Big - guy feelings

I talked to Karen last night for almost 45 minutes. She is VERY concerned about the severity of Ben’s tantrums. We talked and talked and she assured us over and over that she ADORES Ben and thinks he’s the coolest kid, but his severe tantrums disturb the other kids and impact everyone there. When he has an hour of screaming and head banging, the other kids get upset. She is very excited that he has improved on other areas…for example, he isn’t so concerned about controlling the other kids…and he’s not as bossy anymore and his tantrums are way less frequent, but now they are more severe. In January, she kept a tally of his tantrums and one day he had 54. Those were all small…now he has one or two tantrums a day, but they are super intense and often last an hour. They are totally unpredictable and there’s absolutely nothing anyone can do to stop them. She brought up the point that children are evaluated on 4 different areas: Intelligence, Physical, Social and Emotional. Ben’s Intelligence and Physical development are advanced, but maybe his emotional development isn’t as developed.  We want to try to get to more of a balance of the four areas. Although, If his brain isn’t developmentally ready to be more emotionally mature, there’s not much we can do to force it. Anyways, it was great to talk to Karen about this. I know it’s SOOOO hard to deal with. Yesterday I thought she was going to cry when I picked Ben up…he had been throwing a fit for an hour, so she had to have her husband come home from work to help get Ben in his carseat. She acknowledged that since he is so big and so advanced with his language that she expects him to be much older than he really is, so she’s going to try to focus on remembering that he is actually the same age as Abigail. Even though it’s hard to hear that Ben is giving Karen a hard time, I also have overwhelming pride. Ben is so special and I know that these traits are what make him so special. When he’s not throwing the tantrums, he’s SO happy and bright and SO kind and SO thoughtful. He says thank you for everything and observes how Joel and I are feeling. He can identify some of his emotions as well as what Joel and my emotions are (happy, sad, angy). I actually consider Ben an easy kid most of the time....He is usually so happy, easy- going, adaptable and independent. He's a champion sleeper and just SO FUN....it's just these extreme tantrums that are a bit of a challenge.

So, we’re going to set up an appointment with a child psychologist. We absolutely don’t think there’s anything wrong with Ben and honestly, I’m not worried about the severity of Ben’s tantrums. But, Karen is VERY concerned (she said about 20 times yesterday that she is “very concerned about the severity of his tantrums”) and she can’t keep Ben at her house if his tantrums continue to be so severe and disruptive. I struggle with wondering if this is “normal” toddler behavior or not…but Karen continues to say that this is the most severe “toddler” behavior that she’s ever seen. So, we’re just going to talk to someone to see if they have any tips on how to help him deal with his intense emotions. I don’t want to squash Ben’s strong spirit, so I’ll be excited if they can tell us anything to help Ben learn to deal with his big-guy feelings.

 

Words

** I started this post a week or two ago and kept adding things to the list. This is purely for us to look back on and remember the cute way that Ben said things.  This will probably be boring for anyone else to read :)

Last night, Joel and I were talking about all the cute things Ben says. We started with the uniquely "Ben" phrases, but then we started saying basically all the words he says and we concluded that, duh, everything thing he says is cute (As I'm writing this, it's a Sunday morning and Ben is laying awake in his bed saying cute things...yeuuup, owie owie owie owie, bankie). He says so much, but below is a list of a few of the things that we hear all the time. I wish I could record everything he says so that I can remember this cuteness forever!

