4.5

Tomorrow Benjamin will be 4 1/2 years old. The other day he said that soon Emma would be two, and when Emma is two he will be five. Which is true. Which is crazy. I will have a five-year-old. Whoa.

Anyway, about this little guy who still has six months ago before he is officially OLD.

I'd heard about the terrible twos. I knew about adolescence. I was not prepared for the Whining Fours. Oh my gosh the whining. And arguing. And in this house it's epic, because this little man has a vocabulary that matches a high-schooler (and the comprehension to go with it) and a sense of logic that would put a lawyer to shame. We have had to put down serious boundaries and endure some pretty dramatic tantrums in order to firmly establish who's boss around here. And yes, the words "because I said so" get tossed around sometimes. Because sometimes I find myself five minutes deep in a conversation about why exactly he needs to put his legos away before bathtime, and then I realize that I'm his mom and you seriously just need to put the friggin' legos away because I said so.

Okay, there is a bit of that paragraph that may have been the result of me coming out of the shower at 5:30 this morning to find him on the floor of the living room playing with his legos, and I might be kind of cranky about it.

Speaking of legos, they have taken over our house. And that is real, because most of them are Star Wars legos, so the take-over was forced. I actually love legos. I like them because they are creative and they require a great deal of important things like patience, ingenuity, fine motor skills, and imagination. Except that I hate them because a) I have a one-year-old; b) there is no pain like a lego in your foot; c) oh my gosh, put them the frick away so they are not all over the house. But seriously, he loves them, and I really do think they're great. It's much better than TV and video games and cocaine. He has a lot because he got several sets for Christmas from various family members. And because the Star Wars sets are for eight-year-olds, Matt has assembled a lot of the larger models. Ben is actually pretty good at doing a lot of it himself. But God help you if you touch them without permission, or worse, accidentally break a piece off.

If you manage to pry him away from his Legos, you can get him to do a few other things. He still enjoys books and riding his bike and playing with light sabers and other manly activities. Like playing with his baby sister's princess castle. Speaking of his sister, he loooooooooooves her. Way more than she loves him. But that's not really her fault--he's a sweet little love bug, and she's a fiery and independent gal. Ben loves preschool and is very good at letters and counting (except for the number 15) and even reading a little. He likes waffles and yogurt for breakfast and PB&J for lunch, but he doesn't like dinner. And of course, there's his wit. He cracks me up every 20 minutes with some comment or strange conversation.  Yesterday we took Emma to the doctor, and as we were leaving he asked if we were going to go to the pharmacy to get Emma's medicine. I told him she didn't need medicine, which prompted a lengthy conversation about viruses and bacteria and antibiotics. Try explaining those things to a four-year-old. I have learned, though, to not try and simplify things for his young mind. I do much better, and he understands much better, when I just explain things normally. Otherwise he'll catch me. When it comes to science he's smarter than me. True story.

So that's our B.