Walks, wardrobes, and weekends...

We are so close to meeting our goals for the upcoming walk to support Boston Children's Hospital.  In fact, Bennett has met and surpassed his goal.   I met my original goal and decided to aim to be a "Miracle Maker".  I'm just $45 away from that goal.  And Chris is a measly $15 away from reaching the minimum amount that he needs to raise.  Would you consider donating to help us reach our goals?  Pretty please?  You'll receive a lovely photo thank you card after the walk....

In the category of cute things that kids say, we have the following two entries.

• "Trash can truck- dump dump"  Each week he likes helping us bring the trash can to the curb.  And when we can, we like watching the trash truck come and pick up the trash can and dump the contents into the truck.  But Chris and I like how he blended the terms together to get trash can truck.  And the "dump dump" is just describing the action of the truck.
• Happy Birthday Mummy Mumma's Day

For the past couple of nights Bennett has been lining up all of his toys in the tub.  Another one of his OCD tendendcies?

We've been trying to get Bennett to dress himself.  For the most part he can do it, but if we are near him he always says that he needs help.  The only thing we weren't sure if he could do was his shirt.  So one morning this past week Chris picked out Bennett's clothes and left them in his room and asked him to put them on.  Then he left.  A few minutes later Bennett comes into our room completely dressed.  Undies and socks were on correctly, but the pants and shirt were backwards.  Oh well.  We decided to leave him as is and sent him to school that way.  And he was even still dressed that way when we picked him up.

On Saturday night we had a game night with friends.  It's been about 5 months since we've seen everyone.  Schedules are just way too busy!  Proof that it's been too long- one friend commented that Bennett is now speaking intelligent words.  We feel like he's been doing this for a while now!

Sunday was Mother's Day andd we went to Sturbridge.  Moms got in free (not that it mattered to us since we're members) so it was pretty busy.  Bennett continues to get comments from everyone about how cute his is in his hat.  If only he wouldn't smoosh it down onto his head.  It makes visibility a bit tricky.

We also got a picture of him in the final opening of this mult-person cutout.  I'll have to photoshop all of the images together at some point.

And of course we visited Doc and Blue (the oxen) and also looked at the cows.

After nap Bennett gave me his Mother's Day present that he bought with some help from Daddy.  It's a little hard to see here, but it's a "bouquet" made out of a few skeins of yarn with knitting needles as stems.  I had seen the idea and passed along a link to Chris.  I had a feeling this is what I would be getting but I hadn't known which option it would be.  There had been multiple choices in various colors and prices.

And then to finish the day we went outside and did some gardening.  Bennett helped me mix some compost into my garden beds.  I still have a bit more work to do, but need to get some more supplies before I can finish.  Hopefully that will happen later this week or next weekend. 



Spring has sprung!

It's finally starting to feel like spring!  Bennett is wearing short sleeved shirts most days, and when getting dressed he keeps trying to pull his sleeves down.  But being from New England I know that the weather could quickly turn, so the long sleeve shirts are still easily accessible.

One day this past week we picked Bennett up from school and he had a ponytail, or as he called it, a "popo tail".  Apparently all of the kids who had any amount of hair got ponytails.  What I love most about this though is that Bennett finally has enough hair to be put into a ponytail!  And yes, it is often that curly.

May the 4th be with you!  The Lego store was celebrating by giving out Yoda hats.

On Sunday we went to Sturbridge.  Hey, it had been two weeks, so it was time, right?

Bennett brough his phone with him (an old cell phone of mine) and started taking pictures of the sheep.

We had noticed that Doc and Blue, the two oxen who reside in the center village weren't in their normal enclosure.  When we got towards the farm we saw them working to plow a field.  As we were getting closer, they finished up and came up the path towards us.

When they reached the end of the path, the farmer stopped them and talked to the small gathering of people about the oxen.  Technically they won't be "oxen" for another year or so.  This is the term that they get when they are fully trained.  Doc and Blue (Doc's horns point down) are 3 years old.  They are doing well, but still have some learning to do.

As they were being led away, Bennett very loudly yelled after them, "BYE OXEN!!!"

