Love Story II: By Ben

Love Story I: By Ben

WHERE does he GET this stuff?!


Translation: The Ring of Loves
After the red ring story (arrow refers to short story on other page)Trey gave me a ring then he went home and I followed him and I ran into a school friend, Goria my best friend from school. When we looked at each other we fell in love.

Love and Kissing
I ran for Trey and asked him if I could have another ring. He said yes. I took it back to Goria and SMOOOOOCH! She kissed me! The End
Oh, this could have had to be LOVE BUG.

Love Story I
One hot summer day I was playing in my side yard at my new house and then I saw my friend Trey came over and told me a Love Story:

Marege (Marriage)
There were 2 fish getting ready to get married. She was a pink and silver fish (the bride) Can you guess what the groom fish is? A Pout Pout fish. And then SMOOOOOCH they kissed. (reference to page) <--- LOL!

Turns Out, He's a Writer...

So Ben has been hoarding blank books lately like they are going out of style. It seems like for every reward at school (for bringing in box tops or filling in the reading calendar, etc), they give out blank books. Anyway, he loves them! For awhile he just filled them with pictures, but now he's actually writing stories. He won't voluntarily share them with anyone, but he doesn't hide them and hasn't told me not to read them, so of course, I've peeked.

OMG. It's like a different kid from the one reflected in his school writing. It's full of details! And adjectives! And decent spelling! Pages and pages!!!

Tom pointed out that he was the same way as a kid... scratch that, still IS. If he's writing about something HE wants to write about, he can write a beautifully executed, descriptive tome. Otherwise? It's one sentence... maybe.

I have wavered back and forth about sharing his writing. I think I've decided ll scan it in later and share it here later, but not on Facebook. I definitely want to preserve it somewhere. It's too precious not too. Not to mention, some of it is HILARIOUSLY funny.

More later... ;)

Homeschool....

I discovered two nights ago that Ben has been reading a book about sharks to Simon after we put them to bed at night. He also has been having him come up with questions based on the reading -- jotting down things Simon knows, what Simon wants to know and what he has learned from the reading and jotting them down in a blank book he has. (this is what they do in Ben's first grade class)

It's the cutest thing ever. I plan on scanning in some of the notebook pages later because seriously, SO adorable. Some of Simon's questions are really good ones too!!!

Last night, Ben asked me if I had a red pen. I gave him one and he used it to go back and check off the questions they had answered and "grade" Simon's paper. LOL!!!

Hidden Details....

At dinner tonight, Ben randomly brought up his schoolwork. He gets points off a LOT for not including enough details... here's his reasoning. Totally airtight logic if you ask me. ;)

Ben: Faye puts a lot of details into what she writes. So does Divine. I have a lot of details too, but they are just hidden.

Me: Uh... hidden where?

Ben: In my head.

Another Installment of -- He's His Father's Child

Three days ago, Ben came home from school and we had the following conversation.

Ben: UGH! I had to miss ten minutes of free play today!!
Me: Oh! Why?
Ben: No REASON! I don't even KNOW why!
Me: THere had to be a reason.
Ben: Seriously! There was NO REASON.

I let it go for a moment while I set up his homework stuff at the kitchen table. This is BEN we're talking about, so I knew it couldn't have been a serious infraction... (check in in two years when I have this conversation with Simon and I'm sure I'll be more concerned) ...but now my curiosity was piqued.

Me: Okay, really. What'd you do wrong to have to miss free play?
Ben: NOTHING.... [pause]... besides, what's the point of having write your name on your papers anyway? *I* know it's mine. Ms. Lake knows it's mine. Who cares if my name is on it?

