Posts Tagged ‘
monster trucks ’
Thursday, May 9th, 2013
2 years, 5 months.
Dear Jack,
If weather permits, Mommy and I are taking you to the zoo this weekend.
However, I think you’ve made some assumptions about what will be on exhibit there.
As I walked you into school this morning, you couldn’t hold in the excitement:
“We see dinosaurs at the zoo!”
It was at that moment this occurred to me: You have no idea that dinosaurs haven’t existed on this Earth in a very long time.
Really though, why would you not think dinosaurs are still around?
After all, I just bought you a plastic T-Rex to wrestle your monster trucks. Therefore, you have assumed that dinosaurs and monster trucks are age-old rivals.
It doesn’t help that over the weekend you watched an episode of Transformers: Rescue Bots, as well as the 1981 animated Spider-Man series, where the plot involved dinosaurs coming to life in modern day, causing chaos and therefore invoking the help of the good guys to save everyone.
When your teacher, Ms. Lauren, asked you what else besides dinosaurs you are excited to see at the zoo this weekend, you quickly responded: “Trucks. Fire trucks.”
Son, this may be a very disappointing visit to the zoo. Hopefully, I can pass off the iguanas as “baby dinosaurs.”
It’s just that I feel compelled to protect your belief in dinosaurs. I kind of don’t want you to find out the truth about them.
So that’s what will happen. I will encourage and build up your version of reality where dinosaurs are still alive in the world. Because honestly, that sounds like a pretty cool version of reality. Who am I to mess that up for you right now?
Love,
Daddy
Saturday, May 4th, 2013
2 years, 5 months.
Dear Jack,
Today Mommy and I asked you what you want to be when you go up.
After 5 sincere seconds of contemplation, you came to a decision:
“Princess.”
Mommy recommended you’d probably be happier if you were a king instead.
But then you changed your mind, anyway.
Your new hopeful profession? Butterfly.
Then, a horse.
(It was as bizarre as last Saturday morning when I watched you play at the indoor playground; wearing a dinosaur costume, pushing a baby stroller with two plastic building toys on the front, to make it look like a bulldozer.
I thought it was also an interesting choice that the baby doll in the stroller was face-down the whole time.)
Also, the unrehearsed answers you gave us today for your speculated career choice actually reminded me of one of my favorite songs in the world, “One Of These Things First” by Nick Drake:
“I could have been a signpost, could have been a clock. As simple as a kettle, steady as a rock. I could be here and now. I would be, I should be. But how? I could have been one of these things first.”
Your final answer at the end of the day was “monster truck,” by which I think you mean, “monster truck builder/driver,” like Frank the Monster Maker on All About Monster Trucks on Netflix.
Based on the way you were totally into watching a “how to build a monster truck” video on YouTube with me this morning, I’d say that sounds about right… that is, if you carry out your love for monster trucks for the next two decades.
I hope you have better direction than I did going in to college, not positively knowing what I wanted to do (and be) for a living.
Somewhat randomly, I ended up graduating from Liberty University with a degree in English, only to enter the work force in sales and recruiting; eventually to transition into now more of a customer service and human resources position.
It’s not something I could have planned, but it’s how I help make a living for our family.
Maybe life will make more sense to you at a sooner age. Maybe I can help with that… with all my clever wisdom and whatnot.
But if you want to build and drive monster trucks for a living, I think that could be pretty cool.
Or you could be a horse. Being a horse would be pretty awesome, I think.
Love,
Daddy
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSlh8u8Nrig
Friday, May 3rd, 2013
2 years, 5 months.
Dear Jack,
For the past two weeks on the way home from school, the two of us have been swinging by Walmart each day. Why?
Not because you, a nearly 2 and a half year-old boy, are zeroed in on finding a certain elusive toy, but because your 32 year-old dad is.
The exact toy I am referring to is none other than a $8.97 monster truck, exclusive to Walmart: The I-Screamer, which is an ice cream monster truck.
This basic $8.97 version is so elusive that I couldn’t even find a picture or video of him on the Internet. Oy vey!
As you know, Mater wrestles and defeats the I-Screamer in Mater’s Tall Tales.
I don’t want the big, fancy, action-packed version that costs 20 bucks or more. I just want the cheap one that is comparable in size to your favorite black one, that you carry my old Micro Machines in.
Working in the logistics side of the transportation industry, I know that most dry goods are moved out of the warehouses by the end of the month, to prepare for the new month.
So that means… the I-Screamer is waiting there in the back of the store right now; it’s just a matter of the new shipment being stocked on the shelves.
Therefore, you and I show up every single day, hoping that today is the day. In fact, today we went before and after I took you to school. No luck.