- Tareful Ben - He says this whenever he's about to drop something or if he's a little unsteady and about to fall. Today he kept throwing a ball out of his carseat while I was driving. I told him if he threw it again it would go bye bye. After that, I heard him saying "tareful ball" and he didn't throw it again! haha
- Dammies - Jammies
- Zsank oouuu - He's very good at saying thank you
- Weeek up! - We play a game where we pretend to sleep and he says "Wake up!" in a sweet little high pitch voice.
- Oatneal - his favorite breakfast (along with muffins...or apple chex with Tim)
- Dat soun? - Whenever he hears an unfamiliar sound
- Otay
- Baby Bankie, Heaby Bankie, (or baby/heaby anything)
- Oh yaa - said in a serious, conversational tone
- Dada's turn, MAma's turn, Ben's turn
- Ben Hideen (Ben's hiding) or Where Ben Doe (Where did Ben go)
- din - Again...read the book again, make that funny sound again, throw the ball again, etc etc etc
- Mama get it (or dada, or Ben...)
- Bana - Banana
- Ben Hat - anytime he wants to go outside, he wants his hat. If we're already outside and it's a little chilly, he asks for his hat
- Hot Dog Mouse - Mickey Mouse
- whoa whoa whoa, gent stean, whoa whoa whoa, whoa whoa oat, (Row, Row, Your Boat - he's singing this in bed right now, so I'm typing exactly what he's saying)
- Up abub or tinkle tinkle - This is how he asks us to sing twinkle twinkle little star every night
- he can say the full phrase of "no more monkeys jumping on the bed"
- Ammock - Hammock
- basetball dame or football dame - He says this whenever we're throwing the ball or if he sees them on TV
- Tiss - Kiss, Usually in the context of "No Tiss, MAma!!"
- Lots of words that start with an "S", he puts the "S" at the end, so spin=pins, spoon = poons, etc
-weeebaa - zebra
- um - when we ask him something that he doesn't know,  he'll say Ummmm while he tries to think about it
- wight dere - used lately to remind us repeatedly where his owies are

Coooookies!

 Minding my own business, playing with flour...

Hmmmm, I see something interesting over there....

 ...those look like they would taste good!

Don't take them away!

Professional cookie dunker

More daycare love

On Tuesday, when I picked Ben up from daycare, he threw one of his biggest fits ever. He Hit me at Karen’s in front of Karen and another mom. He screamed and thrashed the entire way home. When we got home, I put him in his room and he screamed and thrashed for another 30 minutes. He started banging his head on the floor, so I put him in his crib. He just banged his head on his matress for 15 more minutes  as if he was going to sleep and calmed down. After he calmed down, he just laid quietly in his crib. He’d stand up every once in a while and I’d ask if he wanted out, but he said no. Eventually he wanted out and was perfectly sweet for the rest of the evening. The whole ordeal lasted an entire hour.

In the midst of his tantrum at Karen’s a few sweet things happened. Abby was out sick on Monday and Tuesday and Ben was sick three days last week, so they haven’t seen each other for an entire week. Well, i was there when Abby and her mom came to Karen’s to pick up the big sister. Abby looked sooo excited to see Ben! It was the cutest thing I’ve ever seen! Then, Cade sweetly brought me Ben’s magnadoodle as Ben was thrashing in my arms (Ben brought it for show and tell). Cade (4 yrs) is so sweet and Karen said that Cade always talks about Ben and how much Ben looks up to him. Since Abby had been out the past two days, Ben and Cade played a lot and Cade has been teaching Ben cool things, like swinging his arms around in circles like a baseball pitcher. Haha. I love his daycare family…….

Cute moment yesterday.  We headed out for a walk at the same time Natalie and her family were leaving for a walk. When Ben saw her, he ran down the street yelling "Nanal" which is what they all call her.  We stood and talked for a while. Ben kept trying to join the conversation to tell natalie about our fence (it broke in the wind). He kept sweetly saying "Ben's fence" every once in a while.  As we were chatting,  Sarah (natalie's mom) told us that natalie really missed Ben when he was sick last week. On Sunday she told her parents that she hoped ben would be back on Monday. Her parents asked her if she plays with Ben a lot (she's 4). She replied that it's just more fun with Ben there. My heart just about burst! Did I mention I LOVE his daycare family!!! Since Abby and Ben were sick for a while, yesterday was the first time they had been together in an entire week....and yesterday they fought a lot. Abby bit Ben's shoulder and broke the skin and drew blood.  Ouuuuuuch!!

Fear

I always see quotes talking about not letting fear get in the way of what you want to do. I've never thought too deeply about it because my first thought would always be about my big fears (earthquakes/tsunamis...) and I could quickly say that,  duh, I don't let my fear of earthquakes stop me from doing much (although I'm still relieved I no longer live on the coast with the constant fear of tsunamis! I was a somewhat irrational child/teen)! And then I'd move on with my thoughts. 

The other day, I saw a beautiful picture with a caption about fear being a tricky manipulator that quietly stops you from doing what you want to do. Maybe it was the words "quietly" and "tricky" that made me stop and think about it. I realized that the "fear" that stops me from doing things isn't big, scary fear like my fear of earthquakes....it is a quiet, sneaky fear and it turns out this fear actually keeps me from doing LOTS of stuff!!!

I started a little list. I titled the list "what does fear keep me from doing?". The first thing that came to mind was the word "everything!" Well then! Here are a few other things I came up with.

