Uh huh

Turns out that Finn can read now. I was pretty surprised, given that he still poops in his pants and can't yet successfully zip up his jacket on his own, but the evidence is compelling.

To stave off the carpal tunnel that was quickly taking over my hands as a result of typing "excavator song" into YouTube every hour, we ordered Finn the full DVD that includes that clip and a whole host of other truck-related songs from the Twenty Trucks website. For less than the price of two beers at Yankee Stadium, two DVD's, a CD and a t-shirt arrived in the mail yesterday.

I expected Finn to be excited about the DVD, but I didn't expect him to look at the t-shirt, clearly labeled "Twenty Trucks" and say, "That's Twenty Trucks." I was pretty impressed. He may as well have looked at my bank statement and asked me why I spent so much money on beer at Yankee Stadium.

I'd have asked him how he learned to read, whether this was another one of Jena's tricks, but I know that the only answer I'd get would be "Uh huh," which is how Finn answers all questions these days that deserve a positive response. Apparently "yes" is too complicated - a la the zipper - and "no" has been replaced by silence. But I digress...

The arrival of the DVD's has already had a marked effect on Finn beyond his surprising ability to read.

Every day, Jena and the gang at daycare send out an email that lists anything noteworthy that's not covered in the blog post. Included is a list of quotes from each kid about their favorite part of the day. By charting these quotes out over the last week, you can determine exactly when the DVD's arrived:

• Finn 'Favorite part of the day' Quote (June 15): "Look I fall down there. Silly Finn (lying on his mat). Cars and trucks. I got car, I got Lightming DeQueen [sic]. Watch out. I get water, I wash him off.*"
• Finn 'Favorite part of the day' Quote (June 18): "Diggers. Watching diggers. Trucks and trucks and diggers and dump trucks."

* Ed. note: Finn is obsessed with the scene in Cars where Lightning McQueen gets tar on his lucky sticker while pulling Bessie and asks Big Red to wash him off. I assume that he finds it so interesting because it's the only part of the plot to which he can actually relate.

I'm honestly a little bummed if we're going to trade in our Cars obsession for the Twenty Trucks DVD. Even though we've now watched Lightning McQueen race for the Piston Cup roughly 467,235 times, I still enjoy it.

Of course, there is one huge selling point: Rascal Flatts does not appear anywhere on the Twenty Trucks soundtrack. I'll take "They Call Him Bulldozer - or Dozer for Short" over their version of "Life is a Highway" any day.