Cars

How do kids know the difference between car makes and models? Ian can spot a Nissan Maxima and Toyota Highlander from a mile away. He sees them before I do. "Two Mommy de che1 zi!" (that's two including the one he's riding in). Or "Daddy's car!" He started doing this early this year and the first couple times I thought he was seeing a sporty little dark gray car or a light green SUV. But each time it was either a Maxima or a Highlander and not necessarily the same color as ours. And ever since Christmas, any convertible he sees is "Grandpa's car".

What really got me was that last week we were on the highway in a bit of traffic coming home and he yells, "Is dat Megan's car? Not Megan's car? Yah, Megan's car." When we were in Geneva, he got to ride around with Uncle Alex, Auntie Hilary and Megan in their car. He called it "Megan's big car" and it's a silver Honda CRV. Well, I look to the right and there's a red Honda CRV.

Ian's Jiu Jiu could identify any car from a distance when he was the same age based on his vast collection of Matchbox cars. Amazing.

We also watched the movie "Cars" for the first time on Sunday. Ian was literally on the edge of his seat. He was wearing his plastic fire hat, eating grape tomatoes. For once, the tomatoes just sat in the bowl and he was totally engrossed. Now he knows that the red car in the Cars puzzle Wai Po and Wai Gong gave him and on the T-shirt Jiu Ma gave him is Lightning McQueen and the brown truck is Mater. It has given him a whole new thrill in doing his Cars puzzle.

Speaking of puzzles, he really getting to be pretty quick. The Cars puzzle is a piece of cake for him now. When we were in France, we went with our friends Justine, Drew and their three boys to an old abbey, and Justine bought Ian a puzzle from the gift shop. It's a painting of a knight on a horse slaying a dragon. There is no frame to it, so it's a bit harder than the Cars puzzle, but the pieces are bigger. Ian is pretty good at that one, too. Mommy and Daddy usually help by giving him hints ("Where is the dragon's tail?" "Where is the horse?" etc.) and he can figure it out from there.