Ben - 2 yrs, 10 months

I've been jotting down little notes of things I want to write in the blog to remember about Ben. One thing that I've been observing more of lately is his introverted side. Many afternoons, he'll come home from the Taylor's and want to play all by himself. We know that he must have had a busy day at the Taylor's on those days. He's also been a little more of a homebody lately. He's perfectly content to stay home and play with Joel and I. He doesn't even want to leave the house to go for his usual runs very often lately. and side note... just because I observe him being a little more introverted than some other kids, I don't want to box him into whatever an introvert is "defined" as. Kind of like calling a kid shy their whole life...they could grow up thinking they really are shy rather than exploring for themselves whether they are or not, etc. 

It's crazy to think that a year ago, we were dealing with epic tantrums and the whole daycare fiasco.  Meanwhile this year we're dealing with the absolute sweetest, happiest boy on the planet (at least on our Planet Starr). For example the other night I pulled him close to me and gave him a sweet kiss on his cheek. He melted into me and when I let him go, he sweetly thanked me for the kiss. He loooves snuggles and hugs and kisses to and from his Mom and dad!! He's also so happy and enthusiastic about wanting to play with us "mommy, you wanna play tennis?!"  He's not annoying about it. He's a total pal and just wants to play! Last night he did something rude to me when he was trying to interrupt while I was talking. So he got in trouble. He was trying not to cry and his sweet lip was trembling and had the sweetest pout. He was talking in a high-pitch, try-not-to-cry voice about why he was in trouble. All of a sudden he said "I'm happy!" while still trying to pretend like he wasn't sad. He's constantly telling Joel and I that he loves us in the sweetest, most tender voice. And when we snuggle at bed time, sometimes he asks that Joel and I get so close that we smash Ben between us and have our faces smashed up against his. So yeah, he's an introvert, but he certainly has a big ol' love tank that is constantly being filled and also filling our tanks!! Omg. He kills me. I wish my words could convey how sweet he is.....but it's impossible.

This is Joel and Ben snuggling watching TV. They both love their snuggles. They were made for each other.

Also, lately Ben has been wanting to climb our trees. The first time he did it was so funny. He thought for sure he wasn’t allowed to do something cool like that. I was weeding in the garden. Here’s our conversation:

Ben: Can I climb the tree?

Me: Sure!

Ben (hesitantly): I’m going to put my feet on the tree

Me: ok!

Ben (as if “are you suuure?”): I’m going to put both feet in the tree

Me: great!

Ben: I might fall

Me: Yup, you might!

The conversation continued in this way for a while. He was totally testing the waters and making suuuuure it was ok and he must have thought I misunderstood what he was asking to do! I got a kick out of it. Also, for some reason, Joel and I were talking about hard work the other day and talking about chopping wood. Every day lately, Ben has been asking if he can chop wood. When we do the yard work, he wants to help by chopping wood. Luckily, we did have to saw down a tree this weekend so he got to “help” with that. 

He's also been more and more into "fighting bad guys". He talks about fighting bad guys all the time. If there's a bad guy in the movie, he talks again and again about how he'll FIGHT THE BAD GUY!! Today Mrs. Taylor sent me a picture with a blanket on as a cape and a sparkly mask on. She said that he was fighting bad guys and the mask helped him fight. Last night, he had a splinter, but the splinter helped him fight bad guys so he didn't want me to take the splinter out. I think he's a little afraid of "bad guys". He certainly doesn't like bad guys in movies. Not at all. He either won't watch a movie if it has a bad guy or he wants us to skip the bad guy parts. If he's playing by himself, he's usually doing something about fighting bad guys....for example, he was sitting in the back seat the other day and was pretending one foot was a bad guy and the other was a good guy, so his feet were fighting...or his cars are good guys/bad guys and they fight. If we talk about a storm coming up, he says he'll fight the storm with a sword. Somewhat related to that, He has these adorably optimistic views of how he'll face challenges. He's seen several car wrecks so he has it in his mind that if he's ever in a car wreck, he's going to "JUMP OUT DA CAH and be SAFE from the CASH!" (he says this with such enthusiasm, energy and confidence! ). 

