Don Crumlin and Dos Lightnings

Can´t write much - The new episodes of Dallas is on TV - yeah, it´s in Sweden now too! :)
These three cars is the newest in my collection. Don Crumlin sits perfect between Acer and Grem.

 You can see all of the Lemons in my collection here.


I´m no completist, I don´t need one of every single variation car ever released. There are more than 30 different McQueens so this next one is somewhat difficult to explain why I bought. But there´s one simple answer: 29 SEK - that´s 4,50 USD... Very cheap in Sweden!

 Lightning McQueen with Racing Wheels. Cheap. But nothing special.

The next one is a given. When I looked through the collection the other day I was surprised that I didn´t already got it. It´s beautiful!

Radiator Springs McQueen! Love it!


Ok. Now - JR, Southfork, Bobby and som dirty oil! But as a cliffhanger:
How to display a jewel - what would the most suiting way to show Flash to the world? The answer is coming later this week!

Numbers are... surprisingly great!

Latest quarter has been... rather a success for this blog! I´m very surprised that almost 30 people a day read my thoughts and worries about V and my cars.

Even though this blog started as a way to handle the stress over V and his brain damage, it was something that I made to keep my self busy, of course I wanted people to read. No point going online otherwise.

One of my readers is a person that I´ve gotten close to, in lot´s of ways. Actually we share the same situation, although in different countries. We´re both parents of a disabled kid. Getting to know this person is something I´d never could have done wothout writing here.

But it´s also very nice to know that readers across the world (according to blogger.com and it´s statistics) seem to care about my cars and my family, if only at a very shallow degree. But you tend to come back, and read again and again. Thank you all!

The first peak in the statistics came when Take Five A Day did a small piece about me and my blog in january this year. But last month I got the same amount of readers without that special help. But I guess that most of you guys come from T5 (as we hardcore readers call the big Kahuna of Cars Diecast Blogs).

You are more than welcome to share thoughts, ideas or cars - just email me on toddthepizzatruck@gmail.com - I´d love to hear from you!

Or do as one of my other most true readers - use the commentary field down below - yeah I´m looking at you Bumper Save! Keep ´em commin´! :)

V goes bananas

I read somewhere that the avarage comsumtion of bananas is 20 per person and year in Sweden.
V is one Swede that makes that figure closer to 21 than 19. The last two years V always eats a banana before he goes to bed at night.

That´s 365 bananas every year. At least - when we go for a pic nic, to the beach or for a long car ride - we always pack a few extra bananas.

Last night V did a small break through. He managed to peal his own banana for the first time.

Great moment!

New list

I´ve added a new page to the site - the single number system - with some pictures. Look here!

New photos

I´ve added som more photos of my cars, look here.

My intention is to take photos of my entire collection, but I´m in no hurry and take a few cars now and then. All photos are in this page.

What kids like. Really.

We concluded our four weeks vacation with a trip to Åbo/Turku, Finland.
It´s easily done from Stockholm, you just take the large ferry (a kind of cruising vessel) and cruise through the Swedish and Finnish archipelago. Absolutely lovlely!

Our main destination was the Moominworld - for you americans reading this: it is a very small theme park. Not at all comparable to Disney World. But it was nice. Lot´s of stuff to do for the kids!

We got to meet some of the characters from the books of theMoomintrolls

The next day we went to a crazy park - the JukuPark for some water fun. And it sure was. I think I rode nine different giant water slopes! But for the kids... Well A has inherit my bathing genes. And that´s not a good thing. He is what you would call... a chicken.

Fun fun fun - in water land!

 

 

V, on the other hand, likes to train his swiming, but now it was too crowded and too much noise for him. He don´t like that. Too many impressions at the same time.


But on the last evening V found his favourite thing on the whole trip. And that was not what you would expect.
We had gone out to eat on a restaurant when V, tired of waiting for his meal, went on a stroll. And found... this:

9 different water slopes? Why? When you could go in the same escalator for more than 9 times?

A rainbow colored escalator!

We went up one time and he was laughing out loud all the way. Then a regular flight of stairs down. And then up. Again. And again. And again.
I lost count after 21.

Funny. We spent a lot of money to visit two parks, to cross the sea, to live in a hotel. But the best thing was an escalator.

Sorry, a rainbow colored escalator. That might explain it.

V and the language

V - now 3 years and 2 months old.

It´s been a while since I wrote something about my son V. Lately, my blog has been mostly about collecting cars, not so much about life with a son with a brain disease.

Partly it´s due to those thrilling episodes about Flash, a real exciting couple of weeks for us Disney Cars diecast fans. And partly it´s because I don´t have the need to write about V so much right now.

When we got the word about his shortage of myelin, his disability and the brain scan - we went into shock. The time after that was a mix of grief, adaptation to this new life we were presented to and acceptance of the new facts of life.

Now things are much less dramatic. Thus I find less things to write about when it comes to V and his life.

But one big change has come to us recently. V has begun to sign. 

He can express himself and he has learned sevral words only during the three weeks of our ongoing vacation (one last week left).

• Eat 
• Hungry
• Wait
• Sour milk
• Sandwich
• Berry
• Apple
• Banana
• Cake
• (Cinnamon) bun
• Grandpa / Grandma
• Play
• Sit
• Fish
• Potato

Yes, it´s a lot of words regarding food, but hey - the boy likes to eat! :)

It was a small revolution when he did his first sign by himself. Now he´s already doing three word sentences like "eat - potato - fish".

As I understand this, we now know that he understands words, he can express words, even combine words.

And the fact that V has better motor skills in his hand than in his mouth (very delicate motor skills needs to be learned to monitor our muths) combined with the fact that both me and my wife and the people that work at V´s daycare center have learned to sign now makes it possible for V to communicate much earlier than if he had to wait for those motor skills to develop in his mouth.

Signing is also seen as a way to motivate speech so we hope that this will help V to learn how to talk faster.

V likes to ape and imitate everything big brother A does (who´s diecast name is ape, how about that?)

Another thing about V is that he now interacts more with his bigger brother A. A is 4,5 years now and they play with toy cars that they sit on and races on all through our house. Laughing out loud. Very loud. Hide and Seek is also something they like to do but V has difficulities to tell who´s looking and who´s hiding...