One of the great things about childhood is the ability to play without care and imagine worlds of your own. Wesley is three and has inherited some of his mama's creative genius, which in this day of i-pads, video games, and everything technological makes me one happy mama.
Trucks rule supreme in this house; Wesley has every type of truck that has been invented, everything from fire trucks (pumper and platform!) to garbage trucks to construction trucks: dump trucks, excavators, front end loaders, bulldozers, and a cement mixer. There are big trucks and little trucks, trucks for the bathtub, trucks for the sandbox; there are even remote control trucks, not to mention his ridable John Deere, which is, of course, a tractor, but we also have a few of those in our house as well. The beauty of these trucks is watching what Wesley can do with them. He loves to get down into the floor and pretend it's trash day or there's a kitty stuck on a roof that has to be rescued. His construction trucks are always building something, even if that something is in his mind, although he also doesn't mind using blocks to erect a castle or a "big" building.
Recently he has discovered the world of Buzz Lightyear and Woody, a world he loves to live in. He enjoys the DVDs and hearing stories of Buzz's adventures with Not Nice Bear (Lotso from TS3), but he also enjoys acting out his own Buzz Lightyear adventures. These tales may mimic the DVDs, but more often than not Wesley has Buzz rescuing Woody, who is stuck down a "hole" (Daddy's laptop bag), battling Zurg, who often ends up as a companion to Woody, or flying to help rescue the kitty who just can't seem to stay off the roof. Sometimes Buzz and the trucks work together or Buzz has to save a truck from going off the cliff. Sometimes, too, Buzz does save the train with the fervent cry "I glad to catch the train!" (Okay, so it's paraphrased - he's three, after all.) And not only is there Big Buzz (action figure), there's also Fluffy Buzz (a loofah with a Buzz head) and Straw Buzz (the top to a cup), who battle Batman for bathtub supremacy. (Buzz is always the winner.) Finally, there's Little Buzz, who makes the occasional trip to school and usually ends up swimming in the pool when he's not trying to reach "Tar Command."
My brother made a recent observation during a trip to his house. Wesley found the fire trucks and Slinky Pup, and it was pretty much all over after that. "It's funny watching what toys kids gravitate towards," Johnny said. "With Wesley, it's trucks and now Toy Story. With Ryan (his son), it's balls." He's right. It doesn't matter where we are; if there's a ball of any kind, Ryan is excited and apt to exhaust himself hitting, dribbling, or putting. On the other hand, if there's a truck of any kind around, Wesley will spend an entire afternoon in make-believe bliss.
There's a lot to be said for playtime. Heroes are born out of the imagination of children, and my son has quite a few hereoes. There's nothing more exciting than watching a ditch digger work beside the road - "Mommy, that ditch digger is noisy!" - or driving past an excavator digging a hole - "Mommy, that excavator is working hard!" He views the "big machines" as living creatures - "Mommy, that bulldozer's not working. Is he sleepy?" - and gives the same qualities to his own trucks - "Mommy, that dump truck was not being nice to Buzz. Put him in time out!" And, of course, Buzz has now moved right up to the top of the list, yet there's a certain care Wesley takes with Woody even when he leaves him behind - "Mommy, is Zurg gonna look after Woody?" Through his play, he is learning the art of story-telling. He is learning about compassion and justice, and he is learning to see all the possibilities ... to inifinity and beyond.