- I don't go out much with Ben for fear of lots of things...will he like it? Will he be bored? throw a fit? Will it be worth the effort to schedule around naps, get us ready, packed, loaded and out the door blah blah blah? My fear of all that keeps me from doing simple trips to the grocery store with Ben, little activities or even big adventures. We just booked a trip to Arizona to the Grand Canyon and to see my grandparents that I've been putting off precisely because of the reasons I just listed.

- my fear of being over-scheduled or tired keeps me from committing to things or scheduling things...even though I like doing things! It's like half my brain wants to hoard time...but that means we're at home doing nothing a lot. I'm happy to report that I overcame this fear and committed to a membership at a yoga place. I've even been doing evening classes when I would normally be heading to bed!

- fear of feeling my feelings. I feel things so deeply and strongly...so whether it's empathizing deeply with people (or even characters in a book or movie), I almost always avoid things for fear of feeling strong...and often uncomfortable... emotion.

- fear of failure. I know. Many people probably would say they fear failure. This one is kind of vague and I couldn't pinpoint how, or if, it affects my daily life. But it's good for me to be aware of in case it tries to quietly and sneakily manipulate me from doing something I want to do. 

- fear of the unknown. This is pretty vague, too. Isn't fear exactly that? Just the unknown? If we know things,  we don't usually fear them as much.

Most of the time, I don't think "oh, I'm scared of xyz therefore I'm going to sit in my house." Like the caption said, the fear is a quiet manipulator, so I just somehow avoid doing lots of things that I want or need to do. So, when Ben wakes up from his nap, I'm going to put out the effort to get him in his snow pants, boots, gloves, hat, and coat and get out the sled and we're going to go play in the snow. Who cares if the experience isn't worth the effort! I'll never know if it is worth the effort unless I go for it!

Christmas 2013

A few pics from Christmas this year

Obviously he was a huge fan of Santa.

When we were in Yakima, we went for a walk in the canyon

I forgot our stockings, so Ben used Grampy's old stocking. We just had to do a little improvising:

He had some of those huge ballons in his stocking. In the first 5 minutes of opening presents, the balloon popped and lashed him in the face. The picture doesn't show, but under his ear there was a deeper gash. Poor guy is still talking about the incident a month later!!

Michelle left this huge giraffe at our house for Ben's Christmas present. When he walked in and saw it, he walked over to it and gave it the sweetest hug. Both him and Emma like to lay on it and Ben likes to hide under it. 

21 Months - Benjamin

The last few weeks have been a little better than the weeks before. Last month I wrote about how challenging the previous weeks had been. I think some of his attitude and irritable-ness was because he was in pain from teething. His four I-teeth have been pushing through since Christmas. When he gets Ibuprofen, he's much sweeter and more cooperative, but we don't like to give him medicine too often....Especially Ibuprofen since it bothers my stomach so much. 

I have lots to say about Ben at Karen's. Until lately, Joel was picking Ben up and dropping him off so I never had a chance to talk to Karen about Ben. Now that I've been picking him up, I get to ask some more questions. We agree that this is normal toddler behavior, but she says that he's the most extreme toddler she's taken care of.  She says he is improving and that the things we work on at home is definitely helping. He screaaaams whenever anyone wants to play with anything of "his" (which is Karen's entire house....), but he immediately calms down as soon as Karen says "Abby's turn" or whatever. So that's progress. Her concern is that he's constantly aware of all the other kids. He tries to boss them around no matter what they're doing. They can be in a different room sitting on the couch and Ben will say "No Cade Couch!". She describes him as "stressed" over what the other kids are doing, but I don't really think it's stress....When we see him do that at home (with Emma or cousins or us), "stressed" is definitely not the word I would use to describe him. It's hard because we get a 10 minute update from Karen at the end of the day...and most of what we hear is how much he screamed or how long his tantrums were...we don't hear tooooo much about all the fun, cute things he did (I'm SUUURE he's not always challenging and frustrating!). Joel knows that as a teacher, when someone calls him to ask how a student is doing, he doesn't spend much time talking about all the great things the kid did...he tells them what the challenges are and what they need to work on. Despite all that I'm writing about the challenges, Karen does say good things about Ben...she told me yesterday that every kid has their challenges and that there are things that Ben is great at that other kids aren't. Last week, she told us Ben had his Best Day EVER! And the next day was his Best Day EVER EVER!  She also keeps saying that Ben is so smart and advanced, which she thinks is part of why he's so challenging. I have to keep myself from nodding excitedly and saying "oh yes yes yes!! Tell me more!!". FYI, she has never used the word "challenging" to describe Ben. She has her own, nice way of saying it. She is great with Ben. She is consistent and positive and loving. I know he's in great hands when we're not there. 