This weekend was daylight savings, and Joel's parents happened to be visiting so we took advantage of Bill's muscle power and switched Ben into the guest room and moved the crib/guest bed into the room closer to ours. So now Ben has a new room. He wants to paint the room orange (that's his favorite color). Um, no thanks! I told him maybe we could do an orange rug or orange carpets or something. Speaking of orange. Whenever we buy him something or he finds something or whatever...if it's orange, his whole face lights up and he holds the object up and excitedly observes that "This is owangE!!! Owange is my favowite colah!!" Have I mentioned his excitement and enthusiasim for things? I especially loves it when he clenches his fists and tucks his arms in tight and scrunches up his face and almost shakes with excitement about whatever! That reminds me...this weekend we went out to breakfast. Ben ordered chocolate chip pancakes. When they finally arrived, he was so excited he was shaking. He was shoving the pancake into his mouth as fast as he could with his shaking, quivering hands. His eyes were wide open with excitement. I tried to take a picture, but by the time I got my camera out, he had calmed down a little and was a little more relaxed about shoving entire pancakes into his mouth and smearing whipped cream all over his face. 

When sleeping on Saturday and Sunday mornings. Mama?mama?its the weekend? Yup. Goes back to banging his head

We've been practicing some "homework" lately.

This was him watching Frozen. He had seen it before, but we've never watched it with him. He was leaning forward and oooohing and aaaaahing. At the end, he kept gasping and saying "oh! This is fun!". I've never seen him so into a movie.

We went for a "hike" and Ben got a little tired. 

He loves his Aunties!

Practicing Basketball with Gamma Bev! (He likes that their names are spelled almost the same. B-E-N and B-E-V)

He likes to eat his breakfast while going to the bathroom in the morning...

Disneyland!

I just realized this never published when I wrote it a month ago*

About a month ago, Joel and i made an impulse decision to take a trip to Disneyland. We went on the trip with low expectations. We didn't want to push Ben to do too much, so we were just going to go with the flow and do what Ben wanted to do. I was so excited to just spend a few days with my little family and spoil Ben!

Ben knew in advance that we were going. In the weeks leading up to it, we would tell him who we might see atDisneyland (Mickey mouse, buzz lightyear, etc).  He was realllllly concerned that the bad guys in any movie would also be there, so a lot of times he would tell us that he didn't want to go. 

On the morning of our trip, I woke him up and he sweetly got super excited. In his sleepy, sweet voice he said "we going to Disneyland? Today?" And then he jumped out of bed and we left for the airport. The lines at the airport were insane, but that was ok. It just meant less time waiting at the gate. We just had time to go potty before we boarded. The flight was a breeze and then we took a shuttle to the hotel. Ben chattered, sang and counted the entire way from the airport to the hotel. It was too early to check in so we just changed our clothes, put in sunscreen and left our bags at the front desk. It was super warm that day and Disneyland was super crowded. Our first ride was Pirates of the Carribean. The line was long but Ben was fine. He was a little crabby without a nap so we just did one more ride then went back to the hotel to check in and go swimming. We had dinner then went to bed. 

The next morning was extra magic morning, which gives just the guests of the Disney hotels the chance to get in early. We went to California adventure and raced ro radiator springs. It was like a stampede! Everyone was going to that ride!! There were tons of cast members just directing people into a line. I couldn't go on the ride, so Joel and Ben were whisked off with the crowd. For some reason I got all emotional seeing my little guy go off with a big crowd like that! Despite the crowd, the wait was short and Ben and Joel went on the ride twice before the big crowds came. We went on lots of little kid rides at DCA, but Ben's favorite was the splash pad. He spent 45 minutes chasing the water and "fighting" it. When the water would spray up, he would hit it. He'd run over occasionally and dry his eyes with tucker and blankies. For lunch, I ran to a corn dog stand while Ben was still splashing around. Ben won't touch hot dogs, so I just got one for Joel and I. But after Joel took one bite, Ben devoured the rest! This is probably only surprising tonjoel and I because we know how picky Ben is and how rare it is that he'll eat something outside of his standard foods. Guess he was hungry! The other funny thing about DCA was the Ferris wheel. The baskets are on their own swinging loops so as the wheel turns you unexpectedly go swinging backwards or forewords. It FREAKS ME OUT. I was screaming my head off, but Ben was just laughing and saying "what's wrong mommy? this is fun!!"  After that we watched the Disney junior show and then went to the hotel for a nap. After nap we went to Disneyland for a few rides and then had our one and only meltdown. The meltdown happened as we were rushing to our dinner reservations so we just threw him in the stroller and raced to dinner. In terms of Ben meltdowns, this one was super quick and mild. 

