Benjamin Boy

Benjamin is a funny guy! We love having him in our family. Lately, as he is communicating so well, we are learning more about him and his fun little personality.

One day I was sitting on the couch. He came up to me and said, "Mom can I talk a belly." "Sure buddy, go right ahead." "No, open it." So I pulled up my shirt a little bit so he could "talk to my belly." He patted my belly, and said in a sweet little high pitched Mommy voice, "Hi, baby." Then he said, "Watch this baby." He proceeded to get up on the couch and jump off. "Dat cool, baby? Wanna see again?" And up he goes and off the couch again. "Kay, baby, you turn." He waited expectantly. I explained that the baby would have to come out of my belly before they would be able to jump off the couch with him. Talking to my belly he said, "Ok baby, you come out den we jump, ok?" :)

A few weeks ago Jared's parents took us out to Red R0bin's for lunch. The kids love going there because they love to hug the Robin mascot and they get balloons. After lunch each kiddo got a balloon. Hannah decided that she wanted to give her Grandma her balloon as a gift. Grandma said, well, why don't we take it outside and let it go. Hannah was pretty excited about that and we all went outside for the launch. Hannah let her balloon go and up, up and away it went. The whole time Ben was telling us that he did not want to let his balloon go, and we assured him that he didn't have to, but seeing how excited everybody was about Hannah's balloon flying away and not fathoming that Hannah would ever have let it go if it wasn't going to come back, he decided he would let his go to.

He liked watching it fly. As we drove home he was asking a lot about where his balloon was and Jared told him that it was flying in the direction of our house. He took this to mean that it would be waiting at our house when we got there and when it wasn't he was really disappointed. We were able to talk to him about it and help him through that and we thought the matter was closed.

However, about a week and a half later, on a Saturday morning Benjamin came to us and said, "I want my balloon." After figuring out which balloon he was talking about we told him that it had flown away and it had probably popped by now. He started to cry and with a broken heart said, "It not pop. It in the sky. I want it." We told him again that it was probably gone for good but Daddy could get him a new one at the store. He passionately said, "NO. Not get at the store. Daddy get my balloon on a ladder. He get it from the sky." He was just so sad and so adamant...we did what any parents would do. Jared headed out to go "get Ben's balloon." After a quick trip to Red Robin he returned triumphantly, a total hero in Ben's eyes. What a sweet little boy. He's just like an elephant, he never forgets.

Our Ben is also a total little man. The other day I was baby sitting his friend Hallie. Out of the blue he looked up at her and said, "Dat a nice shirt, Hallie." What a charmer! :) And then at dinner the other night, something came up about "fighting." Benjamin asked me if I would fight. I said, no, I like to be gentle and kind, I don't like to fight. He said to me, "Mommy if bad guys try to fight you I get dem. I get dem with my fork. I poke dem and dey not hurt you." He was totally serious and so protective and sweet. :)

Finally, here he is enjoying his new favorite thing..."video games." He and Hannah like to play the games at pbskids.org. In the last week he has figured out how to use the mouse and can play all on his own. He likes it so much that I had to set time limits, like with their videos. So for 15 minutes in the morning and 15 minutes in the afternoon Ben is playing his video games. Here he is on one of the first nights he discovered his love for them. He's wearing his favorite super-hero jammies from his cousin and his favorite "shoes," his hot wheels slippers from his Papa and Nana. Video games!! At 2 1/2!! :)