Benjamin Bug

Like Mother Like Son

noreply@blogger.com (Karen) — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 14:06:00 +0000

Um, I think I dressed up like this for The Rocky Horror Picture Show once.

Crossover Post: Teaching the Baby

noreply@blogger.com (Karen) — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 14:49:00 +0000

Well, I tried really hard to get footage of the Bug trying to teach Josie to clap -- he said "Clap!" several times, and grabbed her hands and tried to make her clap -- but I missed it. By the time I got the camera on, he was teaching her the parts of the body: "Head, eyes, BUTTON!!, knees and toes." It's still pretty good.

Bug Conversations: Funny?

noreply@blogger.com (Karen) — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 20:24:00 +0000

Ben is busy exploring the bounds of what is funny and not funny. When he does something that really makes us laugh he says "Pretty funny?" and will repeat that over and over until we tell him that yes indeed it is funny.

He will do this even if he doesn't know why we are laughing. For example, last night, I asked him if he was ready to go to bed, and he said "No!" Which is, as his two-year-old right, one of his favorite words. So my father said: "You've got to trick him, you should ask: 'Hey Ben, do you mind going to bed?'" And Ben promptly looked at Dad and said "Yes."

Which of course made us all laugh very hard and Ben was very pleased with himself: "Very funny!"

Unfortunately he doesn't always get it right. Last night he screamed along with a song that was playing on the stereo and scared the heck out of Josie -- she began to bawl inconsolably and Ben got the biggest grin on his face. "Pretty funny!" he said. And I said, "No, not funny."

He kept grinning, though.

On the other hand, he does seem to be learning a bit: Every morning when he crawls out of his crib and into bed with me at 6 AM, he says very solemnly: "NOT funny."

A Crossover Post: Conversations Between Siblings

noreply@blogger.com (Karen) — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 16:58:00 +0000

This is a picture of the second conversation that Ben had with Josie. Mostly Ben talks to us about Josie, or pats her hard on the head and yells "Okay! Okay!" to try to get her to stop crying (which, as you can imagine, has just the opposite effect). But he has twice now tried to engage in dialogue directly with her and explain to her about the world.

The first conversation--when she was about 2 weeks old -- was when Ben tried to tell her about the main crush in his life and it went like this: "Music Class! Miss Amy!"

The second conversation took place when I had laid Josie down on the floor on a pillow, and Ben cozied up next to her. Her arm flew out and hit his shoe, and he said "Shoe!" and then proceeded to point out a whole host of body parts. He spent a good five minutes saying things like "Knee," "head," "hair," and "fingers" to her.

. . . and then he picked up her pacifier shoved it in her mouth hard, and made her cry again. Oh, well.

Buckethead!

noreply@blogger.com (esteban) — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 15:24:00 +0000

In honor of his hero, Mickey, from Maurice Sendak's In the Night Kitchen

He dons the bucket, climbs on a chair, and cries, "Quiet Down There!"

Sayings of The Bug

noreply@blogger.com (esteban) — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 15:03:00 +0000

Phrases we've heard lately from El Benjarino:

"Do it!"
"Leave it!"
"I want to!" (which of course means both "I want to" and "I don't want to" - the negation concept has yet to be expressed)
"Call Daddy"
"Call Mommy"
"Call Gramma"
"Call Papa"
"Josie cwying"
"JosieUp!"
"Ben socks shoes"
"My compeeler" (computer)
"ABCD"
"Pictures of Ben?" (when he wants to look at photos on the compeeler or camera)

Halloween!

noreply@blogger.com (Karen) — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 19:30:00 +0000

All Hail the New Crib Tent

noreply@blogger.com (Karen) — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 19:23:00 +0000

About a week before Josie was born, Ben learned how to climb out of his crib. Ben's crib is the kind that turns into a toddler bed, so we converted it just a day or so before Josie arrived.

