"Caws? Caws? Caws?" First thing this morning. "No, there are no more Cars. They all died at the end of the movie. What? I guess you  missed that part. They all drove off a cliff because gas prices are so high and then God got all pissed off because you know, that anti-suicide clause he has to make it harder to get into Heaven, so he banished all the Cars to Hell and now they’re down there waxing Satan’s ass and getting all rusty because the hermaphrodites won’t stop peeing on them and I think I heard that Satan himself took Sally as a reluctant lover and Mater was incinerated and his remains were turned into confetti for the next Hell’s Kitchen finale party. I’m pretty sure Elmo is down there too, just in case you were thinking about developing an unhealthy infatuation for him too, in the future." He stared up at me expectantly. "So yeah, no more Cars." I felt kind of guilty I guess, but he didn’t cry and I was able to get him to watch a few minutes of the second Harry Potter movie before he caught a glimpse of the remote and started chanting "Caws? Caws?" with the incessant determination of a minah bird. I cursed silently and pressed play.

****

When my youngest brother Corey was around two years old, he was super attached to our aunt Sharon. The first thing he’d do each morning was cry, "Shar! Shar! Call Shar?" My mom usually delegated this daunting task to me. I’d have to dial the phone and then hold it up to his ear while he babbled incoherently.  It was annoying because I had more important things to do. Like draw hearts around the name of my crush and prank call people I hated.

After awhile, I began saying that Sharon was dead. "Oh Corey, you don’t know? I’m so sorry, but Shar’s dead. DEAD." He would cry and cry and cry and cry as though someone had, well, died. I started doing this every day to the same reaction. But then one day my step-dad caught wind of the psychological break I was threatening to create within Corey’s mind and he put an end to that real quick-like.

I always said I would never tease my own child that way, but holy shit, old habits die hard.

(Unrelated: I’ve been fighting the urge to call everyone "Dolly" lately. I have no idea where this is coming from, and I can’t figure out if it’s more or less annoying than my previous struggle with calling people "Babe," a habit I picked up from sitting too close to Eleanore.)

I don’t know when my son’s obsession with cars began. Sometime in November, I think. He’d stand by the front door and yell, "Caw! Caw!" like a true Bostonian, any time anything with wheels drove past, bicycles and skateboards not excluded.

For Christmas, we told everyone to just get him cars. Cars and juice seemed to be all he had an interest in so why disappoint with airplanes, building blocks, or Backyardigan accessories? When we took him to see Santa, he could have given a shit that he was perched on Santa’s knee. All he had eyes for was the plastic car that the photographer was undulating and squeaking in an effort to eke a smile out of him. "Caw! Caw!" he yelled in a panic with outstretched arms.

Some people got him official Pixar Cars merch for Christmas, and he seemed genuinely appreciative, even though he had never seen the movie. It was on last weekend though, so Henry squeezed what little intelligence he has left in his brain cells and had the foresight to DVR it. Chooch’s first viewing lasted a few short minutes before he moved on to other things, like moving his armada of cars from the floor to the dining room table, standing back to appraise the new lineup, and then relocating them to his tent (which takes up two thirds of my living room).

That ambivalence didn’t last long. I made the mistake of placing him on the couch one morning last week, tucked his blanket and juice cup next to him, and put on "Cars" so I could sneak off into the kitchen and prepare his (frozen) waffles in peace. (And by peace, I mean without him standing on the other side of the baby gate and hurling objects at me.)

We haven’t been able to watch regular TV in his presence since. Even if it seems like he’s oblivious to the movie playing in the background, as soon as we hit ‘stop,’ he whips his head around and comes toddling over to us, chanting, "Caws? Caws? Caws?" Ad nauseum. He gets all cozy on the couch and then demands, "And car!" sending me on an egg hunt for certain cars around the house that he desperately needs to have in lap and I try to fulfill this desire as fast as possible, for fear that he might shrivel up and die. I give him his cars. "And juice!" Thus signals the start of the great juice cup hunt. "And bowl!" he commands, pointing to his bowl of pretzels with an angry finger. We do this every day, until he’s satisfied with the pile of goods burying him on the couch.

He won’t sleep with no less than four of his cars now. It’s a good thing my pajama pants are equipped with pockets, else I’d have had to make two trips getting him out of the crib this morning: one for him, one to retrieve his cars. Failure to do so will send him into a shrieking spell and real tears will flow freely. We have to stuff his backpack full of cars just to  get him to willingly leave the house with us now.

This morning, after the first viewing of "Cars," I lost it. I got all caught up in my pent up resentment to being a Pixar prisoner, and defiantly punched the buttons of the remote until something I wanted to watch filled the screen with a breath of fresh air. Then I promptly sat on the remote. He noticed. Oh boy did he notice. But I held my ground. Henry sat next to me and winced, waiting to see what Chooch’s move was going to be. He turned back and resumed play with his cars. I smirked, basking in the win.

But then something tragic happened: I got up from the couch, unearthing the remote. His eyes, full of car-lust, honed in on the site of the magical "Cars" stick, and he grabbed it. "Caws. Caws. Caws!!!" he droned on and on. Then he climbed up on the couch and sat between us on the pillows so he had a slight height advantage on us. He grabbed a fistful of Henry’s hair in one hand; I laughed too soon. He turned to me, glared, and took a fistful of my hair too, and angrily chanted, "Caws Caws Caws Caws."

He was still watching it when I left to go out to lunch with my friend Jess.

It appears cemetery photo shoots on December 25 became a tradition without me knowing it. Here’s hoping Chooch passes it down.

The rest of the set is here.

For the past week, I’ve been doing this really obnoxious thing where I brag about how awesome I am. Mostly this has been happening at work. Anytime I know the answer to something, trivial as it might be, I get all sore-winnerish and shout about how my innards are made of awesome.

"Did you just make coffee?"

"Uh, yes. Because I’m full of awesome."

I bet it’s really charming to be on the other side of that.

Tonight, I was telling Christina about how my son has been a little asshole lately. "He keeps grinding his teeth, and when I tell him to stop, he fixes his eyes on mine in a stubborn glare and does it harder," I complained.

"You know what they say," she schooled. "Your kids end up being two times what you are."

"So Chooch is double stuft with awesome?" I asked.