Benjamin 2.0

Benjamin's second birthday was an Easter-stravaganza, since both holidays landed on the same day this year.  This won't happen very often, since the date of Easter Sunday is highly variable (22 March to 25 April), calculated using the Papal supercomputers in Rome and the following mathematical  algorithm:

Easter Julian Day = a * z/3 (d + 2x)

a = date of the full moon in March (but it's not a pagan holiday!)
z = number of pigeons observed on St. Peter's Basilica during last year's Easter mass
d = number of roman numerals following current Pope's name
x = number of years since Galileo exonerated for sin of objectively observing nature

There was a practice Easter egg hunt at Benjamin's daycare on Thursday.  He proved to be an expert hunter of the prized plastic ovoids.

Unfortunately, he insisted on opening each one after he found it.  Each time he did this, the candy fell on the ground (see below). This slowed him down considerably and allowed the other kids to procure some of my, er, his candy.

He understood only one guiding rule for the activity: Find Easter eggs.  Therefore, he could not really be faulted when he later started "finding" eggs in the baskets of some of the other kids.

Benjamin's friend Payton was not as enthusiastic about egg hunting as some of the other kids, so Benjamin shared some of his hard-won Starburst with her.  Ladies Man.  I wonder where he got that?

Later that day we drove up to Blacksburg, and the next morning we drove to Harrisonburg so I could give a seminar to my undergraduate geology department at JMU.  The three professors that had the biggest influence on my career are still there, after almost 25 years.  It was great to see the folks in the department and see my old stompin' grounds, and stomp around on them again with Claire and Benjamin.

Back to Blacksburg and Grandpa and Grandma's house for the big birthday celebration!  Grandma's sister Aunt Sandy and Uncle George drove in for the occasion, and Aunt Larissa and Uncle Eric were there too.

We divided the day into halves; morning was for Easter activities, and later we had birthday activities.  Having honed his egg-hunting skills in the crucible of the cutthroat competitive hunt at daycare just days before, this lone hunt was just too easy for him. 

Next year I'll hide them in locations that are high above the ground.  This will add more of a multi-dimensional challenge to the activity, and will be more like my own childhood experience of finding eggs on top of bookshelves and picture frames.  I envisioned the Easter Bunny as a 6-foot-tall, lumbering, buck-toothed giant of a rabbit.  Possibly rabid.  Easter morning was somewhat frightening as a result.  One did not want to catch that massive creature in your living room while it was hiding those eggs.  Shudder.

 Happy Easter Birthday!

 Where's my cake??!!

 Check out my new wheels!

 Toys! Toys!  Toys! 

 More toys!

 And the Terrible Twos begin!

"Sure"

He learned the word "no" long before he learned "yes."  But recently he's decided to use a different word: "Sure."  When he started doing this, we weren't "sure" what he was saying; it sounds like "Shuw" (i.e. his r sounds like a w).  He is now widely known at daycare as the kid that says "sure" all the time (as opposed to "dis?", which was his trademark word last year).

He was crying one night at bedtime (probably another tooth coming in), and he wanted me to pick him up out of the crib and rock him, so he was saying "Rocking chair, sure?!"  One does not usually use the word "sure" when one is crying one's eyes out, so I didn't get it at first.  Anyway, I picked him up and rocked him for a while.  Am I a sucker?  Sure I am.

Reports from the Field

Every day Benjamin comes home from daycare with a written report from his teachers.  They are mostly designed to show us the wonderful and multifaceted educational experience he experiences during the day.  Much of the report is xeroxed and applies to all students in the class (e.g. activities like "Today we attempted to pull up our pants after diapering"), but there are also personal notes about his eating, sleeping, and pooping, which is good because we really just want to know if he ate his lunch, took a nap, and if he injured himself in some way.

His current teacher in the First Steps room is Ms. Naya, and she has the frustrating habit of writing "Ben had a good day today" on the reports.  Every day.  We know damn well he's not really having a good day every day.  There's no way a large group of toddlers is not constantly on the edge of barbaric, Lord-of-the-Flies-like chaos. Sometimes Ms. Naya will actually tell us things when we pick him up, like, he didn't nap, or he was bitten three times by one of the other kids.  Still, the report says ""Ben had a good day today."  It's daycare propaganda, pure and simple.

Think of This as an Online Refrigerator

Some of Benjamin's artistic accomplishments from the past few months.

11-10-2010

"Breaking the Surface" describes the seething inner turmoil one feels during teething.  Note how he attacked the canvas with his crayon and the prodigious use of warm colors.

12-03-2010

"Former Food" describes the journey of personal sustenance, from a temporary existence in the form of ordered shapes (e.g. toroidal cheerios) that obey certain structural rules, into, via a complex organic inner metamorphosis, the smelly crap that gets dumped in your diaper.

 

1-11-2011

"A Winter Maelstrom" describes the unique experience of walking in a snowstorm while bundled up under 19 layers of onesies, sweaters, coats, two scarves, a hat and hood. Even when you are outside, you are still inside, really.

1-24-2011

"Random Colored Lines" shows what an overly enthusiastic toddler does when you give him some paper and a couple of crayons.

[By the way, if the retard geek that wrote this software for Blogger would give me a call, I'd be very happy to hurl obscenities at you for as long as you are willing to listen.  Your software sucks. I hate you.]

