To listen to our breakfast-table conversations lately, the most anticipated event of the summer in our household is NOT the arrival of our second child. No, the most anticipated event of the summer is the release of Disney/Pixar’s Cars 2 on June 24th. Actually, for me personally, the most anticipated event of the YEAR is the release of Cars II on DVD sometime in the Fall, so that I can finally halt the endless loop of the original Cars film — and, when enough TV is enough, the Cars motion picture soundtrack, or even just Babyman’s running narration of the entire Cars plotline — in our home.
Babyman is currently engaged in sartorial competition with his little schoolmate (we’ll call him Buddy). Buddy is also obsessed with Cars, and boasts an impressive collection of branded t-shirts (and, according to Babyman, underwear, which is soon going to become an obsession chez nous as we use every incentive we can come up with for potty training). Babyman owns only one Cars t-shirt, and it isn’t even Lighting McQueen; it’s Mater, which is sort of a second-fiddle t-shirt. He also has a couple of more generic race-car t-shirts which my husband and I enthusiastically insist are equally as cool as Lightning McQueen. Yeah, right.
And so every morning before school, Babyman proffers his opinion of which t-shirt he should wear, always with the same goal: to get Buddy to say “That’s a really cool race-car shirt!” When he arrives at school, he immediately races to find Buddy, and the two of them have a t-shirt face-off.
As if this isn’t enough to keep up with, we have recently noticed that Babyman is paying a great deal of attention to the food that comes in other kids’ lunchboxes (you will recall the Cheetos incident a couple of months ago). He makes requests like “Can I have crackers like Alex has?” Or, “I don’t like this pasta. I want Lucy’s pasta.” Obviously I have no idea where Lucy’s mom buys pasta, much less how she prepares it. (I don’t even know Lucy’s mom’s name, unless it’s actually “Lucy’s Mom”.) But I have half a mind to host a little lunchbox summit with the other parents where we exchange grocery lists — out of curiosity as much as anything else.
Our sippy cups have been leaking in the lunchbox (lovely) so I ordered a bunch of new ones last week. When I presented Babyman his milk in one, he shouted in glee: “It’s milk just like Will has!” I didn’t bother pointing out that all milk is basically exactly the same; I was too happy to have *finally* hit the jackpot on making Babyman feel like one of the cool lunchbox kids. I can only imagine his excitement show ‘n’ telling his new sippy cup to Will (every day).
And would you believe, on Sunday evening I made up a batch of Trader Joe’s shells & white cheddar (with veggie puree, natch) and Babyman said, “Thank you, Mommy, for making me Lucy’s pasta.” Phew. One less mystery in the world.
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