Our roadtrip started out with a lovely evening/night/morning in Oberlin. We ate at our favorite restaurants, saw a few friends from college, and stayed in a lovely house on Cedar St.
Then we headed on to Rochester, where Bennett met my grandmother - Grandma Elaine - and we saw my aunt Ellen and her family....and completely forgot to get out the camera because we're lame!!!! I am so disappointed that we have no pictures of Bennett with Grandma Elaine :-(
After Rochester, we headed off to Princeton to see Grandma Joan. We had a blast! Here are some of the pictures from that leg of the trip. Bennett started doing and saying many new things while we were travelling - some of which is captured in pictures :-)
Bennett practiced climbing (this is at a sculpture garden I love called Grounds for Sculpture).
He fed sticks to "Lester."
He got a haircut, so pre-haircut pictures were required!
We thought the long hair looked pretty funny when upside-down.
Alright....here we go!
The woman who cut Bennett's hair was wonderful! She was so patient, and just gave him all the combs he was interested in. It actually didn't take long at all. There were no tears, and I didn't even have to hold him still!
You can see the curls that were on the back of his head. Goodbye, sweet curls!
Gasp! You can see his eyes without moving his hair aside!
He looks like such a big boy!!!
Bennett got more and more proficient with Duplos while we were at Grandma Joan's. He also learned the word "hat," and EVERYTHING (and I mean EVERYTHING) became a hat. He puts something on his head and says, "hat!" Even if it won't stay on his head. He just holds it there and says, "hat!" Anyhow - this is "Dada" with an awesome hat.
This is right before Bennett came over and took the hat off of me. I think it's a pretty awesome picture!
I can't believe I have such a photogenic kid!After Grandma Joan's, we drove out to Ocean City to see my aunt, Sharon, and her family. We spent a few days on the beach, and Bennett had a blast.
Returning from the water looking for "Dada," I'm sure. He always keeps tabs on us parents, lest we stay out past our curfew!
Matt built him a sand tower, and he tried like crazy to put the bucket back on the tower.
Remember the bowl of water in the kitchen? He still puts his right foot in...Now we're back home in Indiana, and Bennett continues to astound us daily with some revelation or other. A couple favorites:
-Last week, Matt made pizza. Pizza-making produces enough smoke to set of the smoke alarm. Matt, of course, stands under the smoke alarm as it goes off and waves a towel until it stops beeping. So, as Matt is making pizza last week, the alarm goes off. Bennett was with me at the back of the house and he LEAPS into action. I see him grab a cloth wipe (he takes them out of the laundry basket and strews them about the house) and run off with it, but I didn't think anything of it - figured he was going to check out the commotion in the kitchen. Actually, he went and stood under the smoke alarm and waved the wipe wildly!
-He's apparently been listening when we tell him to avoid the dog poop ("yuck, Buddy! Dog poop!") because now he says, "poop! Yuck." And he won't go near it! Which is great with the dog poop, but had unintended consequences as well...
I got his diaper off as he was pooping this week, and he pooped on the potty. Awesome! Except...I then showed him that he pooped in the potty, and he said, "poop! Yuck." And backed away from it. Now he refuses to sit on his potty! So.....
-I got out the little adapter ring for the toilet. He thinks it's AWESOME! He just sits there and signs "bird" (It's an Elmo and Big Bird ring that I got from a friend) and points to Elmo and says, "cat!" When he pees, or when we put the poop from his diaper in the toilet, he gets to flush it and he thinks that is the COOLEST thing. He also now joins us when we go to the bathroom so he can flush the toilet. It's the little things in life!
-Bennett is also quite the little daredevil at the pool.... He likes to go to the deepest part of the baby pool (about 2 feet deep), walk around (it's shoulder-deep - he can hardly stay standing!), and then SIT DOWN. He goes under water! And when I quickly get him back up, he tries to go limp so he can go back under! He loves it! He also wanders around walking on his hands (with his body parallel to the bottom of the pool, if that makes sense?) and goes as deep as he can before his face is in the water and I'm, once again, scooping him up.
He has also run over to the big pool a couple times and I feared he would just jump right in! (I, of course, was right behind him and prevented that from happening!)
So, that's basically what's going on around here. We're really having a blast. Bennett is currently up screaming during the night because he has a nasty molar coming in (we're giving him Motrin, and it helps, but the last corner is looking pretty painful), but other than that he is sleeping sooooo much better than he did during his first year. He says new things all the time, and is really very pleasant and so much fun to be with. He follows lots of directions and loves to help us do things. He even brough in a giant package of paper towels from the car today. It occupied him the entire time we brought in groceries and was adorable to watch. He had such a look of joy on his face when he got it to the house!
He's generally fairly compliant when asked nicely to stop something, or put something back, or to do something....unless he's tired. All bets are off if he is tired, of course!
1 comment:
Dang it! We missed you when you swung this way! Boo :(
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