The character dinner was fun (although the food is terrible!). Ben liked meeting goofy but was unsure about the other characters. Chip pretended to take Ben's food, so he talked about that for the next few days. After dinner, Ben was hilariously overtired. He was running and singing and twirling and jumping and rolling on the floor of the hotel lobby. Soooo we went back to the hotel for bed. At bedtime, it's so sweet the way he chatters about his day and asks questions. He's really processing everything! As he was almost asleep, he popped up and said "we didn't see Mickey!"  

The next morning, I totally assumed he would sleep in...but nope! He was up at 545, which is even earlier Than usual. It was another early morning for guests of the hotels, so we set off! Ben didn't want to ride radiator springs again, but the rest of the guests did! So we pretty much walked on to all the other rides for an entire hour. At 8 we went to Disneyland. It was still pretty empty, so Joel took the chance to ride a few big kid rides by himself. Ben and Joel even rode Big Thunder Mountain! We had ridden Buzz Lightyear the day before and he loved it, so we rode it again this day, but Ben got really scared. He was terrified of Zorg and cried for the second half of the ride. Good thing Tucker was with us! For all rides, even if Ben loved the ride 99% of the time, if something scared him at all, his overall impression was that he didn't like the ride. So since Thunder Mountain had one loud boom, Ben didn't like the ride. Bummer. He did, however, love Autopia! I couldn't ride it, but Ben and Joel rode it a few times.

The picture below is him AFTER his nap on the last day. We didn't push Ben, but he just kept going and going, so we ended up staying for the last parade and got him a new toy (Monster Truck Mater! pic below)...then he still wanted to keep going so we saw Fantasmic. Yikes! I forgot how scary Fantasmic is! But, luckily, there were two little boys next to Ben and they all pretended to fight the bad guys. The other boys had a toy gun and were so sweet to show Ben how to use it. On our way out, we saw a bit of the fireworks, but he was starting to show his tiredness, so we rushed out to beat the crowds.

The next morning we woke up and headed to the airport. He was a champ on the plane ride home (we even got complimented by the people behind us. Gosh, people who compliment kids' good behavior suuuure know how to make a mom's heart swell!). In the days after the trip, we kept talking about the rides and Ben kept saying his favorite ride was the worms (there wasn't a ride with worms...) and then he told someone that his favorite ride was the one that brought him back to "Puyayup". My favorite part about the trip was just spending non-stop time with my favorite guys!! Another favorite thing is that Ben talked a lot about "fighting the scaries". Before he would go on a ride, he would ask if there were bad guys. Sometimes he would resist if there was any chance of a bad guy, but other times he would bravely announce that he was going to fight the scaries! It was so sweet! 

8 weeks - Second pregnancy

I just went back to my blog posts about my pregnancy symptoms from my pregnancy with Ben.  It's been kind of fun to compare this pregnancy to the last one, so I want to write down a few things about my symptoms so far. My memories of the first half of Ben's pregnancy are...awful..I was pretty nervous that this pregnancy would be as miserable, but I'm happy to report that so far my pregnancy this time is much easier. The hardest part last time was the anxiety and the insane emotional rollercoaster my brain was on. So far I haven't had an ounce of that! I've had a bit of nausea and some days are worse than others. Today I came home from work early because I was so tired and nauseous. Other than the nausea, I've been a little tired. I've been sleeping totally fine at night, but I have really low energy during the day (with Ben, I slept terrible right from the start and had to get a prescription for Ambien at my very first appointment). I avoid nausea by eating...all the time...And nothing sounds good, so I end up eating not-so-healthy food. Looking back at this time last pregnancy, I didn't think I had gained any weight...well, this time I've definitely gained a few pounds. I had a little bit of bleeding one day this week, but I went it for an ultrasound and they weren't worried about it at all...and there hasn't been anything since them. My worry-o-meter was pretty low on that one. So far so good! Overall, I feel like a normal person!

We're not keeping the pregnancy a secret from Ben, but we're not really trying to make him understand what's going on yet. For starters, we don't want him telling the Taylors that I'm pregnant. We want to be able to talk to them about our plans for maternity leave, etc before they find out from Ben that I'm pregnant.

