Random updates

Yesterday morning Ben sat on the back of the sofa and said, "I just sit up here and smell the breeze" (from the front door).

One of Oliver's favorite activities is picking up imaginary things and handing them to the nearest person with a smile.

My friend gathered a few of us at her house to practice triathlon transition. As we finished putting on our bike shoes and sped off on the bikes, Oliver screamed and cried because Mommy was leaving, and Coltrane the dog barked and howled because his mommy was leaving.

At lunch after transition practice, Ben was feasting on fruit until there was one piece of fruit left on the communal plate. Ben picked it up and gave it to Liz. How sweet!

I always ask Ben how his day was at Wee Creekers. He always says, "Good." Then I ask him what he did and he says "good" again. Finally one day a few months ago, he said, "And how was your day, Mom?"

I hurt my wrist and Ben takes my arm and tells me he is doing something (can't understand him) "softly, softly," and he rubs the splint/cast. I asked him if he was ready for bed and he told me he wasn't finished with this process, whatever it is. I also told him I couldn't chop food with my hurt hand and he took a butter knife out of the kitchen drawer and said, "This how you do it, Mom" and he used it like a hatchet. Which is exactly what I had to do with my left hand - just chop like a hatchet willy nilly instead of holding the celery still and chopping neatly.

Ben hates to shampoo his hair most of the time. One time when the boys were watching me take a bath, I rinsed my hair with the shower hose and told Ben, "If you look at the ceiling like I tell you, you won't get shampoo in your eyes. See?" He then said, "Why you make that face, Mom?" and made a face with eyes scrunched closed, which I took to mean, "If you are telling me you aren't getting shampoo in your eyes, then why do you look like you are deathly afraid of the imminent danger of getting shampoo in your eyes?"

Oliver seems so much more happy now that he is mobile. He still wants me to hold him too much, though. If he is in one of his frequent, extra-clingy moods, he cries and screams if I walk 5 feet away from him. When I go to work on Monday and Tuesday afternoons, he stands at the screen door and wails. It really seems like he thinks I am abandoning him forever and I don't know how to convince him that I always come back.

I think Oliver looks like a chimpanzee when he walks, the way his shoulders kind of roll with each step. We need to work on sign language with him because his two modes of communication are high-pitched screams and whiny grunts. He knows what he wants, that's for sure. Ben tortures him so much and takes every toy away from him, so he has started to scream his high-pitched scream as Ben approaches him, in preparation for being tortured. We don't know how to handle this sibling rivalry that has surfaced already. Any advice?

One of Oliver's Wee Creekers daily reports says, "Oliver's sweet smile makes me melt." And Ben got a sweet card from his new best friend, Zeb, thanking him for being such a good friend this summer. We haven't met Zeb, and it sounds like he is going to kindergarten this fall, but Ben says he is his best friend.

Sorry for typos - I'm gimpy!