at our ECFE class, he put it on his head and just rubbed it back and forth. :)

4. Charlie doesn't seem to have stranger or separation anxiety, and never really has. When I drop him off at the day care at the Y, he's as happy as can be. So I had to laugh when we were at the Y the other day, and I was sitting on a bench giving Charlie his bottle. To entertain himself, Zach started running up and down the stairs directly in front of us. The first time, no reaction from Charlie. The second time, he started to cry as soon as Zach headed away from us. Really cry - which he almost never does! So I guess he'll only have separation anxiety when he's separated from his brother.

5. Charlie loves his crib. When I lay him down, he gives a happy little wiggle, especially in anticipation of his blanket and his little froggy (frog-bungadee!). Then he flings his arm up, turns his head, and talks himself to sleep.

6. This boy still loves to eat, but he struggles a bit with any finger food that doesn't easily dissolve in his mouth. We have to be careful how much of certain kinds of food we give him, because he'll put it all in his mouth at once and then get frustrated when he chews and chews and chews, his little mouth full, without much progress. And the whole time he's making this frustrated mmmmmm sound. Despite all that, he still hasn't met a food he didn't like!

7. Charlie thinks sippy cups are funny. Don't ask me why.

8. Our boy is getting to be quite the chatterbox - he babbles pretty much nonstop. And his volume appears to be increasing with his size. The other day I did something I rarely do - took the boys to a department store. Zach was walking away from the stroller, and then running full speed straight at Charlie. The result was an amazingly piercing, loud squeal. We weren't in the store long.

9. Charlie has reached the not-fun stage where he's just frustrated all the time at the things he wants to do but can't, physically. He WANTS to crawl, but hasn't figured out he needs to keep his knees bent and his arms braced. He WANTS to go forward, but instead when he's on his belly he just slides backward. He WANTS to walk, but falls when he lets go of our hands. Frankly, this boy just wants to get down and do everything his brother does, and you can actually see the frustration on his face. He ends up doing things like flinging himself down out of my arms; when he's standing letting go and then grabbing my fingers again, reaching for me then wiggling away, etc etc. He just can't figure out exactly what he wants, and it's driving both of us crazy!

10. Charlie doesn't move around much in his crib. We stopped swaddling him a few months ago to give him some more freedom, but he continues to pull at least one leg up into his sleeper at some point in the night. So he wakes up looking a lot like a calf that's been roped and tied in a rodeo. The crib is such a safe place to explore, practice sitting up and pulling himself up (he can pull himself up on low things like the side of a laundry basket, but has no luck with furniture), but I have no idea how to get him to stop with the leg! His sleepers fit him perfectly - and they're a size 6 months!

Our Valentine Elf

Shortly after the holidays, Zach started asking when we could make valentines. "Valentine's Day is when you show people you love them, so I am going to make valentines for everyone I know so they know I love them." Yikes... that would be a lot of valentines!

I convinced him to wait until a couple weeks before the big day, and then we got to work. Our first stop was the fabric store - with me struggling to explain exactly what fabric was and why we were going there. But once we arrived, he got into the spirit. I showed him where all the valentines-themed fabric was and told him he could pick out three. The red M&Ms print was a no-brainer, but it took him a while to decide on the other two. So many choices!

I can't wait until Zach is more adept with a scissors, because I am not. But I got the cutting done, and then we got out the paint and glue and got down to the fun part. I enjoyed listening as Zach debated who should get what color heart, which fabric, what color to paint their initial. He'd say things like "well, Maryn really likes green, so she should get the green heart fabric." So cute; he really got into the spirit!

I wasn't about to cut out enough hearts for the 17 kids in his preschool class, so Zach got to pick out valentines from the store. Guess what he went with? Go ahead, you'll be right. I believe they were the exact same Cars valentines he chose last year, although this year they came with a pencil... ooooh.

After we finished the homemade valentines, I was pretty surprised Zach wanted to keep going. So I had him start signing his name on the school ones, then thought why not have him address them too? I kept telling him he could take a break, he didn't have to write them all at one time. But nope; he sat there, with his tongue sticking out, concentrating on forming all those letters. And he did it - all 17 names. We were ready a full week before his school V-day party!

We also baked and decorated some heart-shaped cookies - heavy on the sprinkles when Zach is involved. And on Monday we baked up some cupcakes decorated with pink and red M&Ms to take to 3M to surprise Scott. I didn't tell Zach the plan until Scott had left for work, so we actually managed to surprise him!

Whew, that was quite the holiday. Now Zach is already looking forward to next month and talking about Scott's surprise birthday party. Uhh... what?? I guess it's going to be a surprise for me too.

A summer day

I know it's not very interesting to post about the weather, but when you live in a place like Minnesota, the weather can have quite the impact on your life. And today was one of those days!

It was 48 degrees here today. It hasn't been even close to that warm since November 11th, according to our weather reports. I wish they had said how many days we've had in the thirties; I'd guess I can count them on one hand. So a day like today felt almost like summer, and we acted accordingly.