Me: AhHA! You had to miss play because you forgot to put your name on your paper? (this is an ongoing problem)
Ben: Yes. But WHY do I have to DO that in the first place? She KNEW it was my paper.
Me: Because that's the rule, buddy. And you keep forgetting. She's trying to help you remember. Why don't you do what daddy suggested [because daddy apparently went through a period of his academic career where this was a recurring problem as well] and do it FIRST thing when you get a paper.
Ben: I just don't understand why I have to put my name on my paper anyway.
Me: [bangs head on wall]

Fast forward to yesterday --

Ben hopped off the bus and we started walking toward the house. We got about halfway home in silence and then he said:

"I need to tell you that I missed ALL of morning free play today."

Me: Ohhh... how come?
Ben: I don't even know.
Me: Forget your name again?
Ben: I just don't get why I have to put my name on my paper. AND, that other paper? I DID do my best work and colored neatly.
Me: Hrm. So you missed free play because you had to redo some work?
Ben: I don't know. Maybe. Yes.
Me: Obviously Ms. Lake did not think it was your best work.
Ben: BUt it WAS and I DID color neatly.

(I can pretty much promise you that it wasn't and he didn't -- pretty much the only marks on his report card that were not top marks had to do with his handwriting and how carefully/neatly he does his work...)

Me: Sorry, kiddo.
Ben: I think she was looking at someone else's paper. MINE was colored neatly!
...and I STILL don't get why it matters if I put my name on my paper.

Me: [bangs head on wall]

Big Brothers...

My blog friend, Katie, had a wonderful post a few days ago about the special bond her eldest daughter (who is Ben's age) and her youngest daughter (who is Jonathan's age) have. It SO closely described the dynamics at my house that I truly could have written the post myself. You'll have to take my word for it though because her blog is passworded. LOL.

Some comments from other parents of three kids on there described a similar household dynamic and it has me wondering if it's a three-kid-family thing?

At any rate, it sure holds true at our house.

Ben? ADORES Jonathan. Loves him to pieces. He helps take care of him, watches out for him, talks to him the way we do, comforts him when he cries, plays with him, holds him, wants to feed him... the list goes on. I let him "pick him up" and hold him (with close supervision) yesterday and he was just so pleased with himself. He calls him "Moo moo" and "Bubby" which have become our pet names for J around here lately. He's the first person Ben talks to in the morning... plowing right past the rest of us to get right in his face and talk to him. If Jonathan is already taking his morning nap, Ben immediately wants to know where he is and when he's getting up. :)

Katie mentioned how she's been teaching Emily some simple baby care things and ways to keep the baby safe and I do the same with Ben. It's such a huge help to have an extra set of eyes and ears and someone to watch out that he doesn't put Lego heads in his mouth, that sort of thing... even just for a minute or two so I can run a load laundry to the basement or get breakfast going in the morning. Ben probably has NO idea what a huge help he is, even though I tell him constantly and I am 100% sincere about that!!

Simon is also a fantastic big brother, but in more of a traditional brother sort of way and less "little daddy" the way Ben is, which is to be expected given the three-year-gap instead of the 6-1/2-year-gap. He is VERY careful around Jonathan, which given how active and physical he tends to be, I find very impressive. He knows (and remembers) not to run or jump around the baby when he's on the floor. He's gentle with him and uses kind, soft words. I don't worry about leaving them in the room together if I have to walk into an adjacent room for a moment... I'm confident at this point that Simon isn't going to try to pick Jonathan up or hurt him or roll him over or anything like that. Truthfully, most of the time, Simon pretty much ignores him... LOL. But, just when it seems he's totally indifferent to the baby, I do catch him doing very kind, big brothery things, like putting the teethers in the refrigerator, or giving him his binkies and his ducky lovey. It will be most interesting to see this relationship evolve. Will they eventually be happy playmates? Time will tell, I suppose.

Right now, the fights are between Ben and Simon. They are just getting on each others' last nerve lately. Simon is a typical little brother and bugs Ben to no end when he's trying to do big kid things. And lately, Ben has been kind of mean and big brotherish to Simon, discounting the things he wants to do as silly or just not wanting to play what he wants to play. He sometimes even just gets angry at Simon for TALKING. I can't wait for spring because I think winter and being cooped up the house all the time has a ton to do with it.

