Be daring, sons

Ben's newfound ability to get both feet off the ground at the same time has reawakened his interest in climbing. For months now, he's used a step to climb onto the couch, I've had to pick him up and set him on his dinner chair, and even hold his hand going up the stairs. Not anymore! Now I look over to discover he's standing on the back of the couch, ready to jump.

A long time ago, I decided not to say, "be careful" any more than absolutely necessary. If Ben is going to do it anyway, I'm not going to caution him to be careful when he does it. I'll save the caution for necessary things, like staying out of the street, where "be careful" means "stop right now."

But if he wants to jump off the furniture, what good would it do to tell him to jump carefully? Nope. Jump with wild abandon, son! Come crashing down at nine point eighty six meters per second squared and glory in every bit of it! Get up higher and jump again!

Simon is already bouncing his way over to Ben. They'll egg each other on, I'm sure. We should take bets on which one falls out of the tree in the backyard first. Well, I guess Simon has to learn to walk first. But we've got a couple great climbing trees in the backyard, just waiting for boys to fall out of!

A few weeks ago, I was walking in the neighborhood and passed a house with several kids in the front yard, having an important meeting. The screen of the second story window was on the ground next to them, and there was a sheet hung out the window. A kid was leaning out the window, waiting for the decision on how she was going to get down out of the window. I offered up a very adult, "be careful!" as I walked past. I hope Dirk teaches the boys how to tie good knots, so when they decide to rappel down the house, the sheets don't come untied. I also hope I don't know anything about it until they're either safely on the ground, or home from the emergency room.

Every so often, Ben comes down harder than he planned, and he wails like the world just ended. I cuddle him and pick him up and dust him off. Then, when he climbs right back up to jump off again, I bite back the "be careful" and cheer him on.

Ben's new bed

Ben is in a big boy bed! Once he got used to it, he has even gone back to taking afternoon naps on most days, which is wonderful.

This must be a boy thing

Ben let one rip when I was changing his diaper this morning. He laughed and laughed and laughed. I told him that was a "toot". His new word of the day is "toot". He was so excited by his toot that he demanded "again!" I'm sorry, son, but you just can't do that on demand. After several demands of "again!" and a failure to produce another toot, he had a tantrum meltdown.

You know, it's just impossible to discipline a child for throwing a tantrum when he's just upset he can't toot when he wants to. Oh, the despair! I cuddled him until he felt better about his gastrointestinal inadequacy.

Ben and cousins

This erosion table thing is just such a good place to take pictures because the kids stay in one place long enough to get photographed. Ben really got into building walls and rivers this time, because he had Makae and Cade and Ethan showing him what to do. He had dirt up to his elbows and clear down to his waist. That was one happy little boy when his cousins showed him how this erosion table is supposed to work.

Simon at the museum

Shawn and Kris and their kids came down for an afternoon at the Dinosaur Museum. Kris is homeschooling two of her kids, so this was officially a field trip. Simon got to play with his Uncle Shawn.

More cuzzins!

Simon got to go hang out with Emma too! Coincidentally, Kecia was also there. We had a good visit, comparing chubby babies and laughing at their antics.

Cuzzins

Ben went to visit his cousin, Emma. He took along his favorite toy, a green plastic caterpillar that he calls his bee. He was quite happy to play with Emma's toys, but was pretty possessive of his bee. Emma was curious about the new toy, and persisted in trying to get it. In the video clip, Emma had gotten the bee while Ben wasn't paying attention.