29 months old!

I'm not entirely sure why Bennett is without a shirt in this first picture.  I think we may have been in the process of getting ready for his bath, which usually involves removing clothes wherever he is.  Sometimes he wants to go to the bathroom/hallway to remove his clothes, but not always.  And if he's in the bathroom, he's more likely to start climbing into the tub while still half dressed.

We had put the train table (temporarily) away in the basement when the house was decorated for Christmas.  Then it stayed down there while I had some totes of outgrown clothes sitting in the front room.  Those finally got brought down to the basement, but the train table still hasn't returned.  Soon.  In the meantime, Bennett still plays with his trains on the floor.  And on this occassion, he just played with the junction.  Moving the gates makes a clanging train crossing sound, which he finds to be lots of fun.

When we picked him up from school one day he was busy learning to use scissors.  He had his fingers in correctly, but then he would turn his hand upside down.  I think he needs a bit more practice. 



Reading with Mumma one night.

29 months old!!!  He didn't want to cooperate for the picture though.  Playing was much more fun, so this is the best that I've got.

We wrapped up the final lesson of the skating session.  Bennett was so excited to get a ribbon!  When we collected him at the end of his lesson he had it attached to his wrist and proudly showed it to us.  And he wanted to hold it the whole way home.  What's exciting though is that this particular ribbon means that he passed the Pre-Tot class.  And what was fun for me, is that at one point during class I heard his teacher exclaim, "yay, Bennett!"  I'm not sure what he was doing to garner the praise, but whatever it was, we're happy for him.  I had already signed him up for Pre-Tot again for the next session, but I imagine they might shift him into the Tot class.  Or, in all honesty, I'm sure that keeping him in Pre-Tot again wouldn't be a horrible thing.  But he can now stand up (and apparently on Saturday he did it all by himself) and march a few steps by himself.

I picked up a couple of shakes for Chris and me. We let Bennett have a few sips and he LOVED my Shamrock shake.  What was cute though is I had been out getting my hair cut and Chris had tried to teach Bennett to tell me that he liked my hair.  So when I got back, Chris asked him if he had something to say to Mummy.  His response (having just had some of the shake) was "thank you", said in the most clear voice he's ever used.  Super cute.  Then Chris prompted him and he said, "Mummy, head".  Close enough.

At one point this weekend I was sitting with Bennett reading a book.  There was a picture of puppies.

Me: How many puppies are there?  Can you count them?

Bennett: One, nine.

Hmmm, as a friend commented on Facebook when I relayed this story that I better not take him to adopt a puppy any time soon as it's pretty important to understand the difference between 2 puppies and 9.

Say, "cheese".

We got more snow this weekend.  (That's 3 weekends in a row, for those of you keeping track.)  Sunday afternoon Daddy asked Bennett if he wanted to go outside and shovel and he got VERY excited.  He jumped off the couch and ran to the closet to get his coat.  Then he made sure we all had our boots, snowpants, etc.  He's a little distracted in this video because there were some people across the street who he was watching.  Hopefully he's this excited about shoveling when he's a teenager, but we're not holding our breath.



Week in review

Once again it was a pretty quiet week, although we did get out on this weekend.

Back when Bennett was about 6 months old, I went to a consignment sale and picked up this toy, which we called "the cube of awesome".  Bennett was just starting to stand and would hold onto it- although it was a little tippy so we would have to help it to stay stable.  He played with it nonstop.  Then he stopped for a while, but lately Bennett has been getting back into it.  This week we counted some of the triangle beads that are on the top.  One of the best toy purchases!

Saturday after skating we went to Sturbridge because they were having a sleigh rally.  Being Presidents' weekend they also had some presidential events, including these tricorn hats the kids could wear.

And since then, Bennett has been telling us all about what we did.  "Boba, back, ocken (oxen), cookies."  Obviously we can tell what the most important parts of the day were to him.  :)



Just one of the sleighs.  Cute kid all bundled up, as well as a dog for the sleigh dog category.



Sunday we woke up to a couple of inches of snow.  We all went out to shovel the driveway. Someone was walking down the street when we were out there and laughed a bit at Bennett.  Considering he was taking snow and dumping it back onto the driveway, he wasn't exactly being the most productive.  But he was having fun, so that's really all that matters.



The past 2 weeks

It's been a pretty quiet, low key couple of weeks.  Here are some pictures and videos of everyday life.


Hey Mummy, there's water on the floor.  Right here by my foot.

  

The wheels on the bus go round and round...

  

Lisa (and son Ben) gave some no longer used trains to Bennett to play with.
Awesome!  He's loving them.  (He especially likes the cargo.)

  

Meals are more fun when eaten out of a divided tray/plate.



We visited Brandeis to go to dinner with Daddy during tech.
Bennett got to go on stage.  He didn't really like being in the "sand". (It's ground cork.)  
He also doesn't ever get in his sandbox either.  He always plays from the side.



Playing with fences is lots of fun.

 


Daddy spilled a cup of water on Bennett, so off came his shirt and pants.

  

Eh, what's up, Doc?



We may need to start using the lock feature on the fridge or Bennett
will start to get water and ice everywhere.



This hat, which claims it is 12-18 months, finally fits!



Shoveling out.  The driveway has about 14"at this spot. 
Our best guess is that we got about 23", although our neighbor felt that number was too low. 



Standing in the street.  Behind him is the mound of snow from the plows.

 Here are a couple of examples of Bennett signing his colors.  In the first one he REALLY wants to watch the video of the Colors song.  We've found his signing to be rather helpful with deciphering his words.  He may not be able to identify all his colors, but he can sign (maybe not correctly, but close enough) colors, pink, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, brown, black and white.

And here he is counting.

And the report is in...

US News and World Reports released their rankings of the Best Children's Hospitals 2012-2013 and Boston Children's Hospital was ranked as #1 in the Cardiology & Heart Surgery category.  Also, of the 10 categories included, it was in the top 3 of 9 categories.  And the one it missed?  It was number 4.  That's not too shabby!  (It receive 3 first place, 4 second place, 2 third place, and 1 fourth place).

I'm definitely glad that we live so close.  When we've gone to appointments and staff members are making small talk with us, they will ask where we live.  We really are one of the close ones.  People come from all over the New England area, not to mention the rest of the country and world to be seen at Boston Children's Hospital.  So to give thanks for all of the support that they have given us, we will once again be walking in June to raise money to help them with all that they do.  Chris, Bennett and I would be extremely grateful if you would consider donating to this worthy cause.  You can sponsor us here at my page, or here at Chris' page.