Steering Wheel Plinko

A new thing has started to happen since Harper turned 3. He has always been a curious kid, but now his curiosity often leads him to test the limits of things and experiment with the concept of cause and effect. For instance, he will sometimes drop things to see what happens when they land - often full drinking cups of water or things that are made of glass - neither of which are easy to clean up.

Yesterday we were sitting in the parking lot waiting on something and we allowed the kids to get out of their car seats to move around a bit. Matt actually got out of the car to stretch so Harper made his way to the driver's seat.

Beyond his curiosity for how things work, he has also convinced himself that he knows how to drive. He has even found an old set of keys and a wallet that he has claimed as his own which makes him feel more grown up and for some reason he tries to rationalize that these two things will somehow make us think he is now ready to drive. A picture from school serves as his "driver's license". For those of you who are thinking, "oh dear I'm worried that they are encouraging his behavior" - no worries I promise we will never leave him alone in the car and we always lock the car doors when we get out (even when the cars are inside the garage). Trust me, I am fully aware that Harper's confidence level is such that trying to crank the car and back it out of the driveway is not beneath him.

Anyway, back to my original story. Harper was sitting in the driver's seat yesterday doing his normal "song and dance" of pretending that we are driving to Disney World. He then begins to get a couple of coins out of the ashtray for gas money. This is where the story gets a little foggy because I was obviously not paying as close of attention as I should have been. All of a sudden I hear a coin drop and it doesn't sound like it hits the ground. I look over and Harper is laughing and reaching for another coin so he can repeat his fun. I realized right way that he had dropped a coin in the steering wheel - he had managed to slide a penny in the crack where the horn cover meets the edge of the steering wheel. Luckily I was able to impede any additonal mishaps but we have been unfortunate in trying to release the coin and daddy is not happy with either of us.

Now when you turn the steering wheel it sounds like the game of Plinko from the Price is Right. Every turn is a clink, clink, clink of the penny moving from one side of the steering wheel to the other. Too bad that each turn doesn't produce the opportunity to win a prize. Something tells me that this is one that we are going to have to shell out some good money to repair rather than having the potential of winning a boat load of cash from Mr. Bob Barker himself.