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!

Two new videos of Oliver!

Oliver walks!

On Wednesday night after dinner, we encourage Oliver to walk and he walked back and forth between Daddy and me several times.  We were so excited!  I don't remember it happening suddenly for Ben.  His pumps his left arm in a strange way when he walks, and looks so proud of himself.  He fell flat on his face a few times and we expected him to start crying.  Instead he just lay with his head on the carpet for a few seconds and then stood up to try again.  Ben was a little jealous and wanted us to cheer for him as he ran fast and knocked poor Oliver down a couple of times. 

Yay Oliver!

Big Brother Ben

I've been trying to explain to Ben that Daddy and I are the bosses in the house, and that we decide many things, such as whether Oliver can play with a toy that Ben thinks is unsafe or a toy that he suddenly is dying to play with, etc. Ben tells me no, I'm not the "bus" and then later he'll bring it up and say he is the "bus." I guess he doesn't really understand, so we'll have to work on that more. He is constantly telling Oliver he can't play with something and ripping it out of his hands, causing a previously content baby to cry and scream. He also tells Oliver "No!" with his finger wagging back and forth. And, he warns Oliver not to use things as weapons (sounds like they've learned about that at Wee Creekers).  One day Oliver was flinging a shirt around and Ben told him "Don't use that as a weapon, Liv!"


Yesterday morning all four of us piled in Ben's bed to wake up and Ben gave me a hug and said "I'm here for you Mama, I'll keep you safe.  I'll keep your heart safe and happy."  Where does he get such sweet sayings?

Ben loves to say "Hey you guys!  Watch this..."  Tim and neighbor Todd have an agreement that Ben can go over there and Mattux can come over to our house without formal arrangement, so Ben is always watching to see Mattux outside.  When he sees him he yells, "Hey you guys!  I come play?"  I watched Tim take him across yesterday and then we could see a little bit of their playing when they were outside.  Ben was having a blast doing who knows what with Mattux and Alta and Boo.

I'm so glad he is outgoing and confident.  I've said it before, but it seems he can enjoy life more than I did at his age because of my shyness.  At the Wee Creekers picnic, which I couldn't attend, Tim says Zachary and Maya (best friends) went off to play together and didn't invite him, and his feelings were hurt.  How sad!  Tim said Linda went to talk to him and then he went to talk to him, so hopefully it was a learning moment instead of a sad moment.

If you hand Oliver a bottle of lotion or shampoo or something similar, he pretends to get some on his hands from the top and then rubs it on his head.

Words Ben still says cute:  "Mingo" for mango, "crayground" for playground.  There were a couple more but I forget.

Ben suddenly loves Flynn again and has been giving him lots of attention.  One day he asked Flynn to follow him around everywhere and Flynn did.  Tim found an old can of cat treats and Ben has enjoyed giving Flynn treats.  Ben also said that Flynn could jump in the air and catch, kill, and eat a crow.  Flynn has been killing lots of mice and gophers, so Ben thinks a crow is up next, I guess.

Squeezing in some updates

Tim just emailed me at work to say that Oliver walked across the room by himself tonight!! 

Ben has started calling Tim Dada, perhaps because Oliver says something like dada and we say "Yes!  That is Dada over there!"  Ben told me he wanted a little dog and he would name it Dogga. 

Mosquitoes think Oliver tastes really yummy and he gets at least four bites each night that we are outside, while the rest of us get one or none.  And his bites swell up pretty big, though they don't seem to bother him. 

It's funny to hear Ben come up with snippets of songs and nursery rhymes he learns from Wee Creekers.  I've heard him sing a little of "Singin' in the Rain" and recite a little of Humpty Dumpty.

I've actually tried a little harder to teach my poor pre-schooler his alphabet and he knows a lot of letters by sight.  He usually calls letters "numbers."  He still loves reading.  I'm amazed that if we read a book once (and I don't remember much about it myself, and I never emphasize the titles much), he will read the title to us the next day!  One time he said he wanted to read the book about the little boy going to the playground naked.  I had no idea which book that was, so I commenced reading what we had.  Lo and behold, on the last page of one of the books we had read only once, the little boy goes to the playground in his underwear. 

It's so fun to see the boys having fun together.  The latest thing they do is:  Ben sits on his tricycle and Oliver holds onto the seat back and pushes him (walking), around and around the deck.  It's so cute to see them go back and forth in front of the glass door. 

We have a magnet thingie for the fridge that makes noises.  Oliver knows to press the button that plays a few songs and he presses it, then starts his knee-bouncy dance and looks to me for approval with a big smile on his face. 

Oliver updates

Ben learned a high-five, low-five thing (what are those called?) from his friend Zachary and we have done it a few times with him. It goes: High five, low five, in the middle, cut the pickle, tickle tickle! Oliver watched a few times and then did the cut the pickle, tickle, tickle parts with his hands! It was so cute!


Have I already told about Oliver's little dancy thing? He bounces a certain way with his knees when he is standing and leaning against something and it makes me laugh and laugh.  Now he does it just to make me laugh.

Oliver is graduating from the infant room at Wee Creekers to the toddler room.  What a big boy!

Weekend in Almena

We had a nice weekend visiting Grammy Pat and Grandpa Darrell (and Aunt Wende came too) in Almena.  Oliver was super snuggly and cuddled so long with Grammy and then with Wende that we thought he might be sick.  Perhaps the heat was a little strange to his system, but he seemed ok otherwise.  Ben played in Grammy's pool and caught bugs with his new bug catcher and slept with Grammy.  We went to a festival in Phillipsburg and Ben got to ride in a little train, sit in a fire truck, and jump in four bounce thingies.

Oliver took a couple of steps in between furniture - yippee!

Aunt Wende took some photos with her iPhone and here are a couple of Oliver looking so unexcited.