It's Potty Time

There's big news all over out there.  The Japanese continue to confront the threat of nuclear meltdowns and aftershocks.  Revolution is spreading across the Middle East.  This is important big-people-type news.  But the biggest news of all is that BENJAMIN WENT PEE PEE IN HIS POTTY !!!!!!!

He's done it three times.  I'd like to report that he is learning how to go to the bathroom like the rest of us, but he really has no idea what's going on.  We plunk him down, sans diaper, before he takes a bath at night. He sits there, pantsless. We sing songs. Sooner or later, something is deposited in the bowl.  We then praise him, to a level that is more appropriate for someone who has just won the nobel prize or saved a bunch of nuns from a burning building.  We also give him M&Ms. We saw this pottly-training method "on John and Kate Plus 8." If they can train 8 kids with M&Ms, we can damn sure train one kid.

But he doesn't get it yet.  After he peed in his little toilet last night, he took his bath and then before we could get him dressed, he wandered into the guest room and peed on the floor.

 

Kempa and Gemma also visited from Florida! 

The highlight of the visit was the crazy gymnastics on the yoga balls.

We're not sure if he wore them out, or they wore him out.

 

Thinking Inside the Box

As long-time cat owners (our practice children), we are very familiar with the compulsion of cats to get into boxes.  Sophie, in particular, would spend much of her life in a box, the smaller the better.  We left this box lying around for the cats to crash in.

We suspect that Benjamin sometimes might think that he is just another member of our cat herd.  The most important evidence for this is his occasional attempts to drink out of the cats' water dish.  So he figured that if the cats like boxes, maybe he'd like it too.

We're not sure which side of the family this behavior comes from.



Artsy Fartsy. And Creepy.

Title: "My Butterfly"
Artist: Benjamin
Date 4-14-2011

He did this at daycare.  I wonder how long it took them to clean the blue and purple paint off of Benjamin, the floor, and, the walls.  And possibly the ceiling.

 

Flower Power

The dandelions are bloomin'.

Many of our azaleas are transpalnted from Kimpa and Gimma's house in Great Falls.  We will have to re-transplant a few to Charleston.  I'm actually taking photos of the azaleas to post on real estate websites.  "Come buy this house and you get this beautiful bonus garden absolutely free!"

Giant Mall Rodent

Benjamin met the Easter Bunny at the Mall today.  Intimidated at first, he soon warmed up to the giant rodent and gave it a high-five.

This photo was taken with my cellphone camera, which has only 8 pixels.  The bunny, Benjamin, and Claire are the brown, blue, and green blurs, respectively.

Man Overboard

We've been concerned about this upcoming milestone for months: someday, he's going to be tall enough to climb out of his crib.  That day suddenly came last weekend; we had just put him in the crib for his nap, and I was sitting there chatting him up for a bit before he went to sleep.  It was unusually warm that day so he didn't have the 'sleep sack' on that he normally wears.  This garment also apparently has the added benefit of acting like a straight jacket, confining his movements and preventing him from climbing out.  While I watched, he got a leg up on the top of the rail and in position to hurl himself over into the abyss below.  I let him continue, just to see what he was capable of, and I called Claire to come and watch.  She arrived just in time to see him roll over the top and into my waiting arms.  He can get loose.  We put the sleep sack back on him for the nap.

He's come a long way since the days when he first learned to sit up in bed back in February of last year.

His ability to escape is a huge deal, because we actually like putting him to bed at night and resting assured that he'll stay there safe and sound, and that we'll find him in the same spot the next morning.  Now, he has access to the entire planet.  I expect to find him some morning in front of the TV with the remote in his chubby little hands, trying to "watch a movie music."

Our neighbors Dick and Robin gave us a toddler bed, but we'll have to childproof a bedroom for him and figure out how to prevent him from escaping.  He's learning to turn doorknobs too.

Another milestone: he's trying to dress himself!

He lacks coordination, but he's putting in the effort.

We'd be a lot more proud if he wasn't putting his pants on his head and his shirt on his legs.

  

Perpetual Motion Kid

He is in non-stop motion.  Something is always moving; arms, legs, head, everything.  He rolls around on the floor.  He runs.  He flails, and then spins around until he gets dizzy.  He picks things up.  He puts them down.  He climbs on chairs, and then he climbs off without ever actually pausing to just sit in the chair.  There is much to be done.  And dammit, he's going to do it all, right now.  

It's actually quite difficult to photograph him sometimes because by the time you have him in the frame, he's gone.  He's in the next room. 

(When you view this photo, make a bullet-shooting-off sound, like "p-chow!"  Or the roadrunner cartoon "meep-meep!" and then "p-chow!")

He is a blur of high-speed toddler.  Except when we go to pick him up in order to get him to go somewhere that he doesn't want to go (inside, from outside), or to do something that he doesn't want to do (put on his shoes or his jammies).  Then he goes completely limp in your arms and tries to ooze out of your grasp.  Have you ever tried to put a coat on a 30 lb bag of jello?  That's what it's like.  At these times, we say that he has "gone boneless."

Look at this sweet child.  The photo below was taken in Charleston last week, while Claire was talking to the Chair of our new geology department.  It looks like he's saying something, doesn't it?  Do you know what this sweet precious boy is saying in this photo? "In a little while, when Mommy is talking to the Dean, I'm going to flail around and wedge myself between two chairs and then scream bloody murder while Daddy tries to extract me and then sheepishly drag me out into the hallway."