Bredford Family: Food battles, the mind of a three-year-old, and adventures at OSV (including pig butchering)

Lately we've had some challenging meals with Bennett. Unless it's a food that he LOVES (pancakes, mac & cheese) he often picks at things a bit. Depending on what the food is, how much is on his plate, and how he's done with the food in the past we will either encourage him to eat X more bites or to finish everything. We also give him the choice of eating his dinner or going straight to bed without bath or books. Normally, when presented with this choice, he chooses to eat his dinner.

On Monday we were having leftover chicken pot pie, or more accurately, leftover filling- no soggy crust. He had done well with it when he ate it the night before but on this night it was a struggle. After a few bites and lots of struggling/encouraging him to eat, he spat out a bite. I asked what was wrong with it. Sometimes he'll spit things out if his bites are too big, but on this occasion he said, "I didn't like it." Sorry kid, that's not a valid reason. Since it had been quite the battle up until this point he had to go straight to bed. He wasn't a happy camper about this, but he did quiet down pretty quickly. I guess that was a sign that he was likely pretty tired to begin with.

Opening a surprise Christmas gift from Auntie Mel.

On Tuesday Bennett used his imagination quite a bit. He started off by playing grocery store- scanning items and putting them into a bag. Then he used a piece of ribbon as a jump rope. And finally he piled all the animals in the pig pen. Not sure exactly what that was about, but likely they were all sleeping.

Wednesday night Bennett woke up at 1:45 and climbed into bed with us. It was quite the uncomfortable night for Mummy and Daddy. At 5 Daddy put you put you back in your own bed. No idea why he woke up or felt the need to come into bed with us.

If Chris and I call each other on the phone Bennett always asks to talk. We generally put the phone on speaker. Bennett will say hi but then he usually asks if he can "make Daddy go away". No idea why he loves pressing that red button so much! Well one night this week he hung up on Chris before we said that he could. So I told him that he made Daddy sad by making him go away and Bennett started crying. Not exactly the reaction I was expecting. But then he asked for a tissue because "my eyes are leaking".

He also is always asking to take his hat off in the car. Based on some comments that he makes, I think he gets hot and cold mixed up. Because apparently, "My hair is cold" and "can I take off my hat? It makes my hat cold."
Another fun moment from this week was when he named two of his Duplo people Victoria and Dave (two of the OSV interpreters) and put them in his farm. He also turned part of the barn into the farmhouse and put Victoria inside.

All smiles when we picked him up from school on Friday.

On Saturday at skating we tried Bennett at the next level but he just couldn't keep up. As the kids were marching/skating across the ice, Bennett was the slowest and then about half way across he just stopped and started watching everyone else. So they moved him back to pre-tot where he happily marched across the ice to pick up balls that his teacher threw for him to retrieve.

After skating he went to Nana's house where he got to wake up Auntie Hanna, did some baking, and had a playdate with the grandson of one of Nana's friends.Back at home, after nap he woke up pretty grouchy. It also didn't help that he wanted to watch George and I insisted in watching Nemo.

This weekend was the annual pig slaughter at Sturbridge. It starts on Saturday with the gutting, hair removal, sausage making, etc. On Sunday they do the inside butchering where they make the various cuts of meat. When we got there Bennett recognized right away that it was a pig hanging in the barn and also one on the table inside the house. Later he asked where the pigs were. Daddy told him that the female went to a new farm and he wanted to go visit her. He did great with seeing the pig being butchered. Lots of questions of what people were doing/ what's that. He helped Dave fill the wood box. We also learned that various buildings have basements- including a trap door in the bank porch (although we couldn't find it) and a basement in cooper shop with a transformer. We also got to feed hay to the cows and the sheep.