You gotta have fwends!

All of this past week Ben enjoyed the company of my friend/ex-coworker's little girl, Grady (her usual babysitter was out of town). It was fascinating to see how the two of them interacted with each other and how similar and completely different two toddlers can be. It also give me hope that I will one day be able to manage having two kids of my own (although I'm am extremely thankful twins don't run in the family!!).

peek-a-boo!

In other Benben news, he is no longer drinking any formula at all (although he still drinks 3-5 bottles of whole milk each day/night). Not having to mix up formula each night, and saving $120 a month is pretty nice! Another pleasant new development is that this past week Ben slept 4 nights in a row without needing me to get up with him at all. Since then he's gone back to needing me at least once a night, but I can see a glimmer of hope for restful nights in my future now!

kitty snugs

a two-toddler Walmart adventure

Ben continues to amaze and delight us with his new communication skills. I can't think of all of the additional words and concepts he has down now, but some of the newest ones are "toyeeee!" (toy), "mouf" (mouth), "eyeeeeee", and "poke" (for his porcupine puppet). He also handed me a yellow block this morning and said "yellu".

He makes the most interesting connections, too: the other day he held up a square of cardboard and said "hat", and I said something like, "does it go on your head?" But instead he placed the cardboard on top of a box and repeated "hat".... so in his mind "hat" is something that goes on top of something else... a "box hat". Which makes perfect sense, of course.

Of course, with new communication also comes new issues, like saying "hug" and "diap" (diaper) when we're trying to put him to bed at night so that he prolongs having to go to sleep.

shape toys I made Ben from an old cutting board

look, Ma! One foot!

first time correctly stabbing and eating food with a fork