October 1, 2013 at 11:59 pm , by Nick Shell
2 years, 10 months.
Dear Jack,
A few weeks ago when you began your obsession with trying to find a pink Hummer on the way to school, I finally had to break the news to you as softly as I could:
“You don’t see a lot of pink Hummers on the road, Jack. You really don’t see a lot of pink cars at all, really.”
Since that day, you have been using my phrase “you don’t see a lot of” to refer to any possibly peculiar or slightly rare vehicles you see as we drive around Nashville.
“A blue dump truck!” You paused for two seconds, then continued, as if recovering from deep thought:
“You don’t see a lot of blue dump trucks.”
This weekend I helped you make the poor man’s version of a Thomas the Train table by connecting all your plastic Take-N-Play tracks and playsets across our coffee table and couch.
You’ve got this new Hot Wheels van that serves as, I assume, a post-Rapture, pre-Apocalypse survival vehicle.
The entire back of the van is enclosed in what I think is supposed to be bulletproof glass, containing inside a tiny bed, a giant computer, and what appear to be giant tanks of oxygen.
As you considered letting the van cross the bridge from the table to the couch, alongside my Gremlin from the 1980s, you proclaimed, “You don’t see a lot of weird orange vans.”
The reason this story is funny to me is because when you say “you don’t see a lot of” it makes me think of you as a little adult.
That just doesn’t sound like a phrase a nearly 3 year-old goes around saying.
(However, I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that using unusual, adult-sounding phrases is actually pretty typical of kids your age.)
I’ve heard that raising an “only child” is like raising a little adult.
I could see that…
Love,
Daddy
