Car etiquette

Jack has started playing with his cars again recently. He has a bunch of them, what we used to call Matchbox cars I guess, in different styles and shapes and colors. He watched the movie "Cars" recently, maybe that played a factor in his renewed interest.

So we were playing with them before bed tonight. I think it will work best as a Jack monologue, because it basically was, with me saying "Oh," and "I see," and "OK" every so often.

"You be this little blue car and I'll be the red one. The Monster one. (I'd explained how the one with the big wheels could be called a "monster truck" -- he liked that.) We'll just talk, and then we'll get on the big blue truck. And go for a ride. He's the Daddy truck.

"I want to be this one, too. I'll be these two cars. You be those two cars. I want to be this one, too. I'll be these four. Yes.

"Here, you be on the trailer. I'll be here.

"You be the fire truck. I'll be the police car. And this one is....is....this is the fire cooler car. He makes fires hotter. He's bad." Here, Jack nodded sagely; he was the expert, and we (Emily had joined the game) were learning about the various cars from him. He took his responsibility seriously. "You need to put the fire out with your fire squirter." But, I asked, what if the fire is too hot, because of the fire cooler car making it hotter?

"Well....but you have a hose, and it squirts water. And water is very cold." He was nodding again; I was the child, he was the adult. "The water is so cold that it will put the fire out. Water is very cold."

Next, we lined up the cars, organized into families. All the red cars, all the blue cars, all the yellow cars. The "mostly" red cars also worked into this; a red and blue car went between the blue cars and the red cars. It was nice.

The fire cooler car, which was red, was now in the family of red cars. I said to Jack, but isn't he a bad guy? "No. He turned good. He's good now."