What a week this has been!

Chris pointed out to me that I ended last week's post saying, "Maybe next weekend we'll have some excitement?"  Well, I was just meaning something other than sitting around the house not doing anything fun.  I certainly didn't mean everything that those of us in Massachusetts went through this week! 

I think last week I hit "publish" on the post and then saw the news of the explosions.  What a crazy week this has been!  I knew a number of people who were running the marathon.  Many of them had just finished minutes before or were just about to finish.  And then there was Friday.  We live far enough away that we were safe, but we both work in one of the communities that had a "shelter at home" order.  So we stayed home.  I was checking work email periodically, but we were pretty much glued to the TV.  Bennett went to daycare since I wouldn't be able to get work done with him around, so you don't need to worry about us exposing him to things he didn't need to see.  After he went to bed we were very happy to hear that they got the suspect.  Hopefully now things will start to return to normal.

On a lighter note, here's the fun Bennett stuff of the week.

A few fun expressions of his lately have been:

• "Oh, man" when things don't go quite the way he would like.
• "Where?" (pronounced, way-ya) complete with a shoulder shrug as he looks for something that he is missing.
• "Come here!"  This one is both cute and annoying as we have to follow him to look at what he wants to show us, even if we can see from where we are.

Lots more play with his doll.  Here he is tucking him in.

And now the doll is being fed eggs.



We also had that moment where everything is quiet and you wonder what trouble your child is up to.  In this case, it was Bennett on the potty having pulled all of the wipes out of the container and scrunched them up.  I think he'd had an accident and tried to clean up.  (Auntie Mel- as you would say, it was "argyle day" at school. :) I didn't even really think of putting him in something else.)

 What?  This isn't how you are supposed to get out of the car?

First treat from an ice cream truck.  Daddy tried to say it was too soon before dinner for icecream, but Mummy vetoed that.  (His hat really does fit better than this, but Bennett insists on smooshing it down on his head, so it ends up falling in his eyes.)

Watching Curious George while waiting for Mummy to finish her skating lesson.  It was the final lesson of the session and Bennett got another ribbon, this one just a "good job" participation ribbon.  I think the fact that he got the ribbon last time indicating that he had passed was a fluke.  Chris spoke with the teacher and they agreed that Bennett would do well repeating the class again.  He knows how to do most of the skills, but he chooses to rely on his teachers a bit too much for help.  Definitely would benefit from more practice.

He took really long naps both Saturday and Sunday.  On Saturday I went in to wake him up because we needed to go somewhere and I found him like this.  I'm not sure if he would benefit from a bigger bed, or if I would just be more worried about him falling out.

On Sunday we went to Sturbridge.  Here's his photo in a cut-out.  I was thinking that I may need to get his picture in each of the 4 openings in this particular image and then photoshop them all together.

He walked almost the whole thing himself.  He was pretty sluggish going up the first hill, wanting to play with all the sticks, pinecones, etc, but eventually he got better.  With Bennett leading the way, we went into some buildings we normally don't go in.  As we were walking around at one point he mentioned "eat".  This is the first time he's indicated that he's hungry.  And since it was lunch time, we obliged.  Interesting that he said eat rather than hungry.  Maybe he just doesn't understand that word yet?

Here he is learning to be a cooper.

And for your weekly video, "Baby Bumblebee".  One day this week Chris was driving Bennett to school and Bennett said a word that sounded like "bumblebee".  This seemed a bit odd, but it was accompanied by a hand motion so Chris wondered if maybe Bennett had learned the song at school.  He asked, and yes, one of the teachers did teach it to him.  We've also sung it a few times at home now.  And here's Bennett singing.
"Bumblebee bee (baby?), me Mummy proud"

Given current events I feel bad asking, but we are still raising money for our walk to benefit Boston Children's Hospital.  The walk is in June, so I'll probably be making requests a few more times.  Here is a link to our Team Page. From there you can access links to all of the team members.  Bennett has met his goal and is now considered a Miracle Maker, but let's see if we can make the amount raised even more!  Or you could consider donating to one of the other walkers on our team.  Fiona is still a small amount away from being a Miracle Maker and both Alicia and Chris need to reach their goals/minimum required amounts of $150.  Let's help everyone reach their goal and then keep going!