So yeah... to get back to the original point of my post... Jonathan is a lucky little third-born. He couldn't ask for two better big brothers! :) I'm so glad we got three-of-a-kind. It's so fun to watch their relationship unfold!

Epcot Day!

We hit Epcot by ourselves this morning.... my BIL and SIL didn't do parks today and my other BIL, niece and MIL and FIL went to Animal Kingdom. (we're forgoing AK this trip due to lack of time) So anyway, it was just the five of us.

On the way to Fastpass Soarin', I noticed there was no line for the 5-in-1 character meet and greet. Tom was a party pooper about stopping, but I knew the kids would appreciate it, especially Simon. So he went off to get our FPs and the boys and I met Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Goofy and Pluto. :)



This was where Jonathan grabbed Pluto's whiskers and wouldn't let go. I went to walk away and Pluto was still attached.


Infatuated with Minnie


No pants Donald


And, the Goof


Off to the Seas with Nemo where Ben got to be shark food


Simon was afraid to try it...

But Jonathan got in on the action...


Then we took the clam shells down to see Turtle Talk with Crush. :) Always funny. ;)


The boys rode Journey into Imagination while Jonathan napped in arms outside. (no complaints from me, I got to wolf down a Mickey ice cream bar in peace) Then I met back up with them so they could play in the pavilion for awhile.


After that, we let them play at Innoventions while I fed Jonathan and changed his diaper and by then we'd been there five hours, so we headed back for some rest since the boys were going back out for a late night at MK with Nanee and Pap. :)

Our ride this time... what a lifesaver.


Ben and his beloved Stitch


Stopping for a pic in front of the ball on the way out. :)

Flight, Settling in and Magic Kingdom

My little flyers --




Ben and Anastasia getting ready to head out to Magic Kingdom yesterday morning. Clearly, Ben still has not learned how to smile normally... LOL.


Jonathan's first monorail ride!


Tom and the big boys headed for Main Street USA


While sitting outside of Pirates (Jonathan had fallen asleep), I inquired about the Pirates dress-up thing. They had TONS of openings, it's something we've never done and I knew my two costume-fanatic children would have a blast, so we splurged for it. So glad we did too. It was amazing and SO cute. Very well done and Ben and Simon thought it was way cool. :o)

Getting assigned his pirate name -- James Kilkidd


Spinning the captain's wheel to get assigned HIS pirate name -- Ned Sharkbite


THe Book of Names


A little unsure about what's going on...


REALLY unsure about what's going on... but holding it together well because he REALLY wanted the eyepatch.


Checking out the pirate ship tattoo she just put on his hand...


Getting facepainted



The finished product


High fiving daddy for a job well done


Arghing and Aye Mateying and sword fighting outside ;)


Ben posing. LOL!


Better pics of the faces... very weird to see my six and three-year-olds with facial hair, I have to say!




Baby J hanging out in the villa -- he is wearing an outfit that was ony of my absolute favorites of Ben's and Simon's. He wasn't goign to get to wear it otherwise because it's so far out of season... yay for warmer weather. :)




A glimpse of the teen years...


Anyway, so that's that... the boys also got to play on the playground here at the resort and we had dinner here last too at the little on-site restaurant. Everyone was pretty beat and we all passed out again at 8 last night.

Today we are off to "Epeecot" (as Simon used to call it) and then who knows... this is the most unplanned-out trip we've ever taken. LOL! We kept it loose because we didn't know how Jonathan would be. Turns out, he's the easiest baby to handle in Disney of my three (which I didn't really see coming until after the travel day when he was so awesome). He just takes it all in, falls asleep in the Ergo, wakes up, eats a little and looks around some more. No overtired freakouts, no overstimulations... nothing. He's just going with the flow. I never used to understand how people stayed in the parks all day with young babies... NOW? I get it. We could have stayed from open to close last night easily with him... it was the rest of us who were done!

