Truck Lovin' Ty

In the beginning our only interaction with Ty was through the play of this little truck, and one other yellow car that made noise.  He would not look us in the eye and at first he would only allow brief peeks over at the toys we had brought along for the visit. Brian and I would spend hours just pushing the truck back and forth, every now and then we'd run it up his back and down his leg in a playful way.  His reaction wasn't what we had hoped..but we knew we were onto something when the first verbal sound he made was the sound of the truck. And that, as far as we know, began his love of all things with wheels!  The picture above was taken in Ethiopia, during our second trip which was when he came home with us forever. Since then he has been all about trucks and cars and of course his favorite movie is CARS.  He couldn't say Mater or Lightning McQueen but he could say 'KaChow!' and still uses it to identify McQueen.  I bet if you see us out, you'll find a truck, car or train in his tight grasp and they are not for sharing...consider yourself warned.  For us, toting a toy around is nothing new as K and M are always packing a bag with stuffed animals or games for the 2 minute drive to Kroger.  But this particular habit, the love he has for his 'truck' (he calls them all trucks) goes back to our bonding... and so we love it, embrace it and gladly participate!

This is his famous Wheaties van...he uses it to clear a path through the crumbs he's so evenly distributed about the coffee table.  BTW...those 'dings' in the table are really road 'ruts', and they were not near as bad before Ty joined us...all off roading vehicles have since been banned from the table and relocated to the nearby train table.

We had no idea how influential the CARS movie was going to be until we were forced to carry around this packet of tissue, just 'cause the CARS character was on it.  I don't even know who that is!  But he did!  No one was allowed to actually use the tissues, your nose was just gonna have to drip as far as he was concerned.  This was serious business.

This is a common parking garage for Ty's vehicles. Recently he's figured out how to make the ice come out and the trucks often find themselves in a hail storm.  Truly a little boys dream.

Opposite the hail storm is a molten crash.  Actually...this is my coffee.  Ty thought I could use a little extra zing and added his matchbox car.  A quick stir of the spoon, metal against metal and I fished out the die cast donation.

Here he is with his favorite remote controlled, KaChowing, reverse-forward-right, front fender mouth moving Lightning McQueen.  No the excitement didn't cause his hair to stand up... that's fresh shampoo'd hair.

What?  Didn't your convertible come with a Green Grape driver?

Lining them up, getting ready to go.  This combination gave him HOURS of play.  

Yes, that's a fresh pan of SpaghettiO's in tomato sauce with Meatballs and Tonka Truck.

And at the end of the day..you better believe... this little boy's KaChow is as happy as can be.