Not to mention, I’ve got your Nana, back in Alabama, as well as your friend Sophie’s mom, looking for the I-Screamer for us.
I’m trying to figure out why I’m so obsessed with getting myself, I mean, you, a monster ice cream truck that sort of resembles a crazy clown.
All I can think of is this: Back in high school, one of my favorite bands was The Smashing Pumpkins. The video for their song, “Today,” features the band driving around in an ice cream truck.
I even considered buying an old ice cream truck from one of my uncles, as my first car when I was 16. It didn’t end up actually happening, but I suppose I’ve never really let go of my love for ice cream trucks, and that was half my life ago.
Yeah, I’ve got issues.
Love,
Daddy
Monday, April 22nd, 2013
2 years, 5 months.
Dear Jack,
While my flat tire was being replaced at WalMart on Thursday morning, I decided to let you pick out a toy car. I was willing to spend some of my blow money (that’s Dave Ramsey lingo) on you; as much as $10.
You had been saying for the past month, “I want a purple monster truck.” So I figured you’d finally get it.
As soon as we stepped up to the toy car aisle, we stood before a wall of cool Monster Jam monster trucks, with a tough-looking purple one right there in our sight. You grabbed it.
Unlike U2 in 1987, you had actually found what you were looking for.
I thought, “Well, that was easy. How do we kill another 45 minutes?”
Then you saw a black monster truck… then a red one… and a green one…
Whichever new truck you discovered every 18 seconds, it automatically became superior to the previous one.
The original purple monster truck was 4 bucks, but now you were dipping into basic 97 cent Hot Wheels. I actually wanted to spend more money on you, distracting you with “Rasta Carian” from Mater’s Tall Tales, a $9 item.
You weren’t impressed with the dreadlocked Jamaican monster truck. (Really?!)
“Okay Jack, it’s getting about time for them to call my name over the speaker and tell me my car is ready. Go ahead and decide which one you want to take home,” I explained.
My own expectations had now been properly lowered. I guess I was just confused that you didn’t want me to buy what clearly you had been talking about for weeks.
And there it was, a purple… 1983 Chevy Silverado lowrider with white and lime green flames.
That’s the one you just couldn’t let go of. So I spent 97 cents on you and you were completely happy.
I like spending money on you by buying you special gifts, but you don’t care how much money I spend on them. I mean, hey, I’m not complaining.
You just seem to like the adventure of obtaining and opening a new gift. Then you always trace that gift back to the event in which you got it.
Sure enough, you have been bragging to everyone you see about your new purple truck.
Not just any purple truck, but that silly purple 1983 Chevy Silverado lowrider that Daddy got you when his tire got a nail in it and had to be replaced… or as you say it, “Daddy, yours tire fell off?”
Love,
Daddy
Wednesday, April 3rd, 2013
2 years, 4 months.
Dear Jack,
These days, as I go through the dozens of pictures I take of you in a week’s time, it’s getting pretty difficult to find ones of you without your black monster truck.
It must have been fate that you received a duplicate Christmas gift, prompting Mommy and me to take you to the toy store and let you exchange it for whatever your heart desired.
At the very sophisticated Brilliant Sky toy store, which I jokingly refer to as a toy store for “gifted” kids, you appropriately chose… a black monster truck.
Tonight after dinner we let you indulge a little bit in some of your hard-earned Easter candy, which included some of Annie’s Bunny Fruit Snacks.
After enjoying some for yourself, you placed 3 of them in the cab of your monster truck and let them drive around 5 others in the bed of the truck.
Your relationship with your monster truck is starting to seem a little bromantic, even.
If you enjoy a snack or a treat, so does your monster truck. Not only do you eat with it, you sleep with it.
All of your favorite shirts have a monster truck on them.
As we drive together to school and work every morning, you fantasize about every “monster truck” (F-150′s with big tires) you see.
“That’s a monster truck! I drive it!”
Needless to say, we see a lot of “monster trucks” as we drive a total of an hour a day through the very manly city of Nashville, Tennessee.
Yesterday you saw a pick-up on truck on the side of the road. Your response:
“Oh no! His wheel fall off? He fix it?”
Because of the fact that part of your morning routine is to watch clips of monster trucks on YouTube, and sometimes when they flip over, one of their wheels flies off, you therefore assume that any time that any truck is pulled off to the side of the road, that guarantees that one of the truck’s wheels fell off.
Every morning as I unbuckle you from your car seat, you reluctantly let go of your monster truck and set it down on the empty seat next to you. “I play with my truck when you get back?”
Because of that, I try to make a habit of when I pick you up in the afternoon from daycare, to have the truck in my hand as soon as you see me.
There’s just somethin’ ’bout a truck and a 2 year-old boy.
Love,
Daddy
