Kidspeak

My boys are obsessed with any type of moving vehicle. Obsessed. Schools buses, motorcycles, bikes, garbage trucks, everything that moves. But their true guilty pleasure is  any type of construction vehicle. I never thought I'd be able to tell (or care about) the differences between a bulldozer, a front end loader, or an excavator, but I can now differentiate between the three in a heartbeat. We have been know to park our car at constructions sites, roll the windows down, and watch the activity for hours. Not exactly my idea of a good time, but the quiet that it brings is intoxicating.

So, as you could probably discern, the boys have become experts at identifying and then screaming out the name of every vehicle (including it's accessories) as we pass by. Sam has recently become interested in all of the paraphernalia that hangs on the sides of a fire truck. He was flabbergasted to discover that the firetruck (one of his great loves) actually has a hose (another of his greatest loves) attached to it. He now looks for the hoses on the firetruck every time we see one. The following conversation happened the other day as we passed the fire station by the kids' preschool ...

Me: "Sam, there's the fire station."

Sam: "I know Mom. The fire truck is still there so there must not be a fire."

Me: "That's good. Can you see all hoses on the truck?"

Sam: "Yeah, Mom. I can see it. But Mom???"

Me: "What, buddy?"

Sam: "Mom ... where can I find some hoes hose?"

I'm thinking we're going to postpone any trips for Sam to Las Vegas in the next 30 years.

Sam and Luke also have the unique ability to make up names for trucks that they can't identify or that they haven't seen before. For example, the truck that the men sit in to work on the power lines has been dubbed a "liffer" (I think they're trying to say "lifter"). It makes sense, I guess. It's a truck that lifts people. My kids get straight to the point.

This summer, Sam saw a truck while we were at the beach. He'd never seen one like it before, so he wasn't sure what to call it. When this happens, they tend to name the truck after it's most obvious or dominant feature. For example, on this day Sam exclaimed ...

"Look, Mommy!! It's a hooker!"

Try explaining that one to the people sitting near us at the beach.