Lawn mower, leaf blower

For a couple months, William has been wandering around the house pretending to do yard work.

He used to use the black plastic vacuum cleaner extension tubes to vacuum up everything in the house (if only it really cleaned!), while making a "zzzhhhrrr" sort of whirring noise to simulate the vacuum cleaner. He would even grab the attachments and put them on the ends of the tubes as he wandered around. He's always loved the vacuum cleaner. Even when he was a baby, he crawled into the next room if he heard it turn on and chased after it. He was never afraid of the noise. He was always fascinated with it.

This spring, the lawn service started waking him up in the middle of his much-needed nap every week, so recently he's been using Evie's plastic multi-colored walker to mow the carpet all around the house. But the best thing he does is when he's blowing leaves. He started out by strapping on Mirjam's black, one-shouldered backpack. He stuck his hand in the clear plastic pocket on the end of the strap and started walking around, doing the "zzhr" noise, pretending to be a leaf blower. He looked a little bit like a Ghostbuster with that black backpack strapped to him.

But he uses more than just that now. I've seen him use his t-ball stand before, and some other toys that just aren't used for their good established purpose anymore. He recently got two pieces of stick and some tape and asked Mirjam to help him stick them together. He used that self-made contraption for a few days, too. After the wind storm last week, he found a decent-sized three-pronged branch and brought that inside to use as his new leaf blower.

Yesterday I saw him pick up one of his favorite sticks (the big branch), and pretend to flip a switch halfway down one end. He started up his leaf blower by doing the "zzhr" noise sliding from a lower pitch up to the regular sustained pitch. Amazing. Totally incredible and fascinating to watch him.

A couple weeks ago, he threw a tantrum at Kids R Us, and he almost convinced Mirjam to buy him a super cool plastic lawn mower. After watching him blow some leaves around inside our house, I told her that if he had gotten the mower, he never would have constructed his own. He doesn't need any toys, just some sticks and a good imagination.

Beyond

Last week I took William with me to go shopping at Bed Bath & Beyond. He's been there many times, since we've used our monthly 20-percent-off coupons to buy our entire dinnerware set, piece by piece.

I've tried more recently to prepare him for whatever we're doing, so he feels comfortable and safe and not surprised, so as we were approaching the store, I told him in a calm and pleasant voice, as he sat in his car seat in the back, "We're driving to Bed Bath & Beyond." I slowly repeated myself, to make sure he understood what I said: "Bed Bath & Beyond."

He then asked me a question: "Buzaityer?"

It wasn't very clear and I wasn't sure what he said, so I asked him "What did you say?"

"Buzzaityeer?" he repeated.

I slowly repeated it to myself, trying to decipher what he was trying to communicate to me: "buz-zite-yeer..."

Then it hit me: "To infinity...and beyond!"

He was saying "Buzz Lightyear!" He recognized the "beyond" part of what I said, and immediately associated it with his favorite flying space ranger. I couldn't believe it. I laughed out loud and told him he was exactly right. "That's right! To infinity and beyond!" He giggled, too, with delight. "Buzzaityeer!"