In the early days of Mylo’s life, when the joy of knowing he was a boy began to set in after his birth, the day dreaming began. Having grown up in a family who loves sports and played sports, and having married someone who is also very athletic, I’ve been conjuring up images of an athlete. I have visions of kicking a ball with my son. I want to teach him how to head the ball without being afraid of it and I hope he’ll grow up to see the value and joy from running. My husband wants him to play football. He wants our son to negotiate a football field with poise, power and purpose. Jason’s a HUGE Eli Manning fan. Of course I prefer he doesn’t play any sport he can hurt his brain in, so, we’ve settled on baseball.
But it seems Mylo has settled on trucks. For now.
In raising a male, it somehow slipped my mind that little boys, even grown men, love things that operate. Case in point: last week we were at Cadman Plaza park while two men in a utility truck were fixing a lamp post with a crane. Mylo was enamored by it. I held him in my arms and got as close as safely possible so he could watch. It happened that he was not the only one fascinated by the operation. An older gentleman on a bench sat with his fist under his chin, staring too.
A hard covered tot book simply called “Trucks” became Mylo’s best friend when he was 14 months old. He would let us know he wanted the truck book and that book only by motioning toward it and urgently calling out “gat-gat, gat-gat!” Last night he went to bed with his Trucks book under his arm. He is almost two years old and they are still best buds.
On Mother’s Day while strolling through Chinatown with my parents I bought him his first toy fire truck. Mylo didn’t let go of his new truck for at least one week. It was the best $4 I’ve ever spent. The fleet has since grown to include a subway car, a mail truck, a bus and a plane.
Mylo's guck-guck fleet
Mylo’s vocabulary has also grown.
The word “truck” is no longer “gat-gat,” but “guck-guck.” And before I know it, it will simply become “truck.”
I look forward to having conversations with my son. To hearing him speak in full sentences and listening as his voice deepens and matures. But right now I just want to bottle up all of these cute words and annunciations he makes and open up the jar 3, 10 and 20 years from now to remember how happy they make me.
