Boys and their toys

(Little guy helping daddy repair the chair)

As I was talking to my cousin J today, she told me something her mom said and it has lingered in my brain since. J has a little boy who is 3 and J's mom said that J will never totally understand her son. She'll have the best understanding of him above anyone else, because she's his mom, but she won't totally get him.

Boy, am I feeling that right now. Nathan got a book for Christmas with bright, colorful clear pictures of trucks. Up until then, I thought the child just didn't care for books because he showed little interest in them, or at least the ones we had. He picks this new one up every day, flips through the pages, makes truck sounds, carries it around the house (I've found it in every room since Christmas) and LOVES that book. (Yes, I've got it on the list to get him more). Why does that surprise me? His other books have a truck scattered here and there in between balls, dolls and animal pictures. I thought looking at something other than trucks might be appealing. Nope.

Another thing is this constant need to be carrying around some type of tool. The tool of his choice at the time might be a hairbrush, the dollhouse's table, the long skinny brush we use to clean out the dryer lint collector, diaper rash creme tubes, a toothbrush or a wooden spoon, all of course carried around like a club. And they each rank differently on their coolness scale according to the noise they make when banged against the metal closet doors, scraped along the wall the whole length of the hallway or bonked against his sister's head (so far the brush is superior in this category).
That's just what's available inside. Outside "tools" are way bigger, more dangerous and usually induce a back-arched-head-thrown-back-fall-to-the-ground reaction when I insist they are not allowed to be brought inside. For instance:
Now, I know what you're thinking and let me just stop it right there. In my defense, the day I took these pictures, the majority of the day we spent inside and I didn't plan on him waltzing outside in his rolled-up pants that are too long with a not-matching goofy Elmo shirt on. So besides that, I'll just thwart the next comment to come: Yes I know, if I ever plan on getting half-way serious about photography I must pay more attention to the placement of background objects that might seem a bit out of place. The point is he's still holding the small branch.
I guess Aunt S is right, I'll never totally get him. He's so stinking cute, though, I could never do anything but love him.

BTW: That is on my list of things to talk to God about when I get to heaven. What exactly were his motives when making boys and girls so different? 'Cause I still haven't figured it out yet.