. . . which meant that not only has Ben been dealing with the emotional backlash of a new sibling, but he's been severely sleep deprived--climbing out of bed is SO much more fun than taking a nap. After a month of doing all the things one is supposed to do to teach them to stay in bed, I had just one (or 21) too many days of being woken up by a very-proud-of-himself toddler at 5 AM.

I put that crib right back together and got a crib tent -- and we prepared ourselves for the worst: kicking, screaming, tantrums, hitting the tent, anything, as soon as he realized he was going to be locked in.

Of course, nothing of the kind happened. When he saw the crib was back together he went up to it like an old friend. It was almost like he'd been waiting to have it back. When he saw the tent, he thought it was the best toy ever, demanded that we zip him in there and then bid us "Away!" with a summary wave of his hand. He slept incredibly soundly that night.

(Ok, he DID cry when he woke up and realized he was stuck . . . but that only lasted a day or two, and the whole household is now back to sleeping in until at least 7, and life is much much better.)

Boo at the Zoo

noreply@blogger.com (esteban) — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 01:01:00 +0000

So I've gotten completely lazy about taking photos, as one can tell from the sheer lack of photos on this site and his sister's. Now I'm pretty much taking kid photos with my phone, so the quality is also lacking. (There is a lot lacking these days...except maybe patience with contractors and that's wearing thin. Anyhoo.)

We went to the National Zoo on Friday evening for Boo at the Zoo which basically entails thousands of costumed kids (and their parents), sugar, freaked-out-sleepy animals, and crying. But we had fun, meeting up with a few friends and letting Ben stay up a little later. Here he is a few minutes after facing an acouchi and kneeling down to give it 'una besita' on the glass. He really liked that acouchi. From the photos you can't tell he was dressed in an alligator/dinosaur/toothed-reptile jacket. Not very original, but we had only an hour's notice before we went to the zoo.

Yeah, he needs a haircut; he's starting to look like Carol Brady.

Conversations the Bug has with his pretend cell phone

noreply@blogger.com (Karen) — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 00:13:00 +0000

"Hi! How'er you? Yeah. Yeah. Ha ha ha! ABCD. Yeah. Yeah. Miss Amy. Doggy. Yeah. Yeah. Bye bye!"

Mommy is always there

noreply@blogger.com (Karen) — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 18:26:00 +0000

It is odd how quickly one falls into certain oddities of being a Mom. Not only, am I afraid, do I lick my fingers and wipe stuff off of Ben's face, but I also find myself holding my hand out so that he can spit food into it when he doesn't like something. He also hands me just about anything he finds on the floor and I take it unthinkingly.

This, however, may have to stop.

Yesterday he walked over to me as I lay in bed sleepily (see Ben's new sister for an explanation of the new sleepiness in our lives) with forefinger and thumb extended, to hand me something unseeable. A few moments later he was back, this time with a slight crumb in his fingers. I took this, too.

He then took his forefinger and put it right back in his nose, where said crumb was clearly from.

Urban Jungle

noreply@blogger.com (esteban) — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 15:53:00 +0000

Are you talkin' to me, man?

Hey Ladies!

Me and My Shadow

noreply@blogger.com (esteban) — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 14:57:00 +0000

Ben had his first sit-down "chat" with his new sister, Jocelyn, the other day. They discussed bottles vs. sippy cups, ways to drive parents crazy, and the awesomeness of the vibrating blue chair. She fell asleep half-way through his diatribe on the Redskins' offense.

A Handful of Summer Photos

noreply@blogger.com (Karen) — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 20:26:00 +0000

Ben in the Finger Lakes

noreply@blogger.com (Karen) — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 19:54:00 +0000

We went up to New York last week for a full family vacation. . . The bug got immense amounts of attention, which made him blissfully happy -- but better yet, he relentlessly followed his cousins Thomas and Juliette around for a full week, and they were nice enough to actually let him.