Communication

I love the way that Bennett communicates with us.  Ok, I could do without the tantrums that we get when things don't go his way.  (For instance, when pushing up his sleeves for dinner, Mummy has to do his left sleeve and Daddy does his right.  We are NOT allowed to do the wrong sleeve or both sleeves.)

One night he came home from school and wanted to watch TV.  He went over to the couch and pointed at it.  We said no, he couldn't watch.  He saw some books lying on the couch and coffee table, and thinking that he wasn't allowed because he had things out already, he put them away and then sat back down and pointed at the TV again.  And this time he made monkey noises to let us know that he wanted to watch Curious George.  Sorry Bennett.  You don't get to watch TV every day.

Another night, while we were at the dinner table, I picked up my phone to check something.  He likes to use my phone to watch this video of a girl signing colors so he started signing "colors" to let me know that's what he wanted.  No, not now.  Next he signed "orange".  I said no, he couldn't watch now, he would have to wait until we were done.  So he says all done and pushes his plate away.  Then he signs "all done".  Hmm, this still wasn't working for him.  I said everyone had to be done- Mummy and Daddy were still eating.  He tried saying down, bib, washcloth- anything he could think of to let us know he was done. 

It really is cute to watch how his thought process works.  We're not doing what he wanted, so he feels we just don't understand what he wants- so then he tries expressing it differently.  If only he would do this more often rather than having meltdowns all the time.

The past couple of weeks

Here are a few things from our adventures over the past couple of weeks.
Bennett has always been a pretty picky eater.  He will consistently eat yogurt and pretty much any fruit, but that's about it.  Over the past couple of weeks he's surprised us with how well he's eaten some new (to him) foods.  Granted most of these aren't the healthiest, but at least he's eating.  And a couple of them he had previously rejected, so this is progress.  We can now say that he eats:

• Pizza
• Tacos,
• Salad
• Sour cream
• Cheeseburgers

What would have been Bennett's second skaing lesson was a bust.  The boy has a bit of OCD and he didn't like the fact that his helmet was in the skating bag and not on the shelf where it has lived for the entire summer/fall.  Unbeknownst to us, he took it out of the bag and put it on the shelf.  We only realized this after we got to the rink and had skates on.  We checked at the rental desk and in the lost and found box to see if there was a spare we could use, but no such luck.  And for kids, no helmet means no skating. So Mummy stayed off the ice with Bennett while Daddy skated.  Which was probably a good thing because Daddy needs more practice.  :) The following week we made sure we had the helmet and we think Bennett had a good class.  I asked one of the teachers how he did, and she said, "he can't get up, and he can't move on his own, but he was smiling."  Well, I guess if he's smiling he must have been having fun, right?  And we certainly aren't expecting him to be able to stand or skate on his own after only a couple of lessons.  It's just tough to see how he's doing since Chris and I have our lessons down at the other end of the rink.  Since none of the other parents of the Tot class are skating, they get to stand and watch and have a better idea of how the lesson went.

We came up with an idea for our holiday cards this year!  I really like the idea, but now I just need to find the time to execute it.  Making the necessary costume shouldn't be too difficult (I hope) but I need to get another big craft project finished up before I can begin.  However, we did pick up a necessary clothing item.  Hopefully Bennett won't be traumatized when he gets older and he realizes that I put him in girl's clothing.  :)

Mummy had a haircut on Saturday.  Bennett and Daddy tagged along because we were headed out afterwards and it was easier than me running home first to get them.  So Bennett did what everyone else in the waiting area was doing- reading magazines.  I didn't get a picture, but he selected Wine Officianado as his reading selection.  

When we got home later in the day, Bennett helped with some chores.  I think he needs a little more practice wrapping the cord on the vacuum cleaner.

We went and had our annual family pictures taken.  I'll share those pictures in a month or so after people get them for Christmas gifts.  While we were getting ready that morning Bennett lay down on our bed and had Daddy read him a book.  He'd never sat like this for a book before it came in handy when we wanted him to do a similar pose when we went in for our pictures.