It's 1:30a.m., Why Not Update My Blog?

Currently paying for the fact that Jonathan slept from 7p.m. -12:30a.m. He's been up since then wide awake and ready to socialize. He still hasn't grasped the fact that I am a mean mommy and do not socialize between the hours of 7p.m. and 6a.m. Instead, I keep him silent company in his room while he stares at his crib aquarium, rebinkying him every so often until he passes back out. He seems cool with this arrangement, though tonight, he has some unusually long staying power. Gah.

So yeeeah... what else. Let's see.

- Mostly packed and ready for Disney, save for a few last minute items. Also need to remember to print boarding passes tomorrow morning. Sort of wishing we had decided to fly out tomorrow instead of Saturday, since Ben is going to miss practically nothing at school tomorrow, especially since they will most likely go in late... but hindsight 20/20 and all.

- All three kids have had colds this week. Simon started it and seems fine now. Ben had the worst of it, but today seemed on the mend, thankfully. Even more thankfully, Jonathan seems to have only had the six-hour version, (yay breastmilk!) though at night he coughs here and there. Colds, I can handle. But so help me, if anyone barfs or develops an ear infection in the next 24 hours, I cry uncle on this trip. We'll just cut our losses and go another time!!!

- I am cold.

- Working my way through The Office on Netflix during the awake nights lately. Enjoying it. Never watched it before now. It's nice to not have to wait weeks and weeks for plot payoffs like the Jim and Pam romance. Should have watched Lost like this too.

- Simon has been hilariously funny lately and I have been posting his quips on Facebook. I need to go back and round the all up to post here. Quite the comedian, that one... sometimes without realizing it.

- Jonathan has mastered sitting up... except for when he gets excited and throws himself backwards. ;) He also LOVES solid food, but is the hardest one of my babies yet to feed because he gets SO excited that I have to hit a moving target the entire time. Sometimes he actually dives TOWARD the spoon and I'm scared he's going to impale himself on it. (as much as someone could possibly impale themselves on a rubber-coated baby spoon, I suppose) So far, he's tried applesauce, sweet potatoes, carrots, bananas and clementines both in the mesh feeder and baby oatmeal. Nothing hasn't been a hit. And now if we sit at the table and DON'T feed him, he gets extremely ticked off.

- My peanut of a near-seven-year-old started rec basketball two weeks ago. (I realize at this age/level, the size thing doesn't *really* come into play, but still, I find it amusing that he SO wanted to play basketball and truly, he is THE smallest kid out there on the court and it's a 5-6 age group) He LOVES it. Not only that, the kid is GOOD. Gotta credit daddy with that one... he plays with him ALL the time at Nanee and Pap's house. He's REALLY good! So funny. Must get some pics next time we go. It's especially amusing how preoccupied he is with the "uniform", which is a reversible basketball jersey. He'll actually stop mid-court and reverse it during practice. Tom gets SO annoyed with him when he does that. ;)

Hrm. Jonathan has decided that my mere presence isn't cutting it anymore. Off to try more milk... LOL. (sigh) He'll sleep through the night one day, right?

6-3/4

(will add more to this and a photo later... )


Three months from seven (!) and here's what he's up to... :) List from 5-3/4 -- copied, pasted, updated and edited where appropriate. :)

Likes: (in no particular order)
Wii games - Backyard Football is his current favorite
Playing football
Didj
math
writing in "digital" (he makes all of his letters square)
Simon (about 70% of the time)
Jonathan (100% of the time, for now)
His cousin, Anastasia (99.9% of the time)
His cousin, Alek (100% of the time, for now)
athletic pants (getting him to wear anything else lately is a battle)
football jerseys (see above about athletic pants)
Basketball
Meat
working in his room at his "desk"
hot chocolate with marshmallows
monthday pics (he reminded me we needed to do this on Christmas Eve several times this month)


Dislikes:
all veggies, especially "wrinkled edamame"
long homework, especially spelling
being woken up for school

Fears:
He says he is afraid of nothing (LOL) I asked him what about going underwater? He said, "I did that last summer!!" Hrm...

