Okay, now that that's out of the way and you can maybe understand at least one of the reasons why I don't write much anymore, let's talk about what we came here to talk about: My funny little T-Rex, who's 28 pounds of spunk (at least that's how much I think he weighs. Our bathroom scale was cheap and is notoriously unreliable).
At 22 months he's growing and changing every minute. He talks non-stop, particularly about f@#$s and Cars. It is ridiculous how obsessed he is with this movie. He wakes up in the morning asking to watch it, and he goes to bed at night remembering it. He's still crazy about trains, but we don't watch Thomas much anymore (which is fine by me, because I think it's really boring). But about Cars. He begs to watch it every day. Since I only let him watch about a half an hour of TV a day he watches it in chunks, which he hates, because he wants to just sit and watch the whole thing. Every day. Although I have to be honest here: the other day he woke up at 5:45am and screamed and shouted in his crib for 15 minutes until I finally caved and got him. But I was really tired after being out late the night before, so I sleepily pulled him out of his crib, brought him into the living room, put on Cars, and fell asleep next to him on the couch for about an hour. And when I say fell asleep I mean laid there with my eyes closed while Ben repeatedly tapped me on the head and told me what was happening in the movie. "Mommy, McKee (McQueen) go fast. Mommy, Mimi (Mater) silly. Mommy, look-it." The ironic thing is that we don't actually own it. I recorded it onto our DVR when it was on the Disney channel once. God help us all if our DVR breaks (as the last three did in the last two years). I got Toy Story to see if he'd like that one. He does--he definitely knew Woody and Buzz within minutes. But Cars wins every time. He has a book that his Grammie got him, a Cars toddler look and find (like Where's Waldo but for little McNuggets), and he has memorized it.
When he's not watching Cars he's playing with them. He's got some of the Wheel Pals cars (which, by the way, are the best thing EVER), and he'll play with those for hours. And he won't let me play with him. Which is okay, because as a woman I don't have a lot of experience playing cars. I did play with my brother's a lot when we were kids. But now I'm not sure what to do with them besides drive them around and make car noises. Which is not, apparently, the right way to go about it. Last night when I was doing it Ben shouted "no! no! no!" Then he took away the car, said "mine" (um, excuse me, but who bought it?), and added it to his collection. He likes to organize them. Line them up, then line them up on the other side of the room, then zoom them around...it's actually pretty entertaining. He also uses them to form a train--shocking. When mommy won't take out the train set because she's sick and tired of building the tracks, no worries--just make a train of cars. He also likes to make the cars crash, except he doesn't say "crash", he says "chash", which is funnier.
He's also quite the prodigious reader. He sits in his little Pottery Barn chair and reads a lot more. He especially likes his Baby Einstein dictionary, "Car Book", and touch and feel books. Although the best loved by far is his car book. He also occasionally likes to sit at his table and color, although only for a few minutes. There are cars and trains that need drivers and conductors.
He is a big fan of Duplo Legos ("wackos"). We got a small box at Legoland for $20. Honest to goodness, I do not believe it would be possible for them to put fewer legos in this huge box. I'm not sure what he's supposed to be able to build with his dozen legos, but it's not much. I'm betting they could charge a lot less than $20 if the container wasn't so damn huge. I did, however, see a couple of sets of Cars Duplos at Target today. Pretty sure he would poop from excitement.
He loves music, especially Otis Redding (whom he sings along with) and The Killers. When he's feeling especially energetic he pulls out his toy drum and plays and sings along.
He loves to cook in his kitchen, and when we go to Adalee's he pushes the doll around in the stroller, although like a boy, zooming and yelling with a big "chash" at the end. But after that he usually feeds the baby play food. So that's nice. He and Adalee are best buddies, although he plays a lot more roughly and energetically than her now, so she's not quite sure what to do when he doesn't want to cuddle all afternoon. Ben also has a big truck he got for his birthday last year that he likes to drive around the courtyard while shouting "F*$%" over and over and over again, really really loudly. Fortunately he also likes to play with his ball out there, so occasionally we get a reprieve from the potty mouth.
Speaking of potty, Ben decided one week that he wanted to use it. He spent several days talking about the "boppy" (potty). I thought it was a bit early, but hey, if he really wanted to be potty trained, who was I to stand in the way? I had no compelling reason to deny his request, other than my mortal fear of the process. But I sucked it up, and we went to Target and got all the necessary accouterments. Ben moved into the bathroom for a day (of his own volition). He wouldn't leave, he wouldn't let me be in there with him, and he wouldn't wear a diaper or a pull-up. I think you can probably ascertain what happened at that point. I spent a bit of time cleaning poop off the floor, the shower curtain, and the boy. The next day Ben wanted nothing to do with the potty. Or the next day. Since I'd had a feeling from the beginning he wasn't as ready as he thought he was, I went ahead and packed up the gear for another day. Bummer.
He's super funny and silly, and he loves to play pretend, wrestle, and do other things that are hard to describe, like falling. He loves to play silly games with Mommy and Daddy. And he loves dirt, swimming, and generally running amok outdoors (and indoors, which gets more complicated). But for all his superhuman energy, he still loves to cuddle.
In short, he's a bundle of joy and I love him to pieces.
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