Over the past couple of weeks we've had a number of chances for Bennett to visit Santa.  Given what a disaster meeting Sir Topham Hatt was, we were hoping that multiple exposures to Santa would be good.  We've lucked out that there haven't been any lines for Santa and he's now had 3 visits.  Unfortunately our plan isn't working.  He does NOT want to sit with Santa.  He'll tolerate sitting in one of our laps and giving Santa high-fives, but he's eager to get away.  When we do leave, he energetically yells "bye Santa" and waves.  This weekend we go for the "official" Santa pictures.  I'm not expecting them to be good at all.

Mummy's birthday was on the 18th.  Bennett helped open her cards and presents. Daddy helped Bennett make a card for me and Bennett traced his own hand for card.  I guess they do that a lot at school?  Not the most perfect looking, but nice to know what he was trying to do rather than the normal scribbles that don't look like much.


And that brings us to Thanksgiving!  He did really well in the car.  I'm sure he was getting antsy, but we brought a bunch of things with us to keep him busy.  And he took a nap for a little while, so that was nice.  He was pretty shy when we first arrived, but that was understandable given there were 22 adults and 3 kids and he only really knew 4 of the adults (Mummy, Daddy, Mimi, and Uncle "An-dew").  Shortly after arriving it was time to eat.  He was back to his normal eating habbits.  He ate cranberry sauce and a crescent roll, but that might have been it.  Maybe a little corn?

After eating we went outside for a little while to run around and burn off some energy- perfect after all that sitting!   Bennett loved being thrown around by Uncle Andrew and doing some chasing around. 

Then it was time to go inside for dessert.  At this point Bennett was a bit sweaty, hence the spiked hair. 

As I mentioned earlier, there were 3 children this year.  Bennett was the oldest at 2 years, R was 13 months, and T was 6 months.  Of the 3, Bennett had the least amount of hair and T had the most.  Not fair!  Not the best picture, but here are Bennett and R.  It was later in the afternoon at this point and they had both woken up from naps not long before, which I think is why they weren't much interested in having their pictures taken.

Speaking of picture taking, here are a couple of family shots.





Uncle Andrew, Bennett, Mummy, Daddy





The Smeals





Everyone who was there, minus 3 of the Smeals who left to go to another family gathering.



On the 24th I realized I had forgotten to take Bennett's monthly photo.  Understandable since he turned 26 months on Thanksgiving.  Although if I had remembered I probably would have brought along Paddington and the sign and taken the photo while we were in NJ.

On Sunday we went to Sturbridge with Uncle Andrew.  Daddy stayed home to work on some items for the store he sells at (wooden puzzles, ornaments, etc.)  It was COLD!  There also weren't many people there, probably due to traveling home and the temperature.  We saw them stuffing the root cellar with hay to insulate against the cold and we went into many more buildings than normal.  I guess that's understandable since we needed to warm up (any building with plaster, original wallpaper, or historic artifacts has artificial heat).  Plus with it being so cold we didn't really want to stand around and stare at animals too much.  But Bennett did get to see his beloved beep (sheep) and ocken (oxen) as well as neighs (horses) and cows.  I also learned that he knows one of our traditions- stopping at the general store to buy cookies.  As we walked along the common in that direction he said "cookie".  Hmm, too bad we were actually headed for the oxen.  But then we did go get cookies, which meant mittens had to come off to eat them, which meant freezy cold hands.

Over the past couple of weeks we've also noticed a bit of a language explosion for Bennett.  We can't wait until he becomes even more verval, but we've recently hear his variations of Andrew, mall, Santa, Patty, cookie, and numerous others.  Plus, he started saying "Mommy" rather than pronouncing it "mimi" which created a little confusion when around Mimi (grandma Breecher's name).  I'd rather that he pronounce it the British way with a U, but I guess for now I'll take it.  It did sound very weird to me at first though, having heard him pronounce it with Is for so long.

And in other family news unrelated to Bennett, one of the puzzles that Chris makes was featured on Apartment Therapy!  Unfortunately Chris was sold out of this particular puzzle at the time.  It's been relisted as a custom order, but so far we haven't seen any sales as a result.  Lots of increased traffic though, so that's good.

Until next time... stay warm!