The Hand That Talks the Lego

Last night, Jonathan chose ten minutes of playtime instead of three bedtime stories. We sat down to play Cars, a legacy from Granpa's babysitting last month. Jonathan wanted to recreate the Piston Cup race at the end of the movie. I haven't seen it in a long time, so I built an announcer tower out of Legos and put a Star Wars rebel soldier on top. I had him comment on Chick Hicks being mean and Lightning McQueen helping his friends. Jonathan really enjoyed it - so much so that he made sure to schedule time with me tomorrow to play Cars again.

He woke me up at 6 AM to check that we could play this afternoon. When I got home from the grocery shopping, he was ready to go. I had to carefully rebuild the announcer tower to the exact specifications. Jonathan lined up the cars and I started the play-by-play.

As we played, I noticed something interesting. If I took my hand off the Lego tower, say to brush my hair out of my eyes, Jonathan's concentration broke and he asked me immediately to "talk him, Mommy!" As soon as I touched the Legos, he would crouch down to make eye contact with the minifigure and start talking again. I took my hand away - Jonathan looked at me. I put my hand back - Jonathan was instantly reabsorbed in his game.

It was strange to get confirmation that he is still squarely in the "magical thinking" stage of development. He can talk (and talk and talk) with a wide ranging vocabulary, so most of the time I forget and assume he reasons roughly the same way I do. Not so. If that Lego tower is moving, then the minifigure is talking to him in Mommy's voice. I guess it's a mark of the mother of a four year old - I need to think more about how to exploit this.

I want to ride my tricycle.

Well, there's no snow on the ground, and it's above thirty degrees, so it must be spring here in Michigan. Jonathan and I were outside the other day. I asked him if he wanted to try riding his bicycle but he declined. We were balancing on the pavers when five year old Adam came riding by on his bike and asked to play.

I thought I'd help things along. It turns out Adam likes "Cars" so I had the boys run the Piston Cup. Then Adam wanted to ride bikes with Jonathan, who answered by making car noises. I told him Jonathan didn't know how to ride a bike yet, but maybe he could teach him a little. Jonathan lit up and ran to the garage for his bike. I put his helmet on (I have to do that before he thinks it makes him look dorky) and Adam showed him how to coast and balance.

Jonathan thought that was pretty neat. He asked me why Adam was allowed to ride around the block on his own. I told him Adam was five and in kindergarten, and he probably knew how to read and do all sorts of things. Adam's modest and said he's still working on the alphabet. Jonathan apparently thought it was time to establish some cred of his own. He said "I know how to read! I KNOW how to read." Funny, he usually says he can't if I ask him to sound out a word.

Then Jonathan upped the ante. He started pointing to his eyes and said "And - look here. Know what these are? Good sharp eyes! Watch out! They'll poke you!" Adam, duly impressed, rode off and said he'd come back some other time.

I thought I'd get Alex involved in the riding and bought him a Big Wheel. I loved mine so much when I was a kid. The new version doesn't have the hand brake that let you do such cool skids, but otherwise it's a perfect match. Poor Alex - his legs are too short to reach the pedals. He's happy to let Jonathan ride it down to the corner and back. Instead, Alex hauls the little push car up the driveway. We live in such a flat part of the state, our driveway is the best sledding hill in the neighborhood. Alex gets halfway up and turns around. He shouts "Ready?" and I say "Ready!" He says "Go!" and picks up his feet so he can roll down the hill. Almost immediately, he starts shouting "No no no!" because I'm positioning myself at the bottom to catch him before he scoots into the street. He leans to the side so he runs into the grass, stopping himself. Jonathan breezes by on the Big Wheel and everyone starts all over again.