Dancing with the Cars

Yesterday, after Alan’s afternoon nap, we retreated to the porch to play for a while. No sooner had we stepped off the front door step, did he discover three new matchbox cars which were lined up in a row on the ground – one red, one blue, one green. Hmmm. Must have been left by Aiden (age 3) and Roan (age 1) this morning when they stopped over. Alan gleefully said “Oh Wow-We”, and scooped them up into his little hands.

As Alan began to create a relationship with these cars, I started to rehearse in my mind the various options for when the grim episode for their return would come upon us. No doubt that their owners would be arriving momentarily to retrieve them. I imagined a weepy child with his mother racing back to the porch, and Alan refusing to let go. I shook this off by telling Alan that the new cars were Aiden’s. I did this annoyingly every 5 minutes hoping to instill the delicate game of sharing. I tried distracting him with busses and trains, and silly songs that we sing, but his focus was relentless. As the afternoon progressed, these cars became increasingly important to him. He "made eggies" with them. He took them "up hills". He clapped them together to make music.

During dinner, the cars went “bye-bye”, and I hoped he would move on to one of the other scores of vehicles that are scattered throughout our house. This would give me time to call Aiden’s mom to discuss (and/or collude) for their return. But things got passed me, and after dinner, Alan kept on asking for “Aiden’s cars”. I caved and reunited Alan with "Aiden’s cars".

But then he did the funniest thing. With one car in each hand, he said to me, "dance with cars", and began swaying his hips and arms while singing "do-do-do". At that moment, something switched inside me, and I decided that I would just enjoy watching Alan play with these cars instead of being fixated on returning them. We would deal with the rest tomorrow. MORE TO FOLLOW ON WHAT HAPPENED THE NEXT DAY…….