Then we went into the barn and saw the twin "mambs" that had just been born.

Back at home at dinner time, Bennett had his first corn on the cob of the season.  He ate it like a pro, eating an ear and a half.  He probably would have eated the whole second ear but I wanted more so I split it with him.  We may need to find some plastic corn dishes because I don't think I want to risk these glass ones getting broken.

Back in the saddle again

On Monday Bennett had lots of accidents on Monday.  I knew this as soon as we picked him up from school and I saw him in this outfit of mis-matched plaids.  I think he wet through 4 pairs of pants that day.

Also on the potty training front, we started night training last week.  The main reason?  We didn't want to buy more diapers.  We've been using disposables at night rather than cloth since it's not worth doing frequent laundry and you don't want a diaper to be sitting wet for too long.  However, since starting we've now been doing laundry on a daily basis since we have to wash multiple sets of sheets.  Ugh.  Maybe in a month or so we'll be able to speak about night training in a more favorable light.  For now, it's pretty hellish.

It was time for the monthly photo this week.  We kept forgetting, so it was a couple of days late.

On Saturday Bennett spent the day with Uncle Andrew and Aunt Gentry while we did some cleaning/purging.  As I said when I asked if they could watch him, things are easier without a small child "helping".  Plus we did some rearranging of things in his room, and he doesn't do well if you change things while he is there.  But he's perfectly ok to go into a room to see them changed.

Here he is helping with the recycling.  Or at least that's what we're going to assume he was doing. 

He also saw a Mountain Dew bottle while he was at their place.  He pointed at it and said, "Daddy's soda!"

On Sunday in the car Bennett and I had the following conversation:
     Bennett: Uncle Andrew.  Book.
     Mum:  Did Uncle Andrew read you a book?
     Bennett:  Yeah.  Poop!
Thanks, Andrew.  Because the kid wasn't interested in poop enough as it was!

On Sunday morning we dropped off a bunch of things at church for the upcoming rummage sale.  This included some of Bennett's old books and toys.  If he hadn't been there when we dropped them off, he probably would have been fine adn wouldn't have even noticed they were missing.  But instead he very sadly whined about his "toys".  We explained that they were baby toys and that he's a big boy now.  He kind of understood that, because later he told me he was a big boy, but he kept asking, "toys, where?"  And he also noticed that he now has an empty bookshelf since we were able to consolidate things a bit.  "Books, where?"  Again, he wouldn't notice which books are missing, but in this case it's pretty obvious that they aren't there any more.
Other things Bennett has been saying lately.  These aren't exactly words he should be saying in polite company.
armadillo = dildo
horse = hor (whore)
blueberries = boobies

And not in the same category as the others, but toothpaste = toe paste.  Which just sounds really gross!

Finally, a few more pictures to share.  Back in 2010 we first noticed a horse appear in a field in Lincoln.  Since then, more horses have gradually joined the "herd".

Here it is in August 2010.  Just one lone horse.

And here's the field now.  8 horses at the moment.  I'd love to be able to add some horses to the herd.  Maybe I'll have to start scouring yard sales?

For a while now I've wanted to take Bennett to check out the horses, but although we pass them every day on our way to and from work, Bennett isn't with us at that point.  So on Saturday we made a point of stopping after we picked him up from Uncle Andrew and Aunt Gentry's.  He loved it!  He wanted to ride each and every one of them.  Unfortunately a couple of them were broken so he wasn't able to, but he climbed on the ones he could and rocked back and forth.

And when he was done with the horses, he went over to the fence and said loudly, "cows, moooo!"

Potty Training, part 2

We are now a little over a month into potty training.  Here's a bit of a summary of how things have gone since I last discussed this.

Week 2 back at school, and he had a couple of accidents at school on Monday but otherwise he did really well, with only the occasional accident.  The director was also really upbeat and positive.  She expressed her shock and surprise at how well he was doing, especially along the poop front.  She admitted that this had been her major concern as before potty training Bennett would poop multiple times a day at school (usually 3-4) and they would often be pretty loose.  However, since potty training, Bennett seems to now be a once a day pooper and they have definitely firmed up!

