Car

In Joel's very short life he has had several different objects that he has loved and carried around.  Each item was usually only his favorite for a few days or maybe a week.  He doesn't want to carry a blanket and he usually chooses a little car, truck, or book.   That is until he fell in love with his Lightning McQueen car.  My friend Kelly got each of the boys a little Lightning car at least 1.5 years ago.  For awhile Vince was the only one that could tell the 2 identical cars apart or at least he claimed to be able to tell the difference.

Couldn't even pry Car out of Joel's hand to take a picture.

Somewhere along the line Joel became very attached to his "tar".  He sleeps with it, cuddles it, plays with car, carries car everywhere and freaks out if we can't find car around nap or bedtime.  If he doesn't have his car before we read a book at night he can't even focus on the book.  He just says "my tar, my tar, my tar" until someone finds his car.  Car, or "tar" as he calls it, has become his security item which means it has become extremely important for my sanity to know where car is located at all times. 

When Vince was little he always wanted to take his blankets with him.  He had several but as long as you had two of them with and one of them was polka dot he was happy.  Blankets are big and not easy to misplace.  The car on the other hand has been misplaced more than once.  At first it wasn't a big deal because we actually had 3 in the house.  If you couldn't find one there were 2 backups.  Then we lost one completely and one ended up stuck under the cabinets in the motorhome.  That left us with one car and increased my stress level a great deal.   I ordered a backup!

Then a few days before the backup was scheduled to arrived Joel lost car while playing in the lime pile with his cousins and brother.  Brad put Joel to bed that night and didn't have any issues.  Joel was probably too tired to care that his car was missing.  I was not wanting to take any chances at nap time so that Monday morning Joel, Cecilia and I went to the store while Vince was in school.  It turns out there are several different types of Lightning McQueen cars.  They had two of the kind we needed and I bought both.  Joel didn't seem to care that they were brand new!

Brad found Car in the lime pile!

I would love to tie the car to Joel so that I don't have to keep track of it so closely!  Cecilia would be mad if I did that because she loves Joel's car.  If she sees it on the ground she will bee line it over there and play with it until Joel takes it back.  She knows exactly what she is doing and enjoys aggravating Joel.

Joel's latest trick is to wear his (it used to be Vince's) Lightning McQueen hat.  He takes car, puts him in the hat and then puts the hat on his head.  It is a riot.  He is very particular with how he does this and he thinks it is the best idea ever!  It is hard to lose your prized possession when it is under your hat.

Joel and Car.  Notice the car sticking out of the hat.

It amazes me that a small car can have so much control over an entire household!

***As of yesterday Brad found Car in the lime pile.  A little dirty and the back axle a little bent but in otherwise in pretty good shape!