More Benny-isms

Any toy that doesn't work right needs "bowies" (batteries). And both "library" and "strawberry" are "bay-bay."

Ben likes to check each room for spiders on the ceiling and if he sees one he yells, "Daddy, spider!" It sounds more like "Da-ee pi-er!" He especially can't sleep if there is a spider on the ceiling or walls. Tim has tried to teach him not to be afraid, and in principle we hate to kill spiders. But there have been so many and Ben's reaction is so strong, we've kinda had to.

He's been sleeping really well lately, going to bed pretty easily and waking kinda late. For a few days he took a 2-hour nap each day. One night he even put himself to bed. He turned to me, took my hand and said "'mon, bed" ("come on, let's go to bed") and led me to the crib.

And for a few days he was a ravenous eater too. One day in particular he ate an unbelievable amount. Three pieces of pizza for lunch ("more pi-a!") and then nearly a whole box of macaroni and cheese for dinner. Of course when Grammy Pat came and made a pot roast, he devoured lots of meat.

I had a bad cold over the weekend and was so glad to take two-hour naps with him. At one point he woke up a little, turned to see me, smiled, and reached over to hug and snuggle.

One of his favorite activities is cutting. We have two slightly-less dangerous pairs of scissors for him and he loves for us to hold a piece of paper until he's cut it into confetti. We don't have a lawnmower or weed whip yet, so I asked him to come out and cut the grass with me. He says cut just fine, but scissors come out like "yaars." Tim came out to help us and Ben said "Da-ee yaars?" to say "Daddy, where are your scissors?"

He's gotten really good at wooden puzzles lately and enjoys them.

He's getting closer to saying Please and Thank you.

He likes his gloves and mittens all of a sudden, and enjoyed taking a bath with them one night. See photo. Another photo is Benny helping Daddy pound in loose nails on the deck, and one is Ben cutting confetti.

Aunt Wende sent him a birthday card with a little puppet coming out of the card - hard to describe. Anyway, Ben loved it and played with it nonstop until it completely fell apart. The puppet was a dog, but it was yellow, so Ben kinda said quack quack, and he loved grabbing our fingers with the puppy/duck's mouth.

He's having so many more tantrums lately, but many of them still just seem like heart-breaking frustration to me. He's still really sweet a lot of the time.

More later!