Kids are a product of their environment. This fact can be both disturbing and amusing. When I see qualities in my kids they've inherited from me that are, hmmhmm, not so complimentary, I get a bit worried. But, it can also be amusing to listen to what they know just by growing up around it.
If you don't know it by now, we're a car family. We work on cars, we own a lot of cars, we like cars. (I'm sure it has nothing to do with the business we own where we build race cars.) So, my kids play a lot with cars--car video games, car hot wheels, car movies, rally cars in the dirt, etc, etc.
One morning Kyle and Karina were playing in the bathtub when I overheard Kyle informing Karina the car he was playing with was a Lamborghini Countage. "This," he said emphatically, "is a Lamborghini Countage, Karina. It's really fast." How many 5 year olds know what about a Lamborghini Countage?
And when my kids play with cars, their car sounds aren't the typical "vroom, vroom" of "brrrrmm, brrrrmm" sort of noises. Their cars are sports cars--complete with the sound of a turbo and its blow-off valve releasing at the end of a hard acceleration. If you don't know what that sound is like....well, you're missing a little bit of sports car heaven. My kids know their car noises.
We know the sound of our own cars too. When Jason comes home in the Jeep or the race car, we know the sound of it and can hear it from far away. Not because it's obnoxiously loud, but because it has a distinct throatiness to it that makes it different from other "normal" cars. Sometimes the kids get tricked when a sporty car or a loud truck drives by that isn't ours, but they know that Daddy's cars sound different from the typical factory car that drives by.
We have some family friends who are really into motorcycles. I found it amusing when their boys came over to play the other day and the noises they used for the cars they were playing with was a high-pitched motorcycle sound. Of course it would be! That's their environment!
So, let it be known my kids are car experts. What are your kids experts in?
Ugh, only embarrassing stuff like the names of Disney princesses and every single detail of the show Avatar, the Last Airbender. Nothing as cool as sports cars!
ReplyDeleteWow, I didn't know that about you! Lately my kids are experts in puke sounds -- the kind that produces puke vs. dry heaves. I know...signing autographs as Mother of the Year...
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