Good News!

(Written on 1/1/15, but not posted until 1/23)

Soooo, good news! I am pregnant! We found out on Tuesday, December 23rd (Fun fact: We found out about being pregnant with Ben on August 23rd, 2011). Double fun fact is that Chauncy is also pregnant (About 2 weeks ahead of me). There's a bit of a story about it, so here goes:

On Sunday night, Joel and I went out for an early anniversary date. I had a little bit of a head cold, but I was still feeling pretty good. The food was DELICIOUS and I had two amaaaazing moscow mules. YUMMY. But, oops...later that night I felt miserable. It was only two drinks, but I had to make myself throw up that night. I barely got any sleep because my head was spinning. Uuuuugh. The next day was miserable. I was soooo hungover. I told Joel to never let me drink more than one drink ever again! Hmmmm. Odd. Two drinks don't normally do that to me. Maybe the restaurant just made really strong drinks?? The next morning (Tuesday), I woke up from a dream that I wasn't pregnant. I took my temperature like normal and it had taken a slight dip . Bummer. It was still a few days until my period was expected, but I woke up and took a pregnancy test just so I wouldn't have to wonder. I was feeling pretty down in the dumps. I took the test and my eyes bugged out of my head when I saw a second line develop. EEEEEE!!! It was 5 am on a vacation day, but I woke Joel up by tapping him on the shoulder. He woke up and thought something was wrong! I just gave him a huge smile without saying a word. He knew exactly what the smile meant!! The day we found out I was pregnant with Ben was, hands down, the happiest day of my life. This time, I was still very happy, but now that I know the work involved with kids, the excitement was mellowed with some thoughts of "EEEEEK, what are we getting ourselves into?!?!"  I took another test to confirm and went to the clinic for a blood test to triple check. All positive!! Telling the news to my sisters was fun. I texted Chauncy in the early morning, since I knew she'd be up...but I forced myself to wait until 8 to tell Brenna.

That night, Chauncy and I announced our pregnancies to my mom and Steve. My mom was shocked to learn we were both pregnant. The next day, on Christmas Eve, we announced together to my dad and twins. Again, shock all around.

Since we were doing fertility treatments, the clinic is having me come in every few days to see how my HCG levels are progressing. They are increasing "verrrrrry nicely" as the nurse keeps telling me in a high-pitched, excited voice. Of course, every time they tell me my levels for that day, I google the heck out of everything. There are calculators that show how fast the HCG levels are rising and then compares that to a normal "singleton" pregnancy and a twin or triplet pregnancy. My levels are much higher than the average singleton pregnancy. GULP!!! I'm trying not to get too excited about the possibility of twins, buuuuut, there weeeerre three eggs there when they did the IUI....so the chances aren't too far fetched! However, HCG levels vary widely...and as Brenna pointed out, maybe my kids just like to be off the charts on everything. Maybe I just have one super cooker in there! We go in for an ultrasound on Sunday. They won't be able to see any fetuses, but they'll be able to see how many gestational sacs there are.

My due date is 9/5/15. Chauncy's due date is 8/21/15. It will be a different experience being pregnant with Chauncy than it was to be pregnant with Brenna! I'm so excited!

The picture below shows my hcg levels compared to "average" and "high" hcg levels for a single pregnancy. Mine is the green line.

New Year Update

Today is the first day of 2015, so I thought I better do a quick update! I guess one of the most exciting things to report is that Ben is about 90% potty trained. He just wears pull-ups at night, but otherwise we're calling it done! This summer, Ben would frequently wear underwear, but I thought it was too early to really push him, so we just let him do it for fun whenever he wanted. Over Christmas break, we started having him wear underwear and we haven't looked back. We're out of diapers and I'm hoping not to have to buy anymore for a while! For the first week of Christmas break, Joel and I would try to remind Ben to go potty...but he would resist and fight us. I thought this was maybe a sign that he wasn't ready...but, instead, he just goes whenever he feels like it. We'll be playing and suddenly he'll sprint to the bathroom and slam the door. Pretty soon we hear the toilet flushing and the sink turn on. We come in at the last minute to help him wipe, but otherwise he is totally self-sufficient. It blows me away how independent he is. I joked that Ben would just potty train himself, since he's managed all other big transitions in his own, independent way. We have a few more days of Christmas break and then it's back to the Taylor's...hopefully his potty training habits carry forward to their house!

