My Car Fanatic

My youngest son is a car fanatic. He always has been. Ever since he was little(r), he's been obsessed with anything with wheels. This includes trains, airplanes, space shuttles, wheelbarrows, and, yes, even wheelchairs. There's just something about the fact that it turns and it moves that absolutely fascinates him. During church, we can give him a toy car and he's delighted for the whole hour. It's amazing.

Well, yesterday, of course, was the Big Day in the racing world. The Daytona 500 was on, and while my family is not exactly full of NASCAR fans (okay, we're not really fans of any kind of sport), I remember as a kid that my own father would regularly put on the auto races on Sunday afternoons. In hindsight, I don't remember him actually watching it with me, but I remember watching it and loving every minute of it. Sitting at the foot of my parents bed with a bowl of popcorn watching the cars go round and round was fascinating. I don't even remember anybody else watching it with me, so maybe they actually left the house and it was just cheap babysitting ...

Anyway, so yesterday after church I turned on the race after lunch was on the table. My youngest, of course, was immediately sucked in. He literally jumped off his chair, went over the television, and stood about four feet away from the big screen TV. His jaw slack, his arms limp at his sides, he was completely absorbed in what was on the screen. I reminded him to come back and eat his lunch (pizza, for Pete's sake!), and he would come back to the table, get in his chair, and then get off his chair and return to the television, all without his eyes leaving it. I'm not even sure he blinked. This happened several times before I finally moved his plate to a place where he could still see the TV, moved all obstructions, and literally put his hand on the pizza so he would know it was there. It was hilarious.

The race ended prematurely due to rain, so it was sort of a let-down in that regards, but there were many accidents (nobody was hurt, thankfully) which always spices things up. The kids loved it. They watched every minute of the race, and my oldest even commented on how it was so strange that the commercials were all related to racing in one way or another (gee, imagine that!). It was a good time. I think this will become a new yearly tradition.