I DO IT!

Along with the quintessential "Why" (which Ben often says like Chandler on Friends: "Why? Wh-why? Why? Why?"), Ben has been saying "I do it!" Two of the most toddler/preschool sayings of all.

I think things are going better in terms of Ben beating up on Oliver. We did a lot of time outs each time Ben hurt Livvy and then made him apologize to him. Tim said Ben accidentally hurt Oliver this week and immediately apologized to him. That's sweet!

Ben does not want to wait until Christmas to open presents, but he is restraining himself. Tim and I are both so excited for Christmas this year. Two little boys and the family and I have 10 days off!! Yippee!

I forget what else...

Christmas shopping

I feel like I remember reporting each year how Christmas shopping goes with kids. This year I've managed to do a little bit either with only Oliver or completely alone, but I did have to take both of them a couple of days. I guess overall it wasn't that bad - after a magnificent meltdown in one store, they were pretty good the rest of the day. I had to drag Ben away from the toy section, which set him off, but Oliver chose the same time to get really upset. Oliver has a new special cry that is like SHRIEK breathe SHRIEK breathe. And the SHRIEKs are ear-splitting and sound really serious. So Ben is having a tantrum and wants me to hold him and Oliver starts crying (shrieking) to be held. I need to get one more thing before we leave the store so I hold both of them and do some pacing and shushing. One sympathetic lady tells me I'm doing fine. I see another lady plug her ear. Lovely. I guess I don't blame her. :-)

Holiday Gala

We attended the Wee Creekers Holiday Gala last night and were overwhelmed with the chaos. Believe it or not, about 75 families attend Wee Creekers and the place was packed and chaotic! The kids all did a little performance. Oliver (and I) sang Jingle Bells and kicked his jingle bell anklet. Then Ben got up with his class to sing the two songs they have been rehearsing. Ben did everything except sing. We were afraid he would be too scared to go on stage, but we needn't have worried. He had a blast up there, teasing a girl, playing with equipment, dancing by himself, yelling (over the singing) "Hi Miss Susan!" "Hi Jerra!" "Hi Mama!" I laughed so hard. Tim says he is creative and independent. I'll try to go with that instead of thinking of the negative explanations of his behavior. In his defense, he is still the youngest in his class, I think, and since he is there only two days a week, he didn't get as much practice as the others. We got it on video, so we'll try to post it soon for all to laugh at.

Digestion 101

Digestion according to Ben: you eat, the food goes in your blood (point at your chest and stomach), and then goes in your poop (point at your diaper).

An aside: Ben's been getting lots of time outs because he continues to hurt Oliver. While he is in time out, he cries and says "Mommy hates me" and "Mommy mad me." How sad. :-(

Along with learning the word Hate, he has learned the word Love. He "loves turkey" and "loves ham." And "hot slocket" makes him happy. :-)

Where does he learn these things?

When things go wrong, Ben will lament "All my fault!" I guess I've said something was my fault, but where did he learn "all my fault?" One morning he woke up crying and kept saying Lightning was lost and it was all his fault. Since we hadn't seen Lightning in a couple of days (he didn't go to bed with him), I figured he must have been dreaming that he lost Lightning.

Santa came to the Hall in the canyon, so we went to see him. Beforehand, I explained to Ben that he gets to sit on Santa's lap and tell him what he wants for Christmas. I asked Ben what he wanted for Christmas and he said "Gun." 1. Where did he even learn about guns? (not at home, so must be at school), and 2. When did my child turn into Ralphie from A Christmas Story??! When we got there, Ben was entirely too shy to even look at Santa, which everyone said was normal.

And afterthought Oliver

Will Oliver always be an afterthought? I hope not, but he is definitely in Ben's shadow these days. Maybe Ben will move into Oliver's shadow when Ben is a calmer 5 year old and Oliver is going through Terrible Twos and Threes. Who knows.

Oliver is still sweet and happy and heavy. He had an ear infection and the doctor gave him antibiotics which he does not like AT ALL. He still isn't real interested in solid food. We've tried peas, sweet potatoes, oatmeal, applesauce and pears, and the only one he has shown any enthusiasm for is peas. I need to try more teething biscuits because he definitely loves to gnaw on things. He loves to suck and chew on apples.

Sibling rivalry already?

I hate to say that sibling rivalry has begun rather suddenly. Within the space of a few days Ben has gone from playing roughly with Oliver to being really maliciously rough with Oliver. For example, he likes to push Oliver's head to the floor when he is sitting and then sit on his head and he likes to hit and kick and jump on him. Oma Donna thought it might be because Ben knew I took Oliver to California with me and he is jealous. We'll have to figure out how to deal with it. I've yelled a couple of times when Ben appeared to be about to suffocate Oliver and he quickly picked up that habit and has yelled "No Livvy!" at the top of his lungs a few times. So I feel like that tactic has done nothing except give Ben another bad habit. We will try some time outs.

The beginning of Why?

More language updates: Ben has started asking the eternal question: "Why?"

He has also learned the word Hate. This morning he said "I hate school!" And he said it about a couple of things yesterday. It is interesting to try to trace the origins of learning new words. He is at Wee Creekers only two days a week, but he learns a lot there. I guess Tim and I use the word hate a lot in conversations between us, but I don't feel like I've tried to teach Ben the word Hate.

More things he still says cutely:
Hungry is still Horngy
Pop Tart is Partnart

I looked at the ingredients of some juice the other day while Ben and I were in the kitchen and I said, mostly to myself, "This juice is mostly sugar! Yuck!" Now Ben asks for that juice by name: "Sugar juice." :-)

Ben's language updates

Ben's speaking gets better every day. The other night Oliver was wiggling around and Ben said, "Yook, Mama! Yivvy doin' ekercises yike you!" He still has trouble with Ts and Ls and Js some other combinations at the beginning of words, but no problem with them in the middle of words. So Pretty and Pruny and Jump are Fretty and Runy and Wump. And Truck hasn't come along much, unfortunately. Today he very loudly wanted a truck at Big Lots and we had to leave the store because he kept yelling it over and over. (His fingers and toes are "Runy" when he stays too long in the bathtub.)

He keeps us apprised of his frequently-changing moods: "I'm really sad." "I'm happy!" And his health: "I'm really sick." "My foot hurts!" And his preferences: "That was really fun!" "I not yike dat!" "Tasty!" "Fancy!"

Instead of "he is" or "she is" I think he says "izzy." I don't think he is asking when he says "Izzy black" and I think he means "he is black."

Other things he still says funny: Penguin is Pengoon, Ostrich is Osterd.

And he has his own word that I think needs to be patented: Snuggy. Getting "cozy" or "snuggly" just don't convey the right meaning as getting all "snuggy" with your blankie or "snuggy" in your jammies.

More when I remember!