Who Do You Ask if You Don't Know Which Way to Go?

So, we have a GPS for the car now, "so I don't get lost" (read: so Mama never gets lost again with witnesses in the car as happened 48 hours before purchase of said GPS.) But I am prone to getting lost, even to places I go regularly, so a GPS is a good thing for the family chauffeur. And it really paid off in Texas when Mama had to drive for car naps in a "foreign" state (and I think she'd use that term with numerous connotations).

Anyway, Mama likes to play with her gadget, even when she knows where she's going because she wants to see how it works. And the kids are fascinated. Because, like Dora's companion, this map talks. It says, "turn right" or "turn left." And the like. And Sis, being the ultimate budding backseat driver says, "Mama, are you turning right?" Which, because Mama is often not doing what the map says, is not always true. It's made for some interesting conversations in the car, as Sis insists that Mama follow Map, with a capital "M." It's gotten to the point that Mama will turn off the sound until, of course, Sis notices and asks why Map isn't talking. At least she'll know left from right!

Bud likes maps too, but prefers paper ones like you find at highway rest stops or in travel guides. In fact, he's mighty obsessed right now with world maps. He particularly likes globes, like the one at our friends' house or the inflated globe ball we have--he always wants to know where we live, where our friends and family live, not really grasping the scale of the globe. And he really doesn't understand that it is a planet, of course, saying he doesn't want to live on a planet. We have a world landmarks puzzle with about 16 pieces that he loves to complete, naming the pictures of the "step pyramid" (Chichen Itza) or "stadium" (Colosseum) or "stones" (Stonehenge). Now to explain the significance of the Taj Mahal . . . Mama has also been saving a huge laminated map of the world with animals which she bought a year ago (Mama loves maps too, and I laughed at the time, because they were just 2, mea culpa) but pulled out just this weekend. We spread it on the living room floor and then brought out our considerable collection of plastic animals, matching up animals to their habitats. "Mama, all the white animals go together!"--in the Arctic, Sis noted. And we located where kangaroos, belugas, manatees, lions, monkeys, and beavers lived. Bud thinks all the continents are islands--which makes sense in its way--and began to make up names for them, even as we stressed Asia or Africa. No big deal. Sis then tried to group the families together on the continents so that soon the whole map was covered in plastic critters. We left the map out for the whole weekend.

The cats liked it too!

(What the kids--and cats--don't know is that Mama has an even better world map in reserve--a giant, felt board with puffy buildings, animals, and people cut outs with velcro--but we're going to wait at least, well, another week to pull that out!)