New Skills:
writing in digital ;)

Last Minute Gift Swap Outs...

Three times now, I have swapped out gifts at the last minute to make sure Santa comes through for the kiddos. Well, actually, the one for Simon I just made sure was covered by someone... so really, it's only two last-minute swapouts and both are Ben's.

He will be getting the Nintendo DS he so desperately wants for Christmas. Tom doesn't actually know this yet and actually, I may get into trouble for this one... LOL. We had several conversations about saving it for his birthday. But, Ben actually climbed up on Santa's lap and requested this. How am I supposed to keep the Santa myth going if Santa doesn't cough up the ONE gift that Ben asked him for? (I'm a little sloppy/half-hearted in the rest of my Santa myth-spinning anyway...not a huge Santa fan... so it's the least I can do)

Anyway, I swapped out the Leapster Explorer I got so I can give him the DS. The Explorer I am going to put away for Simon's birthday or possibly just to pull out later since our Leapster 2 is on its last legs.

I also will be swapping out one other thing and saving it for Ben's birthday because the last two weeks he has also been talking about wanting a very specific Ravens jersey for Christmas. He wrote a letter to Santa and put it on two separate Christmas lists that I found in his room. (sigh) I was going to let this one go and just wait for his birthday, (Santa has already loaded the sleigh, buddy!") but NFL.com was doing an awesome overnight shipping deal today... so my little football fan will be getting his white Joe Flacco jersey after all. Not sure which of his gifts to swap out though. Will have to ponder this tomorrow when I set everything up. Hrm...

Ah, the burden of being "Santa"!

Three-Kid Update...

1) Ben has a perforation in his eardrum. We don't when it happened... except that there was a small one there in August when he last had an ear infection, so it may have just enlarged and never healed up. Apparently when tubes are placed and eventually extruded, they leave a weak spot in the eardrum leaving it extremely vulnerable to future perforation. :( The pediatrician is sending us to our ENT in a week to see if it has started to heal and if not, he'll need surgery to patch it. Fantastic. He also sent us home with antibiotic eardrops to put in Ben's ear twice a day to prevent it from getting infected in the meantime. Let me just tell you how fun THOSE have been to administer. Even better, the biggest symptom of an eardrum perforation is that that when water gets in the ear, it's excruciatingly painful... eardrops = water. Yep. Good times.

2) Otherwise, Ben is well. He's all into football now, much to my chagrin. Tom's enjoying sharing it with him on the weekends though. I think I'd call it his current obsession... although his obsessions as of late haven't been full-on, 24/7 like previous ones. Nevertheless, there is a LOT of football talk in our house these days.

3) Simon had his preschool pageant today and it was as adorable as it was chaotic. He most definitely secured his spot as the family ham. Videos are on Facebook and I'll put them here later as I think they do deserve their own post. ;) He danced and sang and rang his little jingle bell with a ridiculous amount of spirit. TOO cute. :o)

I'm glad he's the performer in the family... I think it will help counteract some of the middle child stuff because honestly, it brings him a TON of attention from everyone. I actually feel a little sorry for Ben because he kind of hangs in the background when Simon is hamming it up. I think he feels a little inferior in this respect... He even said to me the other day, "When it comes to smiling for pictures, Simon is ALWAYS the winner. I don't know how to smile." (and no, he has not heard me say that... the "I don't know how to smile" thing is something he has said of his own accord repeatedly lately...I think he's kind of self-conscious about it) Ben gets SO much attention for other things though... he can let Simon have this. Right? First-borns can't have/be everything!!!

