driving

Thad LOVES all things wheeled and any chance to be inside them! He had a lot of fun “driving” Grandpa G’s truck when we were staying with my parents in February. Driving entails sitting in the driver’s seat, steering the wheel, and pushing the buttons on the radio and such.

Now that we’re back in PNG, he is excited for any opportunity to “drive” Daddy’s car, and will regularly suggest it when he notices it sitting in our driveway. He can see the driveway out the window from the changing table, so on the weekends when the car is here Thad regularly points it out.



Our friends here in PNG have one of those plastic cars that you can scoot around in—Thad’s absolute favourite thing!! They live across the street from us, so when we are outside every morning for me to hang up the laundry, it is usually in the forefront of Thad’s mind that he would like to go across the street and drive their car. He doesn’t have too much understandable vocabulary yet (though he does plenty of talking!), so his sign language for going to visit their house became the motion of steering—with hands at the 10 & 2 o’clock position! Here he is driving in the car (notice that he is in the proper driver’s position for the country he lives in!).

Last week, I taped up a broken laundry basket that we had, and I took two hangers and shaped them to make a steering wheel. That provided for some good entertainment. Now he’s taken to “crashing” in his car. He’ll climb inside, and then rock side-to-side until it falls over on its side and he spills out. Then he puts on a forlorn face and says, “oh, no!”—so funny J