Despite his bossiness, he loves the kids at daycare and they love him. Ben looks up to Cade (The only other boy) soooo much. We're pretty sure that the reason Ben started carrying around his blankie is because Cade does it. When Cade wears a cool shirt, it's the first thing Ben wants to show us when we pick him up and we hear about it all evening long (Cade Football shirt!). Cade looooves that Ben looks up to him. He's a sweet guy and takes good care of Ben. Abigail and Ben are total buds. When they're not fighting, they sweetly bring each other their lovies and are learning to play nicely together. A few weeks ago, they were playing nicely and the big kids pointed out to Karen that this was the first time they'd seen the "babies" playing nicely together (progress!). Yesterday, Ben was sick so I had to come pick him up. When I got there, Karen had all the kids in the other room and Ben was snuggled by himself on the couch. Karen was trying to keep Abby in the other room away from Ben, but all she wanted to do was come hang out with "her Ben". Ben talks all the time about Natalie (who lives a few houses down from us), Natalie's dad, Natalie's truck and Natalie's Dog, etc. He no longer talks about hitting Abby (again, progress!!). He only talks lovingly about the kids. I love that he has a little family away from us! It's like having four siblings!  Side note: As I'm writing this, Ben is beginning to wake up and he keeps saying "Abigail no no no!". 

Lately, I've started to see Ben's imagination start to develop. His thing lately is to be a "Big Kitty". He goes around all day doing really loud meow/roars. He's not a tiger, not a lion...but a Big Kitty (big ditty). He has been pretending that random objects are rocket ships. He'll build a stack of legos or roll a log of playdoh and fly them around saying "Rocket ship!". He's also started pretending that Tucker is doing stuff. I pretend that Tucker is talking to him or playing hide and seek. He gets a huge kick out of that. Lately he has liked to pretend that Tucker is reading a book. 

Another thing that just developed this month is his love for his blankies. It started at Karen's...after nap, he would want to carry his blankie around. She asked if we had a smaller blanket for him to use since the blanket he had at Karen's was kind of big. So, at home, we started giving him his thin swaddling blankets. He immedietly started referring to his big quilt that my mom made as his "Heavy Blankie" and his swaddling blankets as his "baby Blankies". He thinks heavy =big and baby =small. He uses these to describe all different kinds of big or small things (balls, cars, and even his toots!!).

Ben really is SUCH a sweet boy. On his very best days, he just ooooozes sweetness. He says "Sank Ou" (Thank you) for everythinnnnggggg, shares everything and even gives the occasional random kiss (My favorite!!). A lot of times, I'm surprised at how well he listens when we tell him to do things. Even if he whines or complains that it's time to get ready for bed, he still goes upstairs when we ask him to. Brushing teeth has become SO much easier. We ask him to hold his hands and open his mouth. It's not perfect, but it's sooo much better than it was. I used to joke that brushing his teeth every day was worse than when he was circumcised!! Ben still really likes to have some alone time. This weekend, Joel's parents were here and I think he was a bit overstimulated. When they left to run errands, Ben sat quietly playing and reading by himself for at least half an hour before he wandered downstairs to see if anyone was even home. When we go to other people's houses or when people come to our house, he is very quiet and just observes what is going on. When our neighbors come over, he dives onto the couch and buries his head in the corner the entire time. haha. Just like his mom. 

And just two quick sweet memories: 

1) Last week, as we were saying our prayer before bed, Ben looked up at me with his little hands folded and sweetly said "papa happy". I texted Bill to let him know that a special prayer had been said for him.

2) Every night before I go to bed, I put Ben's sleep sack on him. Sometimes he's totally asleep and doesn't move a muscle. Sometimes he wakes up and we have a sweet little conversation (pretty sure he's still half asleep though). The other night was one of the sweet conversations. He excitedly said "truck!! Voom!!"...A very loud truck had driven by a minute earlier. Then he sweetly asked for his water bottle and baby blankie. When I gave him his pillow he sweetly said "sank ou mom" and then "night night mom". I love his sweet, sleepy self. He's so happy and sugary sweet and loving. It's my favorite :)