I love this age!

I've always loved 18-month-olds and of course I love Benny most of all! A million times a day I say "You are so sweet!" "You are so smart!"

On Sunday I was doing something in the kitchen and he opened the dishwasher and unloaded every piece of silverware and put it in the silverware drawer! I guess he has seen us do that, but I didn't ask him to do it or instruct him. He also picks up any piece of clothing, etc. he sees around the house and takes it to the dirty laundry basket.

This morning Tim said he was going to go to the model train store to get something to make his childhood train set work. I said something like "Oh boy!" and Ben looked back and forth between us with such a delighted, excited expression on his face. It seemed like he understood what we were saying and was super excited about building a train set.

This weekend Ben looked out the living room window and saw that Flynn was on top of the fence, ready to jump. Ben yelled to him "Woo dah bah bwah na!" or something similar and he meant "Flynn! No jumping! Get back in the yard!"

Benny is still waking up one or two times a night most nights. He usually wakes up at 5:00 or 6:00 am and stays awake for an hour but but lounges in bed with me while I doze. If he goes back to sleep after that hour, he has actually started to sleep late. On Tuesday morning, we slept until 9:45!! Unfortunately, when I got home from work at 9:45 pm, he was still up.

He's learning other ways to tell us he wants us to play with him, read to him, and come with him. Besides patting the surface next to him, he pulls and pushes at us and moves his hand to say "come this way."

I almost wish he would stay at this age. He's soooooooooooooooooo sweet!