rules

Ada received lots and lots of cool stuff for her birthday. One of these presents, from her Nonna Donna, is a little plastic baby sized car. It has a door that opens and wheels that work, and a steering wheel - with a HORN. Very cool. And up until last weekend Ada was terrified of it. Curious, but terrified. She would deign to sit in it if we were pushing her around, but she did not want to be left alone with the car. This was funny to Elliot and I because she could not be removed from a very similar car at her cousin Erica's house. We figured she would eventually warm up to the car so we left in in our living room and whenever Ada would catch sight of the car out of the corner of her eye you could see a little shiver go up her spine and she'd hug into us a little closer.

Last weekend Ada's Nana, my mom, came over to babysit and noticed the car. I told her about how it was Ada's birthday present but that she hadn't quite warmed up to it. I guess Nana took that as a challenge because by the time we got home from our hockey game, Ada didn't just like her car, she LOVED it. She can push herself backwards, and then will squawk until someone moves her forward. She loves getting into and out of the car through the door, and she is even polite enough to close the car door after she gets out. This is a wonderful development and I will always wonder how many M&M's Nana had to give her to get her to like the car so much. :)

But all of this love has come with a devilish side. Once Ada has seen her car, she has to be in it, the.rest.of.the.night. This has caused us to create the first real behavioral rule in our house. Ada has to have her dinner before she is allowed to play with her car, otherwise she won't eat dinner. We tried to use the car to our advantage and let her eat her dinner there, thinking that she might not notice that she is eating actual food, but Ada is apparently already one of those crazy car nuts who have a rule about eating in their car. When I offered her some of her veggie corn dog while she was cruising in her car the other night, she looked at me with a look that said, "Um, no. That thing is not allowed in this car. The crumbs alone will take weeks to clean up, and don't even get me started on the smell."