February 21 with Cal

 Wednesday:  I decided to try my battery-operated cars (once again) with wee Cal today to see how it would go. About a year ago, when all of the kiddos were here, I had them out and ... well ... it didn't work out very well. I only have TWO cars (and there were FOUR kids that day)--plus, the track they run on is difficult for me to put together ... PLUS, the cars themselves are LOUD ... PLUS, Cal kept taking one or the other car and putting it on a table top and watching it zoom off into a spectacular crash !!!!! 

Today, Cal is a year older and much wiser (!!). I pre-assembled the track before he came this morning and then I made sure I had fresh batteries in the cars. Cal was pretty thrilled when he saw the whole thing set up, and he did enjoy playing with them. I'm just not sure there is as much play value in this particular toy as I had thought when I purchased it.

The first frustration we encountered was this: the little cars are so FAST they keep jumping off the track and going every whichaway (usually deep under my new and much heavier couch). 

I was surprised (although I should not have been) how adept Cal is at fidgeting with these little cars. He was not one bit afraid or timid of their noise or speed. He was quite aggressive with them! 

After about 15 minutes of watching them go lickity split around the track, Cal was pretty much done and just wanted to leave their motors running endlessly. He would go back into the play room and I would sneak out and turn them OFF.

He's a super cute little boy, isn't he? He knows how to have a good time!

We spent a huge amount of time in the play room with the Matchbox cars, too. Cal never runs out of play time with these. I'm so glad I have so many of them for him to play with.

Later in the afternoon, we drove back to Cal's house to get the kids off their bus. He was pretty excited to play paper airplanes with me--so that's what we did for nearly an hour and a half!

I was happily surprised at Cal's duration of play with these paper airplanes. He got no end of delight watching them fly through the air. I didn't get any pictures of the kids today; but Aidan was designing his own airplanes (he's very good at it) and zoomed them around with us for awhile. Erin did too!

I love these kids! What a privilege to be their grandma!