  Another fun thing about Ben that has become more developed in the last few months is his sweetness!! Oh my goodness, that kid pours on the charm! On a normal day, he tells us mannnny times throughout the day "mommy, I yike you" or "daddy, you're nice". Often, those words are followed by a hug around the legs or a kiss to whatever body part is closest to him at the time. He says this at anytime....while we're playing, eating dinner, going for a walk or loading into the car. It melts my heart every.single.time. When we tell him "I love you", he often says it back. The thing that kills me is his sweet, sincere voice and the way his big eyes look up at me when he says it!! Gah! How did he learn to be so sweet??? He's also a big snuggle bug. I'm sure I've mentioned it before, but one of his favorite things to do is bring a big stack of books home from the library and spend an HOUR sitting on the couch snuggled with mom or dad, reading every last one. He likes to snuggle us both before bed (we call it Sandwich time), we snuggle on the couch watching movies, we snuggle in the love sac after nap, we snuggle a lot with that little guy!! He sure fills my love tank!! (How many exclamation points did I use in that paragraph?). 

Oh...I guess I have more sweet things about him...he seems so thoughtful of others. He is hyper-aware of what others are doing all the time and wonders why they're doing it. This comes out as sweetness a lot...he'll notice a new shirt of mine and tell me that he thinks it's pretty. Or, the other night, I did my hair for a date with Joel. I came out of the bathroom and Ben immediately told me my hair looked pretty. My mom got a new kitchen table and Ben's first comment was that it looked nice. It blows me away how aware he is of other people! I hope to continue to nurture that trait! He is also EXTREMELY sweet around babies. OMG. He has lots of babies in his life. His cousin Aldon, our neighbors just had a baby, and he also has 2 babies at the Taylor's and 2 babies at the Stueckle's on Mondays. He looooves holding babies. The first time I saw him hold a baby was our neighbor baby, Camden. Ben turned into a giant puddle of mush. He sat on the couch with the baby in his arms and had the most dreamy look on his face. He gently touched the baby's face and hands and leaned down and kissed him on the cheek. He didn't want to give the baby up! The first time Ben held Aldon was even sweeter. Ben kept trying to snuggle closer and closer to Aldon, so pretty soon they were all smashed together in an awkward heap on the couch. It was almost like Ben was in a trance! He kissed Aldon and just wanted to keep snuggling. He talks so sweetly about the babies at the Taylor's and Stueckle's, When we talk about the possibility of Ben being a big brother some day, he gets all mushy and his voice gets all sweet and soft as he tells us that he'll hold the babies in his arms and how tiny they'll be. Gah. His sweetness kills me. 

So, wanna hear the flip side of all that gushiness? The sweetness is the norm....but on occasion (sometimes more frequently than others), his other side comes out. And I don't have much patience for this side of Ben! ugh. He's started a new thing where he demands us to "listen!". If we're not letting him get what he wants, he'll demand "Listen! Listen! Mom! Listen!". It's quite funny, but that habit can't be allowed to stick around! I don't know where he learned this. Neither Joel or I say "listen" and I'm sure the Taylors don't. When he resists stuff, he usually resists furiously and strongly. Also, he still throws the occasional MEGA TANTRUM. The other day when Joel's parents were here, Ben was being rude to Emma. I calmly took him upstairs for a time out. As soon as I set him down, he melted dowwwwwn. Eyeroll. After battling with him to stay in his room, I decided it was time for bed. Putting jammies on him when he's having a tantrum like this is nearly impossible. I had to sit on him just to barely manage to get his pants on (I was laughing out loud at this point because it was so crazy). I came down stairs to see Joel's parents looking terrified. Their eyes were wide open and they were awkwardly trying to talk about happy things and ignore the screaming octopus upstairs. A while later, Ben started to wind down, so I went upstairs. After a few minutes of me sitting with him, his tantrum turned off like a light switch and he suddleny started talking happily about something else laughing and joking as he was telling me about whatever it was. As fast as his tantrums turn on, they turn right off again! (I just read through this paragraph and it dawned on me that his Mega Tantrums aren't as "Mega" as they used to be. He hasn't banged his head against the wall or floor in a long time and these Mega Tantrums never last as long as they used to...so, that's good!!)

