Oh say what you say...

Benjamin: "mommy... aleb cry..... check him."

I made the mistake of standing caleb up on my lap (when benjamin was around) and I would sing "shake shake shake.... shake shake shake.... shake your booty" (yeah good choice mom) now Benjamin has picked up on it and will now walk up to me, out of the blue, and say "mom mom... shake ya booty."

Today will be the first time Benjamin has been in the nursery at church since he realized he could say this phrase.. I am praying he won't say it to the other kids or the nursery workers.. we might get kicked out of church.

Benjamin has an incredible desire/obsession with cooking. He wants every moment I am in the kitchen to help me cook. He has a little step stool he calls his ladder and he stands next to me at the counter and makes a complete mess of whatever I am doing, but he LOVES it. He will have his spoon and look at me and say "mix it, mom mom" He will stand near the spice bottles and pull them out one by one pretending to add spices to his creation. He even has a bowl and spoon in the bathtub for his culinary bath. He uses little blocks as his salt and pepper. He fills his bowl with water and then he will pick up a block "peppa" and add some in.. "Mix it up"... "salt, mix it up" He just truely enjoys cooking. Maybe he will be a famous chef on food network!

Benjamin is also really into "tools" right now. He talks about a toolbox all the time! "fix it, toolbox" he will say. He wants to play with daddy's drill and "tape measure." He often gets out the tape measure and measures Caleb and then will come over and measure my arm and leg.

Most recently Benjamin has begun the mimicking stage... He will repeat ANYTHING you say. I had very open ears last night as daddy and a friend were watching football with Benjamin in the room. Often if i get really really frustrated I will just growl/groan in order to not use bad language and I have noticed benjamin will copy even that. He thinks it is funny, but I don't want to teach him this type of behavior... It is really hard being a mom!

We have also reached the time in our lives that in order to go to the bathroom alone you have to lock the door. Benjamin has learned how to open all the doors in the house. It has added a new deminsion to our parenting.

Yesterday he went into his room (opened the door and went in) and decided he was going to try and pet his fish. I noticed I had not heard him in a while and found him in his room with water all over the place... daddy came in and got him and said Benjamin, were you trying to pet your fish? Benjamins reply "yep"

Thats all for now...