Benji the mimic

I know that children have a phase where they learn through mimicking. Benji is undoubtedly in that phase. Some of my favorites:

Nose blowing: With all of Daddy's allergies, Benji sees a lot of nose blowing. For a long time he just thought it was hysterical and would laugh wildly when Daddy blew his nose. Now if you give him a napkin, he will hold it to his face and blow. While this is generally more useful for getting him to wipe food off his face than for getting snot out of his nose, he has occasionally cleared his nose, too.

The telephone: While Benji hasn't yet gotten the hang of the fact that he needs to talk into the telephone, he does love to walk up to me or Daddy when we're on the phone and ask for the receiver. Then he just listens. So if you're ever calling us and suddenly hear dead air or heavy breathing, just keep talking. Benji loves to listen.

Hand sanitizing: After changing Benji's diaper if I think I won't get to the sink so quickly I'll use a bottle of hand sanitizer on his dresser. Last night when I was getting him ready for bed he stood up on the changing table and reached over to the dresser. Of course I thought he was trying to climb off the changing table. Instead he took one hand and touched the sanitizer pump and then brushed his hands together as if he were rubbing the imaginary liquid in. It was totally adorable!

Hair brushing: One of Benji's favorite pastimes is to open up the drawers in our bathroom and pull out every item one by one (don't worry — we've taken out the dangerous stuff). We find things all over the house (sealed toothbrushes in the kitchen, packages of dental floss in the family room, hairbrushes in the rec room, etc.). But whenever he comes to a hairbrush in the drawer, he stops and brushes his hair for a while. Sometimes he brushes with the handle, but most of the time he even gets the right end in his hair. We are more than happy to encourage these early attempts at personal care.

Kissing: Matthew first described Benji's kissing a few weeks back and we still see this on and off. He will hold his hand to his mouth and pull it away ceremoniously while saying "Mmmmmmmmah!" There's the cutest little uptick in his pitch at the end to give it good emphasis.

Mama: Building upon the "Mmmmmmmmah!" sound of kissing, we've been trying to get Benji to say mama. Last weekend he started saying the mama sound pretty well although he still doesn't associate it with Mommy. We're continuing to work on that one (or at least I am).

Household chores: Benji has been fascinates with the dishwasher for at least a month now, but in the last few days Benji has started helping Mommy put away the dishes. He will open the door and bring me the pots and their lids or the silverware, closing the door in between each item. And tonight for the first time I saw him sweep the floor. He walked up to the broom and started swishing it back and forth. Unfortunately he hit into the walls a few times with the top of the handle so I think we need to get him his own little broom.

Other cute tidbits:

Sippy cup: In the past few weeks Benji has gotten extremely good with his sippy cup. He will pick it up off the tray himself and turns it around so the spout is the right direction. We used to have to help him hold it high enough to get the liquid out, but he now seems to understand that he should do this (sometimes he still needs help, but he's doing it himself more consistently). And two days ago he even decided that the cup needed to go into the round hole on his tray and put it there. Since we never put the cup there, we thought that was a pretty good observation of Benji's.

Going out: After all the attention we paid to shoes (and particularly Ava's Crocs) over Christmas, Benji clearly understands that word now. Shortly after Christmas he figured what it means if Mommy says "Bring Mommy your shoe" and most of the time would comply. (Of course, sometimes it's Mommy's shoe, but most of the time it's his shoe.) Now he understands that this means we're going out and that he needs his shoes and his coat. He also tells us he wants to go out by either bringing us his shoe or by standing at the laundry room door to the garage and knocking on it. It's not uncommon for me to come home from work to find Benji "opening" the door and peeking into the garage for me. Now that's the way to come home!

Libellés : Benji

"Since the beginning of time, man has yearned to destroy the sun."

The two most important news stories of the week, and no one's covering them: First, the U.S. wants scientists to look at blocking the sun to help with global warming.

Oh, and then there's this little tidbit: DCA, a metabolic drug that's been available so long it's out of patent, also happens to kill lung, breast and brain cancer cells outside of the body, but not healthy cells. And "[tumors] in rats deliberately infected with human cancer also shrank drastically when they were fed DCA-laced water for several weeks." Yeah. You'd think you would have heard about this since the findings were released two weeks ago, but no.

Benji's Second Christmas, Round 2

As surprising as this sounds, I have very few photos of Christmas at my parents' house. Now mind you, this doesn't mean the photos don't exist. My mom and dad received a digital camera from my brother for Christmas so they more than made up for my picture drought. I've heard my dad took 500 pictures in the few days we were there so I'm looking forward to seeing them. So, for Christmas Round 2, I must refer you to my dad's blog entry from last month and the few photos I found below.


Despite the pile of presents, Benji again finds the bows to be the best part of Christmas morning.


Benji's new baby — an authentic 1980s Cabbage Patch Kid.


Benji loved doing laps of the house while we opened presents.

Benji's Second Christmas, Round 1

I've always believed that Christmas is a season, not just a single day, and this was truly evident this past Christmas. We celebrated Benji's second Christmas at home on Christmas Day, celebrated Christmas again on the 26th at Grandma & Grandpa's house, celebrated it once more in Wisconsin at Uncle Josh & Aunt Beth's house, and finished opening Santa's presents at our house in mid-January.

For Benji's first Christmas celebrations he was only 2 or 3 months old so he slept through most of the festivities and took several breaks to eat. This year he was certainly more participatory (although we still had to take a break for breakfast) but he didnt yet have a real idea what the fuss was all about. He enjoyed climbing up the pile of presents to pull the bows off the top boxes, but had no concept that ripping off the wrapping paper would lead to new toys. I'm honestly surprised that he didn't want to rip the paper off even after we showed him what to do. I suppose that's actually a good instinct so he isn't destroying our house on a regular basis, but it's a little disappointing on Christmas morning when I have the image of kids tearing open presents.

Benjamin's second Christmas (all celebrations) was wonderful. He was adorable wandering around and playing with bows and boxes while we opened our presents. But I'll let the photos tell the story. And eventually I'll get photos posted from the other Christmas celebrations.


Look at everything Santa brought!


With a lot of coaxing, Benji left his "signature" on Santa's letter. Can you see his scribbles?


Talk about unimpressed looking.


I think I'll use these boxes as stepping stones.


Bows were way more interesting than opening the boxes.


I'm pooped. Time to rest.


Is this for me?


More bows! Yippee!


Why can't I open this book sealed in shrink wrap?


Hugs for Mommy!


I think I like my old toys better.


Mmmm! These crescent cookies are great! No wonder Mommy loves them so much.


With so many new toys and presents, Benji goes to an old favorite and asks Daddy to read the "First Words" book.


One of the few presents Benji actually opened. He was generally unimpressed with the whole thing (except for the cookie and the bows).


But Daddy was impressed with several of his Christmas presents, including his Malmark handbell.

One step above not being mentioned at all, one step below actually receiving any prize money.

Sometime late last year, I entered my three-movement handbell and piano composition "The Sublime Numbers" in the 2006 SoundPrint Productions Handbell Composition Contest. (What is a "sublime number"? I'm so glad you asked.) This