“It’s Mommy C and Baby C”
We were playing with the fridge letter magnets and he found the uppercase and lowercase C’s.

“Oh no mommy, where’s your pants go? Those daddy’s pants. That’s silly!”
When I wore Andy’s boxers as PJs shorts.

Me: What should we have for lunch.
Ben: Tomatoes!
Me: Sorry, I don’t think we have any tomatoes.
Ben: Oh man, I love tomatoes.

“Mommy use your spoon. Good boy mommy.”
When I was picking cereal from my bowl with my fingers.

“Mommy going potty. Good boy mommy!”
Hopefully this one is self explanatory ;-)

My mom (after asking what different animals say): What does Nonna say?
Ben: Oink Oink.
(She had been looking for the answer “I love you”…haha!)

“Daddy outside fixing lawn mower. Daddy dancing in garage.”
Ben mixes up “singing” and “dancing” and while Andy WAS outside in the garage fixing the lawn mower, he was just listening to music. Not dancing around the garage, which I admit, would be hilarious to watch :)

“Exabator”
Excavator…one of Ben’s many favorite boy toys and things to point out while we’re driving.

“Mr. Chuck’s boat”
Our neighbor has a boat that Ben can see from our back yard. Ben was digging through his matchbox car bin and found a matchbox boat which he promptly named “Mr Chuck’s boat”

We went to the Strong Museum of Play with a friend a month ago. Ben loved it! Before we left the kids did some pictures in the photo booth and these were the results. Ben is such a deer in the headlights, but Lucy really knows how to work the camera!

I can’t believe he’s been daytime potty trained for four months now! He’s still not completely independent with it, I have to put him on and take him off the toilet, help with pants and undies and supervise hand washing…but he does a good job for a little guy! I can see why people say three can be more difficult than two though (and we’re not even there yet). He can be stubborn sometimes, the little stinker. If he doesn’t want to do something he’ll shout “Potty! Go potty” hysterically, like he needs to go NOW and can’t possibly stop to do whatever you’ve asked him. Or when it’s time to brush our teeth for bed, he’ll come to the bathroom when called but do it like a fish (army crawling) and say “I swimming, I coming” even though it’s taking him three times longer to get there.

My grandparents (his great grandparents) gave him a little magnetic fishing set when they were up for my brother’s wedding.

He eventually just started putting the fish on the pole, instead of aiming for them in the bucket. He still does this with his fork too, puts pieces of food on the fork with his hands then eats it :)

Andy found this kid’s helmet at the dump’s swap shop and brought it home for Ben.

Ben adores it and wears it while he drives all his trucks around. The whole time of course saying “vroom!”

I always find these fun kid activities online and think to myself “Oh Ben would love that” and then never do anything with them. This week I actually did one! We dumped rice in a jellyroll pan and Ben used his diggers, dump trucks, measuring spoons and funnels. When I asked him if he liked playing with the rice he said “I feel glad.” Awwww! Totally worth the .79 box of rice from Aldi’s and not even that many fell on the floor!

Ben had his first dentist appointment this week. We actually sat in on Andy’s check up last week so he could see the office and kind of get an idea of what would go on. We talked about daddy getting his teeth cleaned and how it would be Ben’s turn. I wasn’t quite sure how he’d react to it all (he is 2 1/2) but he was fantastic.

I think his favorite part was the water that came out of the fountain. Luckily it was too hard for little toddler fingers to push down on their own.

He got a pair of sunglasses to wear under the bright lights.

Not so sure about all the tools they brought out.

He did great though. The assistant was able to count his teeth, brush and floss. Andy was miffed to find out there were flavored tooth pastes (Ben picked chocolate). I guess they never offered the flavors to daddy ;-)

Going through all his goodies afterwards.

Showing me his clean teeth!

The assistant and dentist himself were great with him, I think it was a fantastic first experience. I know the dentist won’t always be fun for him, but hopefully this sets him up for success in the future. And if you were wondering, his teeth and gums are great…props to mommy and daddy for the brushing ;-) All week Ben has been telling strangers in Wegmans to kids at the Y “Daddy and Ben teef cwean” and “Teef doctor office fun.”