Ben is sweet to 99% of other people. The only exception is our poor neighbor boy, Kyler. Kyler loooooves Ben. Everytime Kyler sees Ben out the window, Kyler begs his mom to let him go outside to play. Kyler is always asking where his "buddy, Ben" is and if he can play. Kyler is a well-behaved, easy going, sweet kid (he's 8 months older than Ben). For some reason, Ben is so rude to Kyler! When Kyler comes over to play, Ben bosses him around and says rude things to him. When they're playing cars, Ben just bulldozes Kyler all the time with a mean look on his face. Whenever Kyler is around, Ben simply acts MEAN. He gets a mean look in his face and his voice is mean and pretty much all his actions are mean. This is the only time I see Ben like this. He doesn't get like this with his cousins, or other friends...or other strangers that he meets at the library or whatever. Most of the time, he's a normal person around other kids. I can't figure out why he's like this with Kyler! I feel SO BAD. We have to bribe Ben just to go play at Kyler's house....but that backfired a few weeks ago when Ben came back home waaaaailing just two minutes after being at Kyler's house. hmmmm. I was trying to analyze it...and you know how it's a common thing for kids to be mean to kids of the opposite gender who "like" them? I kind of wonder if it applies to all people, not just the opposite gender. Because Kyler SO OBVIOUSLY likes Ben, I wonder if Ben picks up on that and feels the need to resist equally strong. I've noticed similar reactions with Ben and adults. With adults that don't try too hard for Ben's attention, Ben seems to open up to them more and has an easier, more relaxed relationship with them...but the adults that try too hard to give him attention or make him like them, Ben resists them more. So, since Kyler tries REALLY hard to play with Ben, it's almost like he's resisting extra hard. Weird...

A few things about Ben's language...He still says "Ben" instead of "I" 99% of the time. This is an improvement, though, because he used to say "Ben" for "I" and "me"...now at least he uses me/mine/my properly. It's hard to try to get him to say "I"....but I feel like we need to get better about it before it becomes too ingrained in his mind. Another thing is that he can "spell" his name. He says "B-E-N spells Ben!". He recognizes those three letters anywhere. It's fun to see him start to learn his letters. We play with magnetic alphabets at home, and the Taylors are working with him a lot on his alphabet and identifying letters.

Below are a few emails that I've sent to my sisters recently. Basically, my emails with them should all be documented in this blog...

Ben has been telling such long, elaborate stories lately. They're just getting longer and longer and more detailed and imaginative!  And he tells them with such conviction that I sometimes wonder if something really happened to him. A while ago he told me an elaborate story about how he got knocked over by a car in the street and got hurt.  Tonight he was telling me a really long story...I wish I could remember more of it...but it involves bad guys and shooting (i have no idea how he knows about bad guys and shooting!). This particular section of the story was seriously 10 minutes long. Somewhere in there, it also involved alligators and crocodiles coming up the street.  I've mentioned before that when Ben talks about animals that could be scary (wolves, bears, dragons), Ben is so sure that when the animals meet him, they'll be happy and nice to him(and want to shake his hands and say "nice to.meet you" and have good manners). Today when he was talking about the bad guys he said that they would be happy when they saw Ben...but that they would still be bad guys....they still wouldn't be nice like Ben. It fascinates me how he processes possibly scary things!!

Also tonight at dinner, Ben said something again about Habi and Ding Dong. We asked who they are (we already know)..he casually said they are his sisters. Haha!  Tonight was just one long story!  It just wove through the whole evening no matter what we were doing. Gaaaah. I'm obsessed with his little brain!!!

side note about Habi and Ding Dong. He continues to tell us that he has two sisters named Habi and Ding Dong and when they come out of mommy's tummy, he will hold them in his arms. He has talked about Habi and Ding Dong for months! I have no idea where it came from! The other day he told us we needed to talk quiet because there are two babies asleep in the house. 

11/24/14:

Guys...i had another heavenly weekend with Ben. How can he be so perfect and sweet? I'm seriously concerned that since he is so easy, that my next kid will be difficult.  There's no way I would be lucky enough to get another as easy,  perfect, sweet, well behaved and polite as Ben....is there? ??

