Lightning McQueen

Samuel's favorite movie is the Disney film Cars.  We have both Cars and Cars II on DVD and they have been watched more times than I can count.   Our whole family can say, "Boy, you're in a heap of trouble." For Christmas, Santa brought Samuel a toy Mac truck, with a dozen or so matchbox cars from Cars. Samuel is especially fond of the Lightning McQueen that came with the set.  He will walk around with it in his hand and even take it with us on trips.  This is a toy that he is very attached to.  Well, Cameron is also quite fond of the movie and likes to play with Lightning McQueen as well.  As you can imagine, this can cause quite a ruckus with the two of them battling over a tiny red car.  This past weekend Cameron came up with the idea that he would buy himself a Lightning McQueen with his own money.  Since the little car costs about $4, we thought that was a good idea.  I took Cameron to the store and after searching for a while, we finally found one.  Cameron paid the clerk with his money and I thought all would be well in the Jones house. Both boys had their very own Lightning McQueen!  Let's just say that I was badly mistaken.  It turns out that Disney in their great marketing mind, decided to paint Lightning different in the second movie.  Here he is competing in the World Grand Prix Race, whereas in the first movie he was competing in the Piston Cup.  It turns out that Samuel's car was from the Piston Cup, whereas Cameron's car came from the World Grand Prix.  When Cameron came home and showed Samuel the new Lightning McQueen, World War III was on! No longer did Samuel want his own McQueen, but now he wanted Cameron's.  An old man like myself, didn't pay any attention to the cars being different.  However, 3 year old Samuel understood very clearly that Cameron had a newer version of Lightning and he wanted it.  Of course, Cameron was not exactly in the sharing mood with his new toy.  This resulted in anger..... lots of anger! April and myself had to do quite a bit of rocking and singing to get Samuel to slowly calm down.  Then about the time he seemed to get better, he would think about the car and we would start all over again.

Now a couple of days has past and things seem to have settled down some.  Samuel still wants to play with Cameron's McQueen, but now Cameron is more open to sharing.  At the same time, Samuel is more willing to share his McQueen with Cameron.  It is amazing how the simplest of items can cause the most joy and the most frustration when it comes to children.  This shows me that we adults don't have to have the most expensive home or fanciest ride to be happy.  Sometimes just our willingness to accept a $4 toy and play together with each other can bring immense joy.  Our children teach me something new everyday and I think I am a better person as a result.

Till next time,
Brian