Ben sleeps!

Well, the sleep gods have been very generous and Benjamin sleeps! Tonight Ben snuggled with Daddy like every night before bed, read some books and went into his crib absolutely peepless! Apparently he has developed a fond liking for a certain blankey. He likes to ball it up and shove it under his chest as sleeps on his belly (according to dad who does the nightly sleep ritual).

Update on new words:

hug (as he is hugging you)
fan
book
elmo (which he says to refer to big bird, ernie or any of the gang)
baby (as he demands to know the whereabouts of baby Carter in the office at school)
leaf
itty itty itty! or kitty
meow
doggie
high five! (as he gives you one)

little mother teresa

Yesterday at school Ben showed a different side than I have ever seen. One moment Justin, 5, is playing calmly with the stacking blocks. In walks dad and he turns into a screaming hysterical mess. I scowl in the recesses as Ms. Soltice moves in to handle the outburst. As the obviously embarassed dad tries unsucessfully to apease his demonic child, I arrogantly think of my "superior" parenting skills. Amid the cyclone of flying styrofoam blocks Ben waddles over to Justin and starts stoking his back saying "ok?" "ok?" Justin smiles and stops crying for a minute, we all laugh.

I am so much older than my little guy but yesterday he showed me that I can learn a thing or two from him too.

Back at School!

After a refreshing break, today we made it back to school. Last night Daddy and I were convinced that Ben was sick. We had spent the day at the fun junction and for all the ball pit diving and sliding fun it seemed to be a bit of a germy place. (atleast boo had fun and dad won me a coupla bouncing balls playing skiball). I sent Dad out into the dark of night to get a new thermometer since ours was broken (there he came across a loose boxer that he had dreamed about the night before, but I digress). After we took his temp eight times and saw no fever and took his pulse 27 times to determine that there would be no cardiac arrest, he fell asleep. I thought how happy I was to be scared with alex instead of alone and how nice it is to share the scaries of being a parent with him. Suffice to say, after our antics, he slept more or less soundly and today we had a great day back at school.

We learned leche, "milk" and pan, "bread". Mrs. Hurtado was thrilled to hear Ben say "salte" before jumping into the circle. He impressed me with how well he worked with the thread cylinder since I thought it would be way too hard for him. he squeezed orange juice with the hand juicer saying "ahhh" after each sip. he was covered in ink by 11:30 AM which is always a great sign that fun was had. We ended our fun tonight with dragon tails "let's start a band" some free form dancing and several nice stories read by dad. he is having a hard time sleeping at night which is very hard on us..too much cuddling past few nights? Ahh may the sweet god of rest be generous and let our hard working boo get some rest...

Thanksgiving wake

Today I was inspired by sylvie's blog (ben's bff) and decided that it's far time to start documenting some of ben's milestones, the countless moments of greatness that occur in the most unlikelyest of times when i am preoccupied with my own ridiculously unimportant life.

This morning we watched elmo ad zoe's dancing video and it is a treasure. ben is an avid dancer so he enjoyed dancing along with zoe and paula abdul-spinning african inspired circles and asian welcoming dances. right now he is mad because dad is sleeping and he has already charged the door three times and succesfully raided the bed-so after some nice hugs the door has been closed.

We have been working hard at school and this break we are determined to take it easy and loaf around. It is a good time to make a list of benisms . His favorite activity is crawling into our lap with a book and saying "ok...okaaayyy" and then taking our hands to open the book for him. He isn't asking so much to be read to as telling, "now you will read me a story". green eggs and ham is his favorite. hold on, he wants to see the laughing baby on you tube. ok we are back.

he says:

juice please
cheese please
thank you, thanks
welcome
cracker
baby
when he sees a picture of himself "oh so cute!"
shoes and ocks
syyyvie (sly-bff)
doggie
meow
cow
apple
banana
ella
stop
don't touch!
hot!
down!
mine!
mamma, mommy, susie, bhak
dada, daddy
1,2,3
meg an
tadie (katie)
picking up the cell phone, saying "hello" then having a whole conversation in benspeak with the "caller"
hola!
salta!
uno
bye!
all done

things i am particulary proud of:

every last thing he has accomplished
eating with a spoon and insisting to do so
putting his work away and returning it to the shelf in the correct spot
ben has many friends and hugs readily and affectionately
ben defends himself very well (too well at times) when the bigger kids at school smother him
allowing me to pry him from bed at 6:45 every morning and drag him to school (a place he really does love)

we need to get a new camera so i don't have any pictures yet but will add some soon! ttfn