We've braved trips to the mall and also to Sturbridge and survived both without any accidents.  Of course in both places he said "paw-paw" (this is how he says "potty") when we were nowhere near one.  At the mall Chris ran Bennett to the closest one we knew of (luckily we do seem to know where most bathrooms are located, including some of the ones in the department stores) but as luck would have it, the men's room was closed for cleaning.  He called me (I had stayed in the store we were in to make a purchase) and I quickly went to grab Bennett and take him into the ladies room.  Luckily no accident!  Then at Sturbridge his request for a potty was a false alarm.

We've also had dry nap diapers pretty much since the beginning, maybe only one or two that have been wet.  We had a weekend where we had him nap without a diaper and he was dry so we asked at school if they had a policy about naps.  Surprisingly they don't, so they are going to try him without a diaper for naps.  Now we just need to tackle overnight!  However, the next weekend we had accidents both days during naps, but then this past weekend he was dry again.

Week 3 started off with a few accidents at school plus a couple more at home.  We think the school accidents was just the reset from being away for the weekend.  The ones at home, he had been playing outside and didn't manage to run inside in time. Tuesday was accident free, but then a couple more on Wednesday.  The weekend was good though, except for naps where he woke up wet both days (we hadn't used a diaper) and a poop accident on Saturday when we were at the bookstore.  He must have been gassy or thought he had to poop because we had already taken him to the bathroom 3 times, but as soon as they left that third time, Daddy was holding Bennett and felt the poop.  Yuck!  But on the positive side of things, we also had a weekend poop in the potty while playing outside.  He really does seem to know when he has to go and if the potty is easily available, can get there pretty well.

Week 4 he was accident free on Monday and the rest of the week was a mix of accidents and not.  Overall though we are still pretty pleased with his progress.  Week 5 had a few more accidents.  Most of the accidents seem to happen at school.  Part of this is that he is at school more than at home so it makes sense to have more accidents there, but he is also more distracted by hs friends and whatever he's playing with.

I know that accidents are all part of the learning process, but I hope the frequency of accidents starts to diminish.

We're also decided it's time to start night training.  His diapers have always been pretty heavy when he wakes up, so it means that we need to wake up a few times overnight to take him potty.  However, there have been a few nights where we put him to bed,  he's been quiet for a while and then all of a sudden starts fussing.  This isn't out of the ordinary.  Some nights go better than others.  We go into his room to tell him to go to sleep, and he immediately says "potty" and jumps out of bed.  Some nights he pees on the potty, other times we wonder if it's a stall tactic.

Part of the decision was based on using up all of our diapers.  (Prior to training we used cloth, but we've now been using "sposies" because it's just easier since we don't want a bunch of wet diapers stinking up the house until we have enough to wash them.)  We didn't want to go out and buy another pack of diapers, so it's time for night training!  We are now 3 nights in.  I'm not sure if there is really any noticeable pattern yet.  I think we'll have to give it a few more days and then maybe adjust the wake-up times a bit to try to avoid accidents.

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!

Our week

Since we opened up the baseball season supporting the Braves, when the Red Sox had their home opener, Bennett had to show his support for the home team.  Here he is giving me his "cheese" face.  I have no idea where he learned this face, but I wish he would stop because it looks horrible in pictures

We also were blessed with warmer weather this week which meant we got to play outside a bit after school.  It was slightly chilly, but not too bad.  Here's Bennett riding his bike.  We need to raise the seat.  He's grown a bit since last summer!  And he was insistent about wearing his helmet.  I guess they trained him well at school.  Which really is a good thing.  Last year we didn't insist on the helmet since he was usually only on his bike for about 30 seconds before he would move on to something else.  And we keep the helmet inside the house, so it would be a pain to run in for it all the time.  Well now, apparently, we need to run in for it because he wants his helmet in order to ride his bike.  And then, 30 seconds later, he's done.  :)

Apparently covering Daddy in stuffed animals, dolls, and puppets is lots of fun!