Ben and I baked a ton yesterday. Like I said in my text yesterday, The whole time he repeatedly said "Ben yikes you" in such a sincere, sweet voice. And the fact that he wanted to wear underwear...it was his idea...i have a feeling he's going to potty train himself. That's what he's done with other big transitions...He just takes care of it himself. I feel SO OBNOXIOUS gushing about ben so much but it can't keep it in. My heart overflows!!!!

In the (CRAZY) mind of a toddler..........

Juuuuust in case I ever forget the craziness that comes with toddlerhood, I wanted to jot down the rollercoaster of today. Just this morning, I was sitting at my desk in a warm glow, thinking about the wonderful, beautiful, sweet, angelic child that I just spent the weekend with. I was so proud thinking about how polite, sweet, and easy going he's been lately. So much of the time, he blows me away with his sweetness. He's constantly saying "thank you", "umm, no thank you" (in the sweetest voice!), "Ben's fine!", and "sure". All of this is said in an angelic, sing-song, laid-back voice. I wanted to tell the world how incredibly sweet he is!

This afternoon, we had a normal, happy evening. We went for a walk (And got drenched in the rain), ate floppies for dinner and then rough-housed. Joel and Ben played the guitar for a while and we just hung out. At bedtime, Ben went upstairs just fine...but for some reason, he lost it and started a melt down. He is so big and strong and it's almost impossible for me to wrestle him enough to get his diapers on. We wrestled for at least five minutes and I got his diaper on...meanwhile he's thrashing and screaming and hitting and kicking...My frustration was quickly rising, but I kept it under control. Joel sat on him to brush his teeth, meanwhile he's still screaming and thrashing. Obviously, story time was out the window. So, I picked him up and put him in bed (trying to keep my frustration under control to avoid throwing him in bed...). I told him if he got out of bed, we'd shut his door. Of course, at this point in the meltdown, allllll logic is lost so he thrashed himself out of bed and began throwing himself against his door. As he's screaming, and wailing, and thrashing his body all around the room, we could hear him throwing his stuff all around his room and banging things against the door, wall, etc. I tried to go in his room a few times to try to calm him down and negotiate with him (HA!). All I got was a swift kick in the eye and an angry whack to my head. It took allllll my control to keep it together right here. Somehow, he calmed down after about 30 minutes...and as quick as the tantrum started, he was as sweet as pie, chatting in bed with Joel. They were talking about the tantrum and how it wasn't nice to kick and hit mommy...Ben crawled out of bed and very sweetly said sorry to me. Although, he never opened his mouth as he said the words, so all I heard over and over was an angelic voice saying "mmmm mmm-mmm" (Ben Sowwy) and then I got the sweetest little hug. Now he's upstairs banging his head to sleep as if nothing happened.

One of the hardest parts of these tantrums is keeping my frustration under control around Joel. I can usually keep my frustration under control around Ben, but if Joel's around, it provides an outlet for my frustration. Sooo, it's just better if we don't say a woooord to each other for 20 minutes or so after these huge meltdowns. Ben threw another tantrum like this the other night when it was just me at home. It's crazy how quickly things can change with his mood!!!!! There was nothing in our evening that gave the sliiiightest inclination that he was going to have a monster meltdown tonight. Good times!! I sure love him, though!! His sweetness makes up for these crazy tantrums a billion times over!

Summer 2014 update

Well, I thought it was time for a little update.  It just so happens that this week, his constant protests and persistence has been especially frustrating,  exasperating and exhausting. I get home from work and for the rest of the evening, it seems like a battle of wills. He seems to protest eeeevrrything I say. It seems like Ben and I "but heads" more than Joel and Ben. He almost always wants Joel to do whatever it is that I'm trying to do (dress him, put shoes on, put him in the carseat,  etc) which only adds to the frustration for all of us. Tonight (and many nights) he fights me as I brush his teeth and put his jammies on. Then he demands that I go downstairs while he snuggles with joel....but, 10 minutes later when he's alone in his room, he wails for me, beggggging for a "nuggle", saying Oh-so-sweetly "mommy, I need you.  Mommy I want you". Of course, I want so badly to give in and snuggle him, but I don't want him to figure out that he can just delay bed time by doing that. The times that I do snuggle him are ooooh sooooo sweet. It's like his brain relaxes right before bed and he pours out everything in his brain. He sweetly chatters away about whatever is on his mind...He talks about memories from weeks or months ago...or he tells me what his favorite things are...or he talks about the day... or asks questions about loooots of things. We can easily do this for 20 minutes before I have to cut him off and say good night. I loooove that special time with him!!

