An explanation

Posting has been light the past few weeks because I was in the midst of Health Drama. I had a polyp in my bladder, which was removed on Friday. I'm overjoyed to report the tests came back negative, meaning there were no cancer cells. Which you better believe I made the nurse tell me explicitly. I don't want any of that sitcom confusion in which "negative" really means, "Oh, isn't it negative how you have cancer?" But, I'm positive she said negative, so it's all good. :)

Obviously I had some recovery time, so Heath was on full-time Ben duty all weekend. Then my dad came over on Monday to wrangle the boy. So I really didn't see much of him for three days. It's amazing that even though he's almost two, Ben's still changing everyday. I don't always notice it since I'm with him so much, but this weekend it was really magnified.

He's starting to speak in sentences. His main sentence is, "I see (whatever)." It's going to be totally bizarre when he can have actual conversations. And apparently over the weekend he learned how to go down the porch steps all by himself, without even holding on to anything!

My recovery is going smoothly. I'm still taking it easy this week, which means Ben's been forced to walk a lot more (evil mommy!), but that's definitely for the best. I work out, but the kid is getting heavy to lug around. Hopefully soon I'll be back to normal and this will all just be a memory.

Happiness is...

Taking your son to the zoo and watching him laugh at the penguins with pure, unadulterated joy.

Wow

Though Ben's birthday isn't for a few months I think we just experienced our first terrible two tantrum. It originated because he wanted to play an iPod game and I asked him to say, "Please." Most of his cohorts in playgroup say please and thank you (in some form or another), so it's past time for us to start teaching Ben. However, when I didn't immediately give him the iPod he flipped out. At first I tried getting him to just say please, but he wouldn't stop crying.

Then I went into ignoring mode. I tidied the kitchen and re-stocked his diaper bag all to the tune of screaming. When he started throwing magnets from the refrigerator I intervened, but I ignored him for a good 10 minutes. To no avail. So I tried to calm him down with hugs and singing and soft talking. Also to no avail. Obviously at some point he forgot what the tantrum was originally about and switched to insisting on having his binky. Well, that wasn't happening while he threw a fit so I tried various tactics to get him to calm down. Eventually after about 45 minutes of this he calmed down enough to read The A Book and now he's taking a nap.

Holy crap, people. I'm not even sure what to say. I'm proud that I didn't lose my cool, because I felt like I could've several times during that tirade. Now I just have a headache.

The bye-bye effect

Ben's newest thing is to say "bye" to everything. He says bye to people, to animals, to food when I put it away in the refrigerator, to the TV when we turn it off, to toys, etc.

The ultimate, however, was when I was changing his diaper this week and he said, "Bye-bye, poop!"

Ben's safari

Elephant!

Chimps!

Penguins!

Hippo!

Snake! (not real)

Being attacked by Feeding goats!

 Heath has really let himself go. :)

Oh, those fatherly pearls of wisdom

Yesterday morning Heath made pancakes for the second week in a row! While doing so, he jauntily said, "Ben, do you know what we say when we flip pancakes?" Now, according to Heath what he was going to say was, "Batter's up!" (Because, yes, he's that father.) However, in the process of flipping the pancake his hand brushed the very hot pan and instead what he said was, "Ow! Mother f-er!" Except he filled in that entire last word.

Now, of course I was concerned with his hand, but I have to admit that my first reaction was to LAUGH MY ASS OFF. Seriously, I had to grasp the sink to hold myself up. That was a classic Borders Family Moment.

Animal Noises

This video features a very truncated version of the dinosaur noise. Imagine it longer, louder and more high pitched.

Things that blow my mind

Thing 1: One day on the playground there were a couple teenagers hanging out behind some of the equipment. They weren't smoking or doing anything besides talking, so it didn't bother me. When Ben wandered over they said hi and continued their conversation while he played in the little tree house. I sat down nearby to keep an eye on him and after about a minute I realized that the teenagers really didn't want me there. They were probably 16 years old and though I may have been closer to their age than their parents' age, I was An Authority and thus cramping their style.

Thing 2: When it's raining or too hot/cold to play outside sometimes we'll go to Monkey Joe's, which has inflatable slides and bounce houses. Last time we were there I realized that they were playing all 80's and 90's music over the sound system. It made sense because that's when most of the parents were kids or teenagers and would thus appreciate the music. But it's so weird to be marketed to as a parent. I'm still not used to it.

What's Chewbacca?... Wookie!

I've tried to keep a list of all the words Ben can say, but they're coming fast and furious now so it's impossible to track. He says probably 60+ individual words and maybe half a dozen two word phrases. His current favorite is "go outside." As Heath said on Twitter, "When you're used to hearing only single words, two-word phrases sound profound."

Ben's also learning animal noises but some of them are pretty loose interpretations. I'll try to post a video soon, because they're just weird. As revenge for Heath's "Lessons in Annoying Your Parents" to Colin, our friends Pat and Beth taught Ben this god-awful dinosaur noise. It's a high pitched screech suitable for frightening animals or peeling paint off your walls. Of course, these are also the people who taught their son, when asked, "What does a Shatner say?" to respond with, "Khaaaaaaaaan!"

Heart attack commencing...

In the last month, assisted by a growth spurt, Ben has become a very good climber. He's starting to get the idea that he can climb onto a chair to get an item out of reach. This is a Very Bad Thing. Almost nothing in the house is safe now, especially Ben himself.

Yesterday was the ultimate. I put him in his room while I took a shower, which I've done many times. This time, however, when I came back into the room he was sitting on top of his changing table, grinning from ear to ear. At first my mind boggled as to how he got up there on his own, and then I noticed his plastic chair pushed up against the diaper pail. The little sneak made himself a staircase!

From here it's only a short journey before he's jumping off the roof.