And after neglecting his trains for a while, they were fun again.  He keeps talking about Toby, Percy, and Henry.  We have a Toby and he knows which one that is.  Percy he gets wrong half the time.  And we don't have a Henry, but he keeps saying that various trains are Henry.  Here he is making a line of trains.  He needs to learn about polarity of magnets though.  He would pull a train out of the basket, try to attach it to the others, and if it didn't stick he would discard it and try another, rather than turning it around.

Little People are being served a meal of butter.

And after seeing us taking pictures, he got his phone and started taking pictures.

Reading in bed with Daddy on Sunday morning.

Daddy asked Bennett to make make his fish face.  He did, but first he made his pouty face.

And now the fish face.

We decided it was time for some more outdoor toys, plus I've been wanting to get Bennett a golf set for a while since he plays with one at school frequently.  (Although at school he uses the clubs as canes.)  There were three different color choices.  He chose a pink set.


We also got him a T-Ball set.  He was more interested in fielding balls than hitting, but that gave me more batting practice.  Which I desperately need!
Bennett's batting approach was to start far away, run towards the T, and then hit the ball.  Or more often than not, hit the T and have the ball fall off.  Which is actually how I often did it.  Oops.

And there you have it.  It was a pretty quiet week with nothing special going on over the weekend.  Maybe next weekend we'll have some excitement?

It's starting to warm up a little!

On Baseball's opening Bennett wore his Braves jersey.  Don't worry, he also has a Red Sox shirt that he wore today, as today was the Sox home opener.  We haven't actually exposed Bennett to baseball much, so I'm not sure he even knows what it is.  Maybe we'll have to remedy that.

Slightly warmer weather this past week (not that you would know it by the winter coats) so we went out for ice cream for dinner one night.  Note to self.  The "kiddie" size ice cream is still too much.  Next time order the "baby" size for Bennett.)

It did warm up enough that we went for a walk on Friday night.  Bennett grabbed my snowflake hat.  Yes he needed a hat, but really?  Snowflakes?  I'm tired of winter!  We went to the bikepath that runs near our house, and we think he walked about three-quarters of a mile.  As mentioned in previous posts, we are hoping that he will be able to do the 2 mile walk for Children's Hospital on his own but we also have no idea how far he's capable of walking.  He also had his first pee in nature.  This will be much easier when he learns to pee standing up!  Instead Chris and I held him up in a squat position.  We're somewhat afraid that every time we walk past that dumpster now, he's going to say "pee".  The boy doesn't forget anything!

Maybe not the most flattering picture of Bennett as he pulls up his undies, but here's a glimpse into the chaos that was our living room on Saturday afternoon.  Dolls and a blanket (they had been put to bed), fruits and veggies (they also had been put to bed), a tipi, vintage Little People house... Just a typical day, I think.  And he was having fun, so that's all that matters.

Sunday we went to Sturbridge.  We were a little nervous about this as it was one of our first outings where a bathroom isn't immediately accessible.  (We'd actually gone to the mall on Saturday evening and he did well there, with a bit of a scramble to get to a bathroom.) 

Bennett's pretty trained now.  He sees these openings and he runs right over for a picture.

Ah, sheep!  One of the flocks has started lambing and they were outside.  (Last time we came we couldn't find this particular flock.)  When we saw the other flock by the farm I was commenting to Bennett that they were all the "daddies", but then an interpreter corrected me, saying that only one of them was a ram.  The others were ewes who happened to have horns.  They are due to lamb a bit later.

When we were by the farm Bennett wandered into an empty field.  He picked up a stick and was quite happy to poke around at the dirt.  We'll have to remember to keep a better eye on him in the future when they plant crops in the field. 

We have some alphabet flash cards, and for the letter "O" there is a picture of an ox. So we explained to Bennett that it's one ox and two oxen. He's familiar with oxen since we see them at Sturbridge. Now whenever he sees that flash card he says, "Oxen, cookies." Apparently those two things are very much entwined in his brain!  We also may need to teach him that he can't always have a cookie when we go to Sturbridge, but that's a fight that neither Chris nor I look forward to having.

And finally, here's Bennett playing one of his new favorite games, "bedtime".  If only actual bedtime went so well.