First Scott, Zach, and Charlie went swimming while I ran (ok, these activities were indoors). Then Zach played outside while Scott washed our cars. That's right - he washed the cars by hand, in the driveway, with our hose! I wish I'd thought to run out there with the camera; it must have been a funny sight to see him washing the cars with the shrinking but still tall snowbanks in the background.

Then Zach, Koskie and I walked to the park. Well, mostly we ran, since Zach doesn't do much walking. The park was a funny sight - the walkways through the park had clearly never been plowed, and the snow was up to the bottom of the swings and the benches of the picnic tables. When we walked to the playground, our boots kept disappearing into the snow, but we made it. Zach went down the slide a bunch of times and did some climbing too. And Koskie had a blast - bounding through the snow, sticking his head deep to find the snowballs I threw for him.

Now we just need a few more days like this and I just might make it through this winter!

A new look

The process:

The end result:

What do you think? It took me a while to get used to (it's been almost a week), but now I like it. Really shows off his brown eyes! And I'm still amazed he sat still enough to let Scott do it.

^ Now all three of my guys have the same hairstyle.

^ Have we mentioned how much Charlie likes hair?

Birthday wrap-up

That's right, I'm not done writing about Zach's birthday yet! As you can tell, he had many celebrations, which is why we decided to keep his birthday party small and simple this year.

Zach's birthday celebration was kicked off with a visit from Scott's parents the weekend before his actual birthday. Besides the opportunity to spend lots of good playtime with his grandparents, Zach got to celebrate grandma's birthday too! And Charlie got to have some cake from his new best buddy, Grandpa. We enjoyed having them here, but I don't think Alan & Teri will be back at this time next year... they weren't too impressed with our daily snowfall and sub-freezing temperatures!

Zach brought cupcakes to school for his birthday, where he got to wear a special birthday name tag and all the kids sang to him. He loves that.

And while it wasn't his own celebration, Zach was SO excited to go to his friend Stuart's birthday party - at a bowling alley! Stuart and Zach are "birthday buddies" - they were born about 15 hours apart on 1/21/07. So Stuart's party just added to all the fun! The cosmic bowling was a huge hit, especially with the ramp to make delivery a bit easier. Zach was particularly delighted he got to use a pink ball (they didn't have gold).

^Happy birthday Stuart!

And then... yep, more celebrating. My parents came the next weekend, to join in the birthday festivities but also to watch the boys for us while we curled in a bonspiel we've always wanted to play in (we made it all the way to the finals, where we lost to a team that would have beat us even if we'd brought our A game, which we didn't! But it was a good run...). So Zach not only got to open more gifts, he spent the entire weekend playing cars, bingo, baseball, Wii, and too many other things to mention, with his grandparents. As you'll see in the video, one new gift has provided a lot of fun, and a bit of exercise!

And while it certainly wasn't a celebration, we also visited the doctor for Zach's four year old well-child visit. I have to say, I get an enormous kick out of taking Zach to the doctor these days. He's so inquisitive; it's not enough for them to tell him what they're going to do, they also have to tell him why. So other than the shots (and the pink eye that appeared 2 days later), the visit was actually fun. And we got his stats: 40.25 inches tall, 35 lbs 2 oz, and a BMI of 15.25. Apparently at this age they no longer care about the size of his head, now it's all about making sure he's not overweight, which is not an issue with our skinny boy! The height and weight are right at the 50% percentile, which is where he's been all along.

^ The birthday boy enjoying his new leapster explorer game... takes a lot of concentration!

We hope you enjoyed all your birthday celebrations buddy! We're looking forward to seeing what adventures and new experiences you have as a four-year-old!

4th birthday party

^ The birthday boy - 4th birthday party

^ The birthday boy - 3rd birthday party. Anything look familiar? :)

^ Enjoying the cake... especially the black frosting.

^ The littlest guests (Charlie really does love pulling hair)

^ We tried a new game... shaking prizes out of a kleenex box.

Kasey had some moves!

^ Zach's cute new shirt... modeled by a very cute Sylvia.

Zach enjoying his new harmonica, while Koskie checks things out.

Babble growl

I am quite behind in updating the blog with Zach's recent birthday activities, including two grandparents visits, but I can't stop laughing at Charlie's latest, so I thought you might enjoy it too.

My parents were here this weekend to watch the boys for us (did we say thank you enough???) while we curled in a very fun bonspiel. We were gone quite a bit - in fact we never even saw Charlie on Saturday, which was a first for me! So when I woke up Sunday morning and heard a voice, I was quite surprised when I realized it was Charlie. He had begun babbling a bit more that week, finding the "ga ga ga" and "da da da" sounds, and was really starting to repeat them. But this voice was quite a bit louder than I was used to... and sounded more like a growl!

Check it out - Charlie's 3-pack a day voice (if you can tune out Zach in the background):