Ben's Birthday

noreply@blogger.com (Karen) — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 19:59:00 +0000

For Ben's second birthday we celebrated with the full cadre of nannies and their charges whom Ben plays with on a regular basis (he has this whole social life that his parents know nothing about...) He wasn't sure quite what to make of the party itself, but he seems to have gotten the concept down since. I catch him singing to himself: "Happy buhday you! Happy buhday you! Happy buhday you!" Pause. "Whoo hoo!!!"

noreply@blogger.com (Karen) — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 21:02:00 +0000

Three sons of three college roommates: Alex (Chelsy's son); Haver (Melanie's) and Ben (Karen's son)

Be Careful What You Wish For

noreply@blogger.com (Karen) — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 03:10:00 +0000

I know that kids are supposed to get older faster these days, but Ben has apparently turned into a teenager already. His new trick is to sit in his room, reading a book in his lap. . . and when I walk in he says: "Away!" while imperiously waving his hand towards the door.

Well, I guess we were hoping for a reader, weren't we?

A real Boy's Boy

noreply@blogger.com (esteban) — Mon, 11 May 2009 20:20:00 +0000

Not much explanation needed here. The boy likes his ladies, his ball, his Hooters...and the occasional hug from Mommy.

Prepositions/Propositions

noreply@blogger.com (Karen) — Sun, 10 May 2009 21:14:00 +0000

The Bug is a talking machine these days. Not words that everyone understands by any means, and he's not great with two syllables or with those tricky last consonants, but he mimics just about everything you say and loves practicing his words.

Indeed, he does a lot of things just so that he can practice his words. As we walk down the street, he will sit on random steps just so he can say the word "sit!" (Pronounced "sih".) And he will open and close the door to the balcony over and over so he can say "opeh" and "lohw" respectively. In addition to the door, he will pull my hands or my feet apart and back again while chanting "Opeh, lohw, opeh, lohw."

He's really good with prepositions in general. Besides open and close he says "off" -- one of the few words where he can get that last consonant sound -- repeatedly. ("On" another favorite, sounds closer to "Aww"). "Up" and "dow" also said all the time, for example as he walks down the street alternatively squatting to the ground and standing up tall.

Hi and bye are the other favorites -- and he got to say them a lot this weekend as we went to the beach. The bug waved hi to everyone and then said "bye bye" immediately as he walked away. The only ones he didn't walk away from were the girls. He is a flirt of maximum proportions.

There was one girl he particularly liked on the beach, an older woman at about 6 years old. She was digging in the sand, and Ben would bend over at the waist to get his face right up close to hers and wave "hi! hi!" at her. She wearily would just say "Hi, again," and nicely put up with it. He must have thought he was doing pretty well, because he sat down next to her and I saw him put his hand on her knee. I walked a little closer to make sure he wasn't bugging the poor girl too much -- only to realize he was tugging at her knee while yelling "Opeh! Opeh!"

Look Out, Julian Casablancas

noreply@blogger.com (esteban) — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 03:45:00 +0000

With his dad's Guitar Hero and his irresistible strawberry-blond locks, the boy can't help but front the next major indie act to go double platinum. Look for his debut album c. 2020.

(more posts to come, we've been especially lax this spring)

Slides!

noreply@blogger.com (Karen) — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 17:36:00 +0000

He is obsessed with slides. Makes him happy as a clam.

Party Tricks: Animal Noises

noreply@blogger.com (Karen) — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 23:51:00 +0000

Here are three animals in the Bug's repertoire: the snake, the hippo (which are kinda smushed together in this video) and the coup de grace -- the monkey. He has recently started doing dinosaurs too. . .

Photos from Thanksgiving. . .

noreply@blogger.com (Karen) — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 02:00:00 +0000

No pictures of the holiday turkey here (it was deboned, well-brined, and yummy) -- but some new pictures of the Bug with a leather chair AND books this time.

Pumpkin Festival

noreply@blogger.com (Karen) — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 01:54:00 +0000

These are photos from a pumpkin festival we went to last month -- mostly we played around in the big haybarn. . . though we did get a little sheep-petting in too.