4) Jonathan is a crappy sleeper... perhaps the crappiest sleeper of my three babies. (or maybe I've just blocked out the bad sleeping habits of the other two) Seriously. He is still not sleeping more than 2-3 hours at a time at night. OCCASIONALLY, his first stretch will go from 7-11... but even that isn't very regular. After that, he wakes up at 1, 3 and 4. (or 12, 2 and 4. It stinks. I'm kind of to the point where I may need to start trying a little tough love. We don't do cry it out... I can't stomach it for more than five minutes... but I may need to do some leaving him in the crib while soothing and re-binking from above action. He hasn't been eating much at night lately... so I don't think he's all that hungry. He just wakes up and can't soothe himself back to sleep. I am really longing for a nice 8-hour stretch sometime soon. REALLY. (yawn)

Otherwise, he's my easiest baby ever. I keep joking (sort of) that he's my favorite baby of the three (as babies). I toyed with trying to get my mother-in-law to admit that my youngest brother-in-law was her favorite baby of her three, but thought she might not see the humor in that because she goes to such lengths to NOT favor anyone. Anyway... he's just all around content and easygoing. If Ben had been like this, I might have had Simon about two years sooner. LOL!

Almost ready for Christmas over here... can't wait for the downtime with Tom home and all the boys in one place. :)

Cookie Day: Part Deux...

We had another Cookie Day for the kiddos yesterday at my in-laws' house since my mother-in-law had been sick last week for our other one.

Here are the standard "kids putting way too much stuff on top of sugar cookies" shots --






I think Ben won the award for thickest sugar coating layer.

Jonathan hovered above the action and supervised... weird to think he'll probably be old enough to participate in this next year.


Then it was time for our newer tradition: The decking of the Unbreakables Tree in the basement.

Once upon a time, my inlaws thought it would be fun to let the grandkids help decorate their actual Christmas tree. The one that sits on top of ceramic tile between their kitchen and family room. A nice idea in theory; but a lot of ornaments were destroyed. And so, the Unbreakables Tree was born. The end.

Simon contemplates his ornament placement...


Anastasia hangs one on the oft-neglected back of the tree


Pausing to say, "Cheese." I love how our kids are all so used to/annoyed with/tired of the constant paparazzi whenever they do something that they'll notice someone taking their picture and will actually just start saying, "Cheese!" without even looking up from what they are doing. It's a bonus when I actually get one of them looking at the camera.


Simon and Anastasia choosing ornaments to hang -- where's Ben? Oh, he's nearly seven, don't you know. He lost interest in this project about two minutes in and wanted to watch whatever sport was on the tv in the room at the time. (sigh)


Oh wait, here he is... he made a brief reappearance when he and Anastasia located the beaded garland.




Several spots on the tree looked like this. ;)


Aunt Sarah helping Anastasia fix a hook. Is Anastasia's hair bow driving you insane too looking at these pics? We ALL kept trying to fix it but she wouldn't let us. LOL! Finally, I couldn't take it anymore and I slipped it off the pigtail when she walked by me. She turned around and was all, "Hey, wait, where's my bow go?" "Oh look! Here it is! Let me put it back in for you!" ;)


Giving Baby J a kiss on the head -- she proudly told her Uncle Tom - "*I* have a baby too now!! Baby Alek is MY baby!"


Just hanging out with daddy


After Cookie Day, we made a very brief stop at Marc and Krystyna's to see the baby, who is so sweet and yummy and newbornish. Way better than a cookie!




And here's a shot that gave me total deja vu. My poor second and third borns weren't the newest for long. I almost dreaded taking this picture because I knew suddenly, Jonathan was going to practically look like a toddler to me next to his new cousin. (sigh) How do they get so big so FAST?! Didn't I just have him?


So that was our day... we pushed it a little too far (probably shouldn't have gone to see the baby after Cookie Day) because Simon had a complete meltdown on the ride home. He hadn't eaten because he didn't want the chicken soup Nanee had made for lunch and he was SO tired on top of that. I felt so sorry for him. :( Today is a more low-key day. The kids and Tom are just going to play and I'm baking all day... so yay for home! :)