Benjamin Sayings

Benjamin has been acting up lately which is probably due to Lamoni being busier and me splitting my attention between him and Peter and all the other gazillions of things a mom does. I sat him down one day and asked him to just tell me when he needs attention instead of acting up. So now he tells me, "I need attention!" It's really cute.

I took him into Michael's with me one day. While we were in there he asked the name of the store. I told him and he said, "Then where's Michael?" The rest of the time in there he was calling out Michael's name looking for him (my brother, Michael, who is on his mission).

Me: Will you rub my feet?
Benjamin: Daddy will rub your feet when he gets home.
Me: But I want YOU to rub my feet!
Benjamin: But daddy LOVES kissing your feet and rubbing you!

"Mom, you want to hear my great idea? Uhhhhhhhhhhh. Ummmmmmmmmm. Uhhhhhh. My great idea is to clean up my toys!"

He was talking to a kid at a playground and asked him what his favorite color was. The boy answered and then pointing to Lamoni, Benjamin said "Our favorite color is blue." He does and says everything that Lamoni does!

Benjamin has been testing the limits with how he treats Peter. He has been"hurting" him - more testing us than actually hurting Peter. After he did that in the car Lamoni and I quietly were discussing what we could do to stop it. We were trying to come up with something that we could do anywhere, that we didn't have to be home for (like nose in the corner). We finally decided on taking one of his toys (he always has a toy with him) and keeping it in sight but out of reach til the next day. I didn't think he could hear us, but after we said that he said, "I think you should just put me in my bedroom when I hurt Peter." Haha! Needless to say, the toy thing has worked really well.

I handed Benjamin his ice cream sandwich and he said, "Mom, can you blow it up (warm it up) in the microwave please? It's cooold!"

Tear jerkers (for me at least):

We were at a store and he kept taking stickers off of the shelf and showing me. I was preoccupied trying to figure out what I was getting so I was absent-mindedly responding to him. At one point he was sooo excited about some sticker and I said without looking, "That's nice. Now please put it back." He responded, "Will you just smile, Mommy?" I looked up and saw the cutest little boy holding up American flag stickers next to his face. I smiled at him and he gave me a huge smile back and ran and put them on the shelf. It made me wish I had looked at each sticker he showed me.

"Do you love holding my hand, Mom?"

Lately he has been very into playing with people. Every 5 minutes it seems he is asking me to play with him. I try to make time to play, but I just don't play boy as well as Lamoni does! So he bosses me around and tells me how to play Batman, Star Wars, trains, cars and all those other things I don't have much experience playing. Kids his age aren't that into playing together yet, and older kids usually dismiss him as too young to play with, but he yearns to play with them! He runs up to kids and asks them their name but usually they don't answer. Sometimes he gives them one of his toys in hopes they'll play with him. It broke my heart the other day while leaving the playground he said sadly, "Nobody would play with me so I just played by myself." I am joining a Joy School preschool coop that has 3-4 year olds so I hope that fills that hole of friendship he misses.

The other thing that gets me is how lately he asks me, "Mom, are you mad at me or do you love me?" I have to really watch how I say things to him because he gets so sad if I'm mad at him! He must get that from me. My parents never really had to discipline me because it was enough if I knew they weren't happy with me.