14 February 2008

some/thing borrowed

day three in robin's party, which, by the way, is in celebration of "freedom to marry week."

a couple of weeks ago we babysat our next door neighbor sylvan for part of an afternoon. it was the day after his third birthday, and so he brought over one of the presents he got: two toy monster trucks. cosmo and sylvan played with them a bit, and even had a little squabble over one of them, but ultimately sylvan was more interested in exploring cosmo's toy collection, so they were put aside. when sylvan's dad picked him up, they accidentally left them behind.

later that night, after cosmo was in bed, carl and i found ourselves setting up ramps with books, revving up the trucks and letting them loose to collide into each other. they are not the kind of toys i'd think to get for cosmo, but boy, did we have fun with them! these things are light and springy, with rubber tires, they climb walls and flip and crash.

it must have fulfilled some lost childhood fantasy of mine. i wasn't a super girly-girl as a child, but i didn't really play with cars and trucks much. i remember one time, getting a hold of a metal pick-up truck of my brother's, and playing with it all over the living room floor for hours. it sticks in my mind as this wonderful memory of discovering that something i wasn't used to playing with, that belonged in the domain of boys, could be really enjoyable. i've always carried around a slight feeling of regret, that i didn't do it again. well, not until my late twenties, when i worked construction and got to drive around a real live bobcat skid loader in the mud once in while.

we reluctantly returned the monster trucks to sylvan the next day.

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