It took turning three to really get into trucks and dirt. Since his birthday, a switch got flipped and he’s 100% boy now. Dirt playing, rock hauling, vroom making, boy. It’s one of the cutest things I’ve seen him do lately. I still vividly remembering him trying to drive cars around when he was 9 months old. I was amazed that he was making a vroom sound and just knew to drive things. He quickly lost interest and a part of me was a little sad that he wasn’t into it. If I’m being honest, it was probably the part that would have paid good money for JUST.FIVE.MINUTES of quiet. {Who am I kidding, I STILL would pay good money.}
He got a train set for his birthday and surprised us by being really into it right away. I felt a little bad that we hadn’t ever gotten him one, but he hadn’t shown a lot of interest in his other cars so we didn’t think about it. I’m glad he got one when he could really get into it and enjoy it. He does get a little frustrated with building the track. And he really doesn’t like it when Baby Godzilla smashes it or puts the tracks in his mouth! We’ve reached the phase where we need to tell him to take a deep breath and try again when something doesn’t work. We want him to figure this stuff out, but he can get so frustrated if it doesn’t. It’s a work in progress!
Besides the quiet time we’re granted with his new interest, it’s pretty awesome to watch him play and pretend. He’s been playing pretend a lot this summer. “Mommy, pretend I’m a scary dinosaur.” “Mommy, let’s pretend we are going to sleep on the couch.” I wasn’t exactly sure how boys played with trucks and trains. It turns out it is just like anything else. I walked outside the other night and he was playing down along the house in the dirt. He had his tractors mowing the dirt, his dump truck was there to pick up dirt, and his paver was there to erase the mower lines so he could start all over. He didn’t know I was on the deck so I sat there listening for a few minutes. He was yelling into a used cardboard paper towel roll. “MOMMY! You pick up the mess and watch Quinten!” (I had told him I couldn’t play because I had to watch Quinten until Bryan was back.)
We’re not used to him asking us to come play with him. It’s about the sweetest thing he’s ever asked. “Daddy, can you come play trucks with me?” When I couldn’t because Bryan wasn’t around to watch Quinten, he had the perfect solution. “Bring Quinten out, too. You can shut the gate so he can be out here.” (He wanted me to shut the gate on the deck and leave Quinten while we played in the grass below. Ha!) When I said no because the sun was really bright, he simply said, “no, you can do that.” I felt horrible for not being able to go out there but I told him I’d come play with him as soon as I could. You see, I didn’t realize that Maximus was going to let me play with “daddy’s trucks” and had apparently only asked because Bryan was gone. So when my answer was that as soon as daddy came back I would come out, his response was, “no, he will play with his trucks.” Ok, then.
We’ve been home a lot lately so he’s had some good chances to play outside. Unfortunately, we don’t have a lot of dirt or gravel, so he keeps taking the pea gravel from our landscape. Regardless of how many times we ask or tell him not to, he says he has to because he needs to build a gravel road. Obviously we’re still working on listening and doing what mommy and daddy ask. 🙂 I am amazed at the level on concentration that he uses when he’s driving his trucks. I’m used to the crab crawl to move a vehicle, but we’ve advanced into professional truck driver. He lays down on his side and drives them. It must provide the optimal viewpoint because he has told me to do it, too.
It turns out that three is a pretty cool age! From playing pretend to driving trucks around, Maximus is sure to entertain us a lot this year. And seeing him in this stage makes me even more excited that he’s going to have a little brother beside him vrooming cars and digging in the dirt!
