Benjamin likes "boy stuff". I hate to label interests by gender, but well.. it is what it is. I happen to like "boy stuff" too. What I mean by "boy stuff" is that he likes cars.. of all sorts... really anything with wheels/tires/tracks/etc. he also likes dirt and rocks. mix the two together and what do you get?




Unfortunately.. neither of these cars that ben was pegging rocks at were our cars. We were on a walk yesterday evening around the block and part of our "block" is on a very major street and passes in front of an auto shop among other stuff. We sat on a few ATVs and discussed why he had to be 30 before he could buy one, but that he was more than welcome to buy the blue moped for me for my birthday. We impressed everyone with the squeaky shoes.. one woman stopped her car on said busy street to ask where we got them.. but that's a separate story.

The motorcycle guys at one of the shops know Ben.. or at least they did after we walked by their shop for the 10th time in 10 minutes (B didn't want to go home.. back into the residential neighborhood.. walking on the sidewalk of said busy street is way more fun.. and makes Mommy run and trip and say funny words when he starts to dart in an unexpected direction.)

Needless to say.. at one point we were cutting through the parking lot of the auto shop and Ben found a rock. He promptly walked straight over to a car that was parked in the lot and chucked the rock at the car's tire. I was so surprised I couldn't stop it before the rock was airborne. Luckily it didn't hit the car or the car's tire. Of course.. like a good parent.. instead of grabbing the rock from him and explaining that we respect other people's belongings.. i opted to grab my camera and catch it on "film" before having the "don't do this" discussion that resulted in him throwing a temper tantrum.. chucking the rock out into the street and sobbing all the way home. When I put him down on the sidewalk just outside our house so he could climb the stairs.. he avoided eye contact with me (like that trick works...) and then BOLTED back down the sidewalk trying to go back to the cars and rocks and traffic and chaos that exists just around the corner from our house.

I caught him though.. that's the best part of him having little short legs and me still being faster than he is. It won't last for long though.. so we're going to have to work on the "respecting other people's belongings" thing.