A Jeep in Bethlehem
By Tiffany Lewis

I have a confession to make.  I am a power shovel chaser.

This is akin to an ambulance chaser, but because Caterpillars don’t move as fast, it’s not nearly as harrowing.  And I think it’s legal.

I used to drive past construction sites oblivious and indifferent.  But now I have a two-year-old. He is a boy. This means his entire life is consumed by cars and trucks.

I first noticed this fascination when he was about a year old.  Walking to the beach one day, he spied a large truck, sat up in this stroller and said, “Brrrr-brrr.”

Up to that point I had never made a truck sound in my life.  How did he know what to do?

We live on Miami Beach, where condos are always being razed and replaced by new, fancier, taller ones.  Hence, there is always construction.  As we drive, my son gives a running commentary.

“Cherry picker truck!  I SEE A CHERRY PICKER TRUCK …Cement truck!  Red cement truck … TWO CRANES.  A police car with sirens.  I see a police car!  Look, Mommy, do you see um?”

If I don’t acknowledge his fabulous find right away, I get to hear about it, at fifteen decibels, for ten more minutes.

Sometimes he seems to conjure these machines out of thin air.  One day we were driving through a residential neighborhood on the way to the park.  We hadn’t seen a single exciting truck. Jackson began complaining.

“I-wanna-see-a-power-shovel- I-wanna-see-a-power-shovel.”

“Jackson,” I said, “this is not an area with power shovels.”  As I spoke, we turned the corner to discover the entire road dug up and two massive Caterpillar front-loaders digging in the dirt.  “Power shovel!” Jackson cried, nearly bursting out of his carseat.

On the way home he began complaining to see a cherry picker truck.

“Jackson, I don’t think we’re going to see a cherry picker truck,” I explained.  “They must have all gone home for a little nap.”  We drove a block, and there on the corner was a cherry picker truck. (What exactly is a cherry picker truck, you may ask?  Wait until your son turns two — you will know.)  The little box was high in the air and a man inside was busy fixing the telephone wires. I thought Jackson would explode with excitement.

But the vehicle closest to his heart is The Jeep. Jackson has a love affair with a jeep that lives in our condo parking lot.  Every time he sees it he shouts, “My jeep! My jeep is home!” At night he spends five minutes saying good night to it, singing to it and pretending to hand it the essential bedtime blankies.  He finishes by telling it a Reader’s Digest version of “Jonah and the whale.”

One day he came home from the park covered from head to toe in what looked like black soot.

“What happened to him?” I asked my husband.

“Oh, he gave his jeep a hug,” he said nonchalantly, as if this were completely normal.

On Monday I was busy making dinner. Jackson brought over “The Story of Baby Jesus” and asked me to read it. I assured him I would read as soon as I finished making dinner. He sat down and began flipping through the pages. I went back to chopping tomatoes. Suddenly he shouted what sounded like, “Sheep!”

“Yes, sheep. The shepherds visited baby Jesus,” I said, and continued chopping.

“No,” he said, pointing to a picture in the book. “Jeep!”

A jeep in the story of baby Jesus? This was worth investigating. I put down the knife and went to look. Jackson pointed to the page. And sure enough, tucked at the bottom of the page, right next to the manger, was a little toy car.

A jeep in Bethlehem. Your children teach you something every day.