Before I had the kiddos I assumed that the things they grew up liking were influenced by their parents and their surroundings. Since my 2 arrived I have drastically revised that opinion! Annie is part princess, part knight, neither of which came from us or the toys she had when she was little. In fact we steered clear of ‘pretty pink princess’ toys and stories when she was little to try and avoid gender stereotyping.

Ezra is the same, at only 8 and a half months he has fallen head over heels in love with cars – a total little boy.

I wasn’t a big fan of the movie Cars when it came out. Apparently I can suspend my disbelief long enough to accept talking fish searching for their son, kind hearted monsters whose job it is to scare kids and collect their screams or even a sentient robot who falls in love, but show me talking cars with windscreens for eyes and I throw my hands up in disgust.

I mean, c’mon people, who made the cars to begin with? They don’t have any hands, how do they drill for petrol, build houses or hold the cameras you see flashing during the races?!

Despite my ambivalence towards the film I really liked the design of the characters and decided, when we found out Ez was going to be a boy, that I wanted to start a collection of cars for when he was old enough. Disney screwed with that plan by releasing a sequel that pushed up the price of their toy cars new and second hand however, so his ‘collection’ consists of two cars so far.

We introduced Ez to his ‘collection’ yesterday and it nearly blew his mind. At nap time when I put the cars away he had a proper little meltdown, complete with (cute) pouty lip and tears.

Normally he is more than happy to share his toys with Annie but not the cars, he wanted them and if she went near them he snatched them up and cuddled them! His face in the bottom right photo is disbelief that she would try and take his ‘precious’ from him.

Being the evil mother I am, I made him share, like I do with Annie, and discovered that she quite likes toy cars too. Though I’m not sure if her love for them was heightened by the fact they they were Ezra’s, not hers, and so a thing to covet. I imagine if we got her some they’d end up relegated to the bottom of the toy box, like her HappyLand cars.

Looks like my future consists of princess dresses and toy cars, a thought that makes me rather happy.