We're All Winners

Actually, we are all not winners. In fact, the only winner at our household continues to be my son. In the past few weeks, here are some things he has "won" at:

The Seat Belt Buckling Competetion
Now that he's older, he's old enough and big enough to buckle himself in with the seat belt. Granted we make sure he's buckled in before we put the car into motion as child services would frown on the 4 year old being the sole guardian of his auto safety, but he requires assistance less and less every day. Once he buckles himself in, he usually exclaims that he has won because he got buckled in before his sister. This would be the sister that is still in a car seat because she's the size of a pygmy mamorset (We watch a lot of Diego. Deal with it.) and can't buckle herself in. I've tried explaining to Ben that it's not really a contest if one of the people competing can't actually do the thing themselves, but he's usually too busy celebrating his victory.

Getting Dressed
My son is, quite possibly, the slowest person I've ever seen when it comes to putting on an article of clothing. Some kids slow things down when they're getting ready for bed, or getting ready to go to school, as a stall tactic, but my kid takes this to an entirely new level and would take 15 minutes to put on a sock even if he was getting ready to be given the keys to Ice Cream Land. The other night he was getting dressed while I was making his bed and I swear it took him 5 minutes just to lay the shirt on the floor correctly. It was painful to watch. Eventually I had had enough and helped get the dang thing situated so that he could put it on. 2 more assists later, he finally finished and exclaimed "I win!" I can only assume he meant that he won the award for Most People Dead of Natural Causes While I Put on My Pajamas.

Lego Racing
I've touched on the Lego Racing before, but it has achieved new heights since last we spoke. Linda and I will usually ask Ben what he did at school while we three eat dinner and Abby ignores her food. Every day it's the same answer, "played Lego racers." The other night, after getting this answer again, I asked him if he played Lego racers with his friends and he said no. "They all watch me play" he said. That didn't seem right to me, so I asked him again, and again he said that all of his friends watched him play and win Lego Racers. This seemed odd, as most 4 year olds don't care about much more than themselves, so I can't see a whole class of kids sitting back and watching one child race around. It also seemed odd because how can you win if you're the only one there? Further probing, later in the week by Linda, discovered that all of this Lego racing takes place on the computer, and the kids are on the computer one at a time, presumably while the other kids sit back and mope. The fact that Lego Racing exists, to him, only in a digital form still doesn't keep him from turning every single thing into a Lego Racer and wanting to race with it. I've heard of children who want to do nothing but sit slack-jawed in front of the television and I'd like to know how you go about getting one of those. I don't think I can handle any more racing and/or winning.