Even though he can be a little frustrating,  the joys continue to be endless. The things he says are always entertaining (see list at end of post). I love the way he gets excited about things. The other day we were at my mom's and he wanted to ride the riding lawnmower but Steve wasn't home. All of a sudden, Ben started jumping up and down, shrieking "Gamma bev!! Gamma bev! Papa Steve is here!!!!" He was like a tornado of excitement all of a sudden, running around trying to figure out which door Steve would be coming in. There is so much excited energy that comes from his body!! It's contagious!

We're enjoying watching him learn how to ride his bikes (tricycle = "bicytle" and strider bike = "bike"). He's a pro at pedaling his tricycle and can ride it all the way to the park. We've started to gradually increase the seat on his strider bike so he has to rely a little more on balance. On slight declines, he picks both feet up every once in a while. He loooves taking his strider bike everywhere...When we went to oregon,  it came with Us to the beach every day. He likes to ride his bike over things, like pinecones, rocks, leaves, etc.  If there aren't enough obstacles,  he'll get off his bike and throw a bunch of stuff on the sidewalk and then ride his bike carefully,  making sure he rides the wheels over each item.

We have had a wonderful summer so far.  I need to make a separate post about our little trips. But, other than that, we've done lots of small things. I'm loving all the time I've had to just enjoy Joel and Ben. Ben has been loooving swim lessons and anything else that involves water. At the pool, he loves wearing the "puddle jumper" life vests and paddling around the pool by himself. At Wildwood park, there is a stream that runs through the park. We love going there on hot days because it's totally shaded. I love watching Ben take off and explore the stream and the surrounding forest.  We try not to interrupt him and let him get lost in his exploration (in his mind...not actually lost).

One more thing...Ben is fearless.  It's rare that he is startled, surprised or scared by something. He's definitely cautious sometimes, but it's usually (usually...not always) mixed with glee and excitement.  It's so interesting to observe. I remember making this observation about him when he was a tiny baby and it's a trait that has stuck around. I don't mean to say he's a daredevil, because he's not the biggest daredevil I've ever seen (he never even climbed out of his crib)...i just mean that we rarely ever see fear or hesitstion or uneasiness in his eyes...not even a flash of it. Although, it was funny...at the beach,  Laurel and Gabriel were watching a funny youtube video where a guy demonstrates how different animals eat their food. The first one was a cow, so the guy slammed his head down on the table (it makes sense in the video). Ben did not like that!!! He wanted us to turn it off and kept talking about it the rest of the day in a very curious tone of voice ("man eating and hit his head on table. Why mom?"). Instead of fear in unknown or new situations we usually see determination (sometimes displayed as STUBBORNNESS),  curiosity, confidence and observation...again,  all traits we've observed since his baby days. Sigh. This child is so fascinating (duh. All children are. But he's our very own!  We get to know and see all of his teensiest qualities and personality traits!)

Funny things ben says:

At bed time, Ben to me: "Neeeed you, Ben want a nuggle." As he confidently reaches around my neck and pulls me down towards him

Saying "oh sure" in a relaxed, happy tone of voice when we ask him to do something (I wish this was how he always responded! )

Every morning when he feeds our new pet goldfish: "Good morning orangey!!!! See! I opened it!!" (Opening the jar of fish food; saying good morning with so much joy, excitement and happiness)

In the locker room the other day, another mom asked how old Ben was. Then this exchsnge happened:
Me: "he's two"
Ben: "mommy tirty"
Me: "mommy's thirsty?"
Ben: "no, mommy's tirty! Ben's two, mommy's tirty!"

Joel: "you have two choices.  You can either walk with me or I can carry you"
Ben: "those aren't Ben's choices,  those are your choices"

Ben was very proud of his first bloody nose. When he told people about it,  he kept forgetting what it was called,  so he'd do his little "uh, uh, uh..." then look at joel or I and say "what's it's name?"

He likes watching dirt bike videos (great...). This was his reaction when I made him turn off the computer. It's a hard life.

We were practicing different emotion faces (happy, mad, thinking,  pirate...)

He was blowing up balls with an air pump. .the football exploded in his lap, cutting up his legs and belly and doing this to his diaper (we took him to the doctor to make sure nothing was damaged)