"I Like Your Loader"

It's no secret that my soon-to-be 3 year old has an unhealthy obsession with construction equipment. He could name 100 different types of trucks before he turned 2 (thank you You Can Name 100 Trucks book!). And we have yet to make a round-trip ANYWHERE without spotting at least one cement mixer, one dump truck, and one flatbed truck (thank you Houston freeways!). But this obsession has only just recently crossed over from "kinda cute in a mildly annoying way" to "ok...now you're just embarrassing me with your Rainman craziness".

We had the pleasure of enjoying a front row seat (from the comfort of our living room picture window) to the holy grail of all truck-obsessed-boy-"dom"...the tearing out and re-surfacing of our neighbor's driveway! For an entire morning we sat and watched a skid-steer (thank you, again, You Can Name 100 Trucks!) tear up concrete. It was like watching the garbage truck pick up our garbage...only LONGER!!

When I noticed that it was nearing nap time and a certain toddler hadn't done enough toddling to warrant sleep, I came up with the brilliant idea to ride our tricycle past the neighbor's and briefly watch the loader up close. What I failed to predict in the Utopian version of events in my mind, was the spectacle of yellow and blue striped, pirate rain boots...a bright red UofA hooded sweatshirt (with hood raised)...and large red, Lightning McQueen sunglasses...all haphazardly placed on a tiny body pedaling furiously down the street on a red, yellow, and blue tricycle. Couple this with the gigantic horse-dog and kangaroo-mom strapped to a "Taryn-joey" half-jogging to keep up...Let's just say we left our dignity sitting politely on the couch back home! And that's not even the "embarrassing Rainman" part!!!

We stopped a safe distance and awkwardly stood staring at the rumbling loader (which was really only awkward for me since the worker seemed to heartily embrace his 15 seconds of fame). And just when I was about to nudge us along on our merry way, the motor turned off and Brody sensed the gravity of the gift that was laid before him...an actual opportunity to express the unbridled joy he had experienced. With a manly nod and the deepest voice he could muster he said, "Hey man...I like your loader."

I've decided to tell myself that the worker didn't speak enough English to understand what Brody said. It's easier to accept than the alternative...that he was rendered speechless by the absurdity that was currently parading itself in front of him! But whatever the case may be, once Brody had made his point, the desire to ride his bike outweighed his desire to watch the loader and he abruptly turned and continued down the sidewalk. I chose not to glance back, but it was at least a few minutes before the confused worker felt he had sorted out the bizarre events sufficiently enough to turn the loader back on and continue working.