Ka-chow!

We let Mateo and Natalia watch their first movie on Christmas Day.  It was Cars.  We had tried Finding Nemo before, but it was much too scary.  It inspired months of Talia going around saying "Nemo too scary for Te Te" in her tiny little voice, which was adorably cute even as it reminded Mateo of how scared he had been.  We've since gotten the advice to just skip the first ten minutes of any Disney movie, as that's usually when the scary part happens.

Anyway, we have some kid friends who have loved Cars, and this has trickled down to Mateo, so we got them both the movie and each a little car to go with it.  Mateo got Lightening McQueen and Tali got Doc (I have no idea who this is, but Mateo assures me that he's a friend of McQueen's), both of whom change colors in hot water, which makes them extra cool. 

This movie, which both kids watched all the way through with a collection of relatives, has sparked a car explosion in our house.  Just by happenstance, we've collected a few hotwheels here, a few other cars there, and suddenly we have enough for an army, and just in time for Mateo to become obsessed with them.  He's always liked lining them up in perfect little lines, but now he wants to really play with them and talk about them and talk about them and talk about them and....

...well, the monologues!  Basic child development will tell you that endless monologues are typical for kids this age, and we have watched them happen with our little cousins, but wow, it's still amazing to see just how much the kid can talk once he gets going.  He just yammers on and on about the cars and what they're doing and who each one is and on and on and you can't just sit idly by, you have to say "uh huh" and "oh really?" and such at appropriate times.  It so funny and cute, although sometimes more so when he's talking to someone else :)

One of the most fascinating parts of all this is that it hasn't actually made the kids want television more.  They talk about the movie, and at this point I think Mateo could spend the rest of his life reenaacting it, but that's about it.  Sacha tried to watch some of it with them today and Mateo watched it for two minutes before saying that he'd rather play with his cars.  Tali lasted a bit longer, but not much, which is fine by us. 

Especially for a week when we're going to be inside a lot, until this cold spell breaks, it's perfect timing.  Our house is littered with cars everywhere, but at least it's also littered with happy kids.  (Our other happy kid isn't as invested in the cars, but she is quite obsessed with the baby toys we just pulled up from the basement.  Both kids desperately want to be babies again, not surprisingly, and so the baby toys have taken on much new importance, as well.)  We've just been amazed at how quickly a toy car, in Mateo's mind, could go from a plaything to McQueen the Invincible.  Ka-chow!