Updates

I didn't do so well blogging every night this week, did I? :-(

Last weekend we took a 4-mile hike down to a river and had a picnic. Ben did fine in the backpack on Tim's back, and loved throwing rocks in the river. I'm not sure a very sedentary, 7-months-pregnant woman should suddenly take a 4 mile hike at altitude, but I guess I did no harm. I felt fine, really, except for ligament pain.

Did I already say that Grammy Pat brought her rocking chair to us and Ben immediately claimed it as his? So now it's Daddy in his chair, Mommy on the couch and Bennie in his rocker/recliner. We've had popcorn a couple of times and it would be fun to have a picture of the three of us in our own chairs with our own bowls of popcorn, watching Madagascar. Madagascar is borrowed from the library and has been watched so many times here at our house in three weeks, it is deteriorating. Ben calls it "Ka-car."

I'm not sure where Ben learned to shush, but he has shushed me several times. He puts his finger horizontally across his mouth instead of vertically, which is cute. We were all three playing with his Fisher Price hammer toy and Tim and I started singing "If I Had a Hammer." Tim stopped singing and I kept going and Ben turned to me and shushed me. Tim's singing is ok, but my singing is bad enough to shush. :-)

That same night, Benny threw the plastic hammer at me, not sure why, and Tim and I both scolded him and I said he gave me an owie. Ben waved his hand dismissively at me and said "berder" (better).

Ben can count to two, but he says "two, one" instead of "one, two." If he counts further, he just continues: "two, one, two, one, two" etc. Last night there were two spiders in his room, and he saw only one. He ran out to the living room in a panic, "Da-ee, Da-ee! Pi-er! Pi-er!" and Tim wasn't in the living room. I said "look in the kitchen," so Ben ran to the kitchen and got Tim. They ran back together to his room, and I pointed out the second spider to Ben. He said "Two! Two pi-ers! Two, one!"

We named our fox friend Olivia, after Ben's little farm friend we haven't seen since we moved from the farm. Tim has another video with Ben sitting on the porch and Olivia is out in the yard. Ben says "'mon Bia!" and motions to her to come to him, and then pats the porch next to him, for her to come sit. How sweet. Tim will probably load it soon.

Ben hates having his diaper changed these days (I guess he's never really liked it). He'll say "No dapper!" and when I change him and get him dressed, it's just a chorus of "No Mama no Mama no Mama!" I like to sing along with him.

Benny invented a game called "yerkle." I take a pile of glass florist buttons (not sure what they're called - they go in the bottom of vases, etc), make an outline of a circle with them, and then Ben crashes the circle and bangs them all with a car. Then I make a square and a triangle and a snake and he repeats it over and over. Great fun.

Ben needs a diaper change, so more later!