Papa's Trucks

Last Saturday afternoon Ben wanted to spend awhile with me.  We went to Wal Mart together and I helped him make a birthday card for his mom, complete with bright yellow flowers, a rainbow & butterflies.  Then he picked up a metal toy truck that he's played with from time to time, and it triggered something that he remembered.  That toy truck was Terry's when he was a child & it's one of a collection that he still has.  Ben has never seen the whole boxfull, but he somehow remembered that there were more.  "GrandMartha, can I see the box with all the trucks that Papa has?" he asked me.  I told him to go ask Papa & together they went to the garage & brought the box inside.  

Terry pulled out the trucks and showed Ben what each one was & how it operated.  There were fire trucks and a sanitation truck, trucks with trailers, tractors and a forklift.  After Papa helped Ben get all the trucks out, Terry went back to work & Ben's fun began. And, of course, I got out my camera.

Ben began lining up all the trucks on the box lid like it was a parking lot.  So I got out the playrug that has streets & buildings on it so he could have a bigger landscape for all the traffic.

When it was time for Ben to go home he didn't want to leave the trucks.  It had been so fun for more than an hour to just quietly line those trucks up and run them around on the floor with his imagination going who knows where.  Before he left, Ben asked his Papa what he did with those trucks when he was a little boy.  Terry said, "At night when my mama and daddy would watch TV in the living room, I'd get out my trucks and drive them around on the floor for an hour or so."  I guess little boys then and now are not so very different...at least when it comes to a toy truck.