Car, trucks and trains

Posted by Penni on 4 October 2009 | 9 Comments

Tags: parenting, toddler, play,

The truth be told, I'm just not that into them.

My son can sit for hours in his room surrounded by vehicles beep-beeping, chug-chugging and of course crashing. Some of these land-based forms of transport take flight too. There's a story to be told as the cars of many makes and colours line up against the skirting and the fire engine comes sirening passed at terrifying speed. Trains become de-railed and then they all get scattered across the room as a dinosaur swoops low with a 'rahhhhhh!!!!'.
He sees a magic in it that I just don't.

I try, at times, to become actively engaged (this is opposed to my 'oh, I see' and 'golly gosh, are they okay?' non-committal responses from the couch as I attempt to wade through an article). I will get down on the rug and weave a truck through a mass of cars, saying such things as 'watch out' and 'oh no, there's going to be a crash' with as much enthusiasm as I can muster (which is, admittedly, very little). But I can't even seem to do that right. My three year old will take the truck from me with a look of disappointment and surrender, advising me that, 'No Mummy, that's not how you do it. Here, give it to me.' I'm not the most gracious recipient of criticism at the best of times, so this is a little hard to take. It does, however, serve a purpose – to reinforce that I am simply no good at playing with cars, trucks and trains. Best not to persist then.