This will be a text only update because our computer crashed! More on that later.
Benjamin:
Added to his imaginary friend now, is an imaginary dog. He has a leash and everything. I have to be careful so I don't step on him when I'm around Benjamin.
He has been attending Joy School on Tuesday and Thursday mornings from 9:45-12:15 and absolutely loves it. He was a little nervous with me dropping him off the first day (actually, the first day I attended with him to observe, which was a disaster, but he was fine with me dropping him off after that). There are five families in our coop and four of them are little boys, and one little girl - the exact same as his cello group class! We carpool with Matthias so I am able to stay home on Thursdays and teach while he is gone. He sings the songs and talks about what they learned all the time. He calls the Bean's van the "Sister Bean School Bus" and it's especially cool because it has a TV in it!
Speaking of TV, he is so desparate for a TV that he props his book up on the couch, sits in front of it while staring at the page and uses one of his animal cards as the "remote". He clicks the remote, turns the page and keeps on watching. He's so proud that he has a TV. We don't even have a laptop anymore to watch movies on! Poor guy. Haha
These are his last couple weeks of having a 2 year old. It was a great year. In my mind he is already 3 so I don't think it will be too different.
This morning was General Conference - a broadcast from our church leaders - so we had a late relaxed morning. Benjamin climbed into bed with us, looked at Peter and said, "Peter is white like you and I'm brown like daddy. But you are light white and Peter is dark white." He is so observant!
Last night Benjamin said, "Dang!" then looked at us because he knows he's not supposed to say that. Lamoni said, "Benjamin, we don't say that in our family." He replied, "Yes you do!" Haha. Lamoni couldn't say anything back because it's true, Lamoni slips and says it often (I'm sure I do too).
During general conference Benjamin happily played with his blocks and legos for hours on the floor. We borrowed one of my parents' laptops to watch it. He would randomly yell out words he recognized while listening. It was really cute.
Benjamin was singing Praise to the Man and got to the part that says "kings shall extol him" and said, "Mommy, the kings stole?!?"
When I put Peter down for his nap Benjamin goes through all the drama as if I were putting HIM down! "Don't put him down for a nap! He's not tired! He wants to play with me! Pleeeeaaase!!!" All while sobbing hysterically holding onto me trying to keep me from bringing Peter to his bed. Meanwhile Peter is completely content sucking his thumb and doesn't cry at all (if I get him down on time, despite Benjamin).
We told him to close his eyes for prayer and he said, "No! Cuz then I can't see!" Lol. He insists it hurts to close his eyes. This could be why he has never liked to go to sleep. He still cries/plays for 1-2 hours before going to sleep most nights and nap times are torture for him. I don't know why he hates sleep so much. At cello group class they were playing a game and usually he does such a good job obeying. However, the teacher told them to close their eyes for a game and Benjamin flat out refused. Would not, no matter what. So luckily the teacher left it. How do you explain that quirk to a teacher..."My son resists closing his eyes in all circumstances, sorry, don't even try."
Peter:
Still sucks his thumb all the time! He is officially 4 months old now. He loves to play with toys and grabs and lunges for them when he comes close to them. He is also very interested in food and has managed to grab our plates and bowls while we eat.
Lamoni propped him up on his fat legs and he was able to sit up for quite a few seconds.
My month-long quest of sleep research to help Peter stay a good sleeper has paid off! We have a great sleeper on our hands!! There are still a couple of kinks to work out but for the most part I'm very happy with it. He goes down for his naps absolutely no problem. He still sleeps in the rock and play next to my bed. If I get him on time for his nap before he's too tired I just sing him a song and lay him down and he goes to sleep sucking his thumb with no crying. If I wait too long and he's fussy then I rock him for a couple of minutes in the rock and play to calm him down and then I can leave him even while he's still awake and he'll go to sleep. He usually takes a nice nap in the morning, a 3 hour nap in the afternoon and a few other cat naps occasionally. At night it's still hit and miss but in general he nurses 1-2 times before his morning nurse at 6 and then goes back to sleep til 8 a.m. We tried to get him to have longer than a 5 hour stretch but he's just not ready for that yet.
He has started squealing with delight and gets so happy and excited when Lamoni comes back from work.
He likes to play in his bouncy seat and doesn’t spend much time in the swing anymore. In fact, I think it’s been over a week since I’ve put him in there.
He likes riding in the Ergo and I wear him when I go shopping. We shop weekly at Sprouts and they have small carts. Sometimes I’ve forgotten the Ergo so I have to stick the car seat in the cart and it literally takes up all the room so I don’t have any place to put the groceries. So I literally cover every part of the car seat with groceries. Too bad Benjamin is too small to push a cart himself.
He gives kisses when you ask for them (and sometimes when you don’t ask for them!) and it’s so adorable. Always full of slobber and he will give them over and over.
Lamoni and Hope:
Lamoni was finally hired on at the VA the last week of August, after waiting since APRIL when he had his interview. After missing the first paycheck he went to HR who sent him to payroll who sent him back to HR who told him they don't know why he wasn't getting paid. Finally after 5 weeks of working they paid him! In celebration of that, our transmission went out in our Mazda, our computer hard drive crashed with all of our pictures on it since we were married with no back up (I had an external hard drive on my list to get once he got paid...), our printer ran out of its precious $100 ink and a myriad of other small inconveniences that made it a blast! It was too the point where all we could do was laugh. Jarrett, Charity’s husband, spent a lot of time on our computer and was able to save all of the pictures and documents to an eternal hard drive! Yay Jarrett!
Lamoni came home from work on Thursday last week and was told by his supervisor to relax that night since he had his licensure test the next day. This test is a big deal. 4 hours long and pass/fail and is quite expensive to take. Well, he got home and rushed to show our Mazda to a potential buyer, but he no-showed us. We had made up our minds we absolutely had to buy a car that night because we had been searching every night. We drove to Rio Rancho not knowing which car we were going to buy, but knowing we were buying a car. There were two Toyota Highlanders we liked there – one from a private party and one from a dealership. We decided we would buy which ever took the lower offer from us. The dealership ended up taking $500 less so we turned right instead of left and started the process of buying a car! What a stressful thing! We got in there at 7:20, had to wait til 7:40 to start and were supposed to have a meeting at 8! We ended up being there til after 9 p.m. With two very tired children but it was our only chance to buy it since we weren’t both free at any point the next day. Between all the taxes and fees the car was $500 higher, so we could’ve technically bought the private one for lower mileage… Oh well. So we got home about 10 p.m. the night before his test. So much for a relaxing evening! He went to his test the next morning and got back at 4 p.m and passed!
I am enjoying teaching only 11 students and having time to actually make dinner every day and do some fun things with the kids. It’s still busy between preschool 2 mornings a week, cello 2 mornings a week and teaching the other mornings. It’s been a nice change, though!
