At 2 years old Ben has reached what Trent and I have come to call the "maximum cuteness stage." We are loving the age he is at right now. He says the cutest/most random things ever. His obsessions, interests, and ways of expressing himself pretty much make us laugh all day long! For MONTHS now I have been meaning to write a post to document some of the cute things he is always doing!
First, because it is what Ben would want me to talk about first, Ben LOVES, no is OBSESSED, with jumping on the tramp! Both set's of Grandparents own a tramp and the first thing Ben says when he wakes up in the morning or after naps, and about every half hour in between is "I wanna JUUUUUMMMP!" Jump always gets dragged out and followed by the sweetest little puppy dog face ever. It's pretty much all he thinks of all day long. :)
When I tell him we can't go to grandpa's house his next automatic response is "I wanna go paaaarrrk."
If Ben IS stuck indoors I can assure you he'll most likely be wearing this fancy little shirt. This is his star wars shirt, a hand-me-down from Zack. Ben wants to be wearing it all day every day, when I make him change out of it he carries it around with him. He loves "nammies" (pajamas) and insists on wearing them until I tell him he HAS to change so we can go somewhere! If I do get him dressed in the morning before we are about to leave he'll usually go to his jammy drawer, pull everything out, find his favorite PJ's and put them on the second I turn my back!
When I was little my mom used to always call me "silly sister" because I'd laugh at everything and was always wanting to play. Ben always reminds me of this because he is the same way. He's ALWAYS laughing and giggling about the smallest things. He spends most of his day just itching for someone to give him a reason to burst into laughter. I feel like this is a treasured secret about my little Ben, he actually quite timid around other people so this side of his personality only comes out at home and places where he feels exceptionally comfortable.
Since Ben is so shy when he get's REALLY and truly excited about something his first response is to try and hide it. This face is inevitably the one that will show through. The tongue always comes out to hide his smile and he looks down to hide his face. I adore this silly little face he always makes, it's almost like he's about to burst with excitement and it's all he can do to hold it back. :)
The shy/excited picture above was quite difficult to find because it's NOT one I can ask for on demand. However, if I'm taking pictures of Ben and I simply tell him to smile...this is what I get. Silly crazy boy! :)
Ben ADORES his brothers! When Zack is not home Ben walks around the whole going "where's Zacky!?" It really doesn't matter how many times I answer him, Ben will continue to ask me until Zack comes back home.
Zack and Ben pretty much do everything together during the day. They have learned to play together really well and have become the best of buddies, it's SO nice for me! (Not to say they don't fight though, they do their fair share of that too!)
I was worried about how Ben would react to a new little baby around to steal attention away from him. I shouldn't have worried, Ben adores everything about Paxton. He calls him "Packins" and is always coming over trying to get a sweet little smile out of Paxton, and when he does, it makes Ben's day! He even tries to be helpful when Paxton is upset...although his attempts are usually more upsetting than helpful for Paxton...afterall Ben is only 2. :)
The all time most quoted saying of Ben's is the thing he says when I tell him no. Writing it down definitely doesn't do it justice because his tone is what makes it so funny...but whenever I tell him no he always says, "WHY!?
Cause." It used to just be "why" but I guess the fact that I always started my answer with "because" and then he really didn't care about the rest of what I was saying he just decided to answer it himself.
It seems like it's been almost a whole year now that I've felt like Ben has been "on the verge" of fully being able to communicate. The kid has been speaking in full sentences pretty much since he started talking...the problem is no one can understand them! He's finally starting to enunciate well enough that I can understand 3 or 4 words out of the sentence and get the gist of what he's trying to say. Every once in awhile though, I'll understand all the words and it makes perfect sense, he'll even get the verb conjugations correct! Behind all the words that just sound like gibberish to the average listener, the poor kid is speaking in perfect sentences and very few people can understand him. Poor kid, I'm sure his little mouth will start to cooperate with his mind soon enough! :)
Like Zack at his age, Ben has a total obsession with tools! He loves them and carry's at least one around pretty much all day long. Zack's obsession developed from working with my dad in his yard, Ben's developed from "helping" Trent in the basement. Ben's favorite tool of Trent's that he is always asking for is the "clippers." I'm guessing it's because we got such a riot out of what he did with them. Trent was rewiring something in the basement and in a split second Ben walked up, grabbed the wire cutters, and cut the phone cord all before Trent even had a chance to notice what he was about to do. I guess laughing about it was the wrong response since now Ben is always coveting those wire cutters that we now keep very much out of his reach! :)
I can't talk this much about Ben's life right now without at least mentioning the poor kid's runny nose. It's been so long that he's had a constant runny nose that one of his FIRST words was "tissue." I'm pretty sure he has allergies but he's too young to get tested for them right now because it requires getting poked by a million different needles. Until we find out what makes his nose run he's a pretty darn good sport about memorizing every spot we keep the tissues in our house and just bringing them straight to me and asking me to wipe his nose. (sorry no pics of the runny nose, that's just gross:)
I do believe I could go on all day about how cute my little munchkin is. I was just telling Trent the other day how I feel like he is my special little secret. With Zack it was so different at this age, he has older cousins but they all lived out of state and he was the only kid in our home. He got endless amounts of attention from his grandparents and every cute little thing he did got noticed. Ben on the other hand is already mixed in with 9 different cousins and all our friends we spend a lot of time with have multiple children. Unlike Zack, he is rarely in the spotlight and get's quite uncomfortable with it when he is. Being the center of attention in large groups is totally foreign to him and I think because of that he has become more than happy just going off and playing his own little games when things get crazy with lots of kids around. I love that about him and it's part of the reason I feel like I am one of the few that really gets to see his personality in full! :)
If you haven't noticed yet, I absolutely love and ADORE this little boy of mine. He's growing WAY too fast for my liking and I don't want to forget a minute of it!
