Escalators, Trash Cans and Garage Doors, Oh My!

My 2 year old son's favorite things are Dada, Mama, trash cans, elevators, escalators, and garage doors. Not necessarily in that order. I lay awake nights worrying what these obsessions mean for his future. Some days I attempt to introduce NEW obsessions, like 'practicing medicine', mathematics and physics, or NFL-worthy catching of the ball. However, his favorites stand firm.

As a result, we spend most of our carefully planned events to zoos, parks and swimming pools huddled around the trash cans. "There's one!" he will exclaim at every single one, as if he has finally, and just now, found his long sought treasure. Taking him to the mall usually involves 9 minutes of frenzied shopping and an hour and a half of going up and down the escalators like escalator test-dummy-robots. On our nightly walk, we discuss the relative open and closed status of every garage door we pass (about 6 million of them) and then when we gets home, he likes to have me set up the laptop so he can surf the internet for pictures of garage doors.

Last night, I was cuddling him before bed. I like to prep him for the day ahead the night before, when he is calm and sleepy. Last night, I was trying to work in the concept of him wearing his new sneakers since his old ones were worn and "broken". I told him if he wore his new shoes without crying, he could pick out a treat. Sensing opportunity, he said, "Mama, I get escalator in my room?".

At least the kid dreams big.