Ben Brag

I consciously know that surely Ben is not the smartest 25 month old to ever walk this earth, but because he is my first born and I love him like crazy I like to pretend that he is!

Many of my friends mention "language explosions" where there toddler picks up new words like crazy and then it slows back down again. It seems like Ben had one such explosion after he learned his first few words, but then the exploding has not stopped. We are constantly amazed at the words we hear come from his mouth. And even more amazed when he uses them correctly in a broken sentence. This boy has a lot of opinions and he clearly communicates them to make sure we understand.

Most often I am surprised at his brilliance when reading a picture book to him. He will point at a picture and say the word and I can't even remember ever telling him that word. Where did he learn it? Brilliance, I say!

Warning: This video is almost 6 minutes long, but for those of you that long to hear his sweet little voice, eat your heart out! You will also hear Nate talking in the background in various parts of the videos.

This video is just 2 minutes long with different words.

Ben has just started playing Hide and Seek. He called it "Hide and Ah Ha!" for a while and that was so cute, but he has since moved on to the proper name of the game. He runs, giggling all the way, to different rooms, usually slamming the door behind him. Ryan starts to come looking and usually says, "Where's Ben? Hum..." I have been watching Ben hide and when he hears Ryan coming he says, "hum..." haha. Listen closely in the video and you will hear him. I also love that he hides in plain sight, giggling loudly and still acts surprised that Ryan finds him.

One of my favorites is his use of past tense. When eating dinner together he informs us who is done with their food and who is still eating. "Daddy ate. Me ate (he usually isn't done, but is saying this as a way to get out of eating his food). Mommy eat (I am somehow always last to finish.)."

He has started to comment on my mood as well. When he is in trouble, "Mommy no happy." When time out is over and we give hugs and kisses, "Mommy happy!!!"

He recognizes the colors blue, green, yellow, orange, red (on occassion) and hot (pink). For his birthday he received some markers and there is a hot pink in the box. I told him the color was hot pink. Big mistake. Now instead of saying pink, he just says hot! It's cute, but not quite accurate.

He recognizes the letters A and B and when he sees words written out he calls them the AB's. He points his finger and taps the page the way we do when reading the letters to him. Sometimes he even holds his right hand with his left like we hold his hand to point to the different words.

He still counts "4...8...4...8." It baffles me. He associates counting with those two numbers. I will say something like, "count the three" and he will start "4...8...4." He helps me make the coffee every morning and we count the scoops, "4...8..." even though I am clearly saying, "1...2...3." If you ask him how old he is he will try his best to hold up two fingers and say "4!" loud and proud.

I mentioned before that he started to say "I wuv you" and I will happily admit I try to get him to say it any time I can. I have worked it into our timeout routine - when he gets out of time out he has to say "sorry mommy" (which is said with the sweetest little head tilt) and then I tell him I love him and ask him to say "I wuv you mommy" and he usually does. If he is in timeout that probably means "mommy no happy" so it makes me happy again to hear those sweet words. ha.

He is attempting far more words now. He says "dis" with annoyingly frequency when he doesn't want to say the word for something, but more often than not he will attempt the word. He still has yet to say "thank you" but will sign it every time. He has begun attempting all his little friends' names which is just so cute because you know that he knows who they are. I am 100% sure that he knows which streets his friends Jackson and Nadia live on. When leaving our house, we almost always go east because that is the direction of all the shopping places. But, when we go west he gets all excited and starts talking about going to "Nani's house," (Nadia) or "Nina's house" (Tina) or "Jsassi's house" (Jackson). He revs up the excitement when I actually turn on their streets. He knows!

He is becoming a bit too free with his affection lately though and I am working to curb it a little. Thank goodness it isn't flu season. I am glad he loves his friends, but he offers mouth to mouth kisses with great frequency. He closes his eyes and leans in ever so gently as if it is happening in slow motion. Photographers make gobs of money selling calendars with such photographs, but I would prefer my son not swap spit quite so much. We are learning to shake hands right now and only offer one kiss per meeting. We will see how this goes! I will say though, he generally initiates, but the girls (and boys) never turn him down :)

His fashion sense is something!

Snow sled in the sand box (while begging "I need snow!").

My little artist. I was sitting right next to him and totally missed the fact that he had moved from paper to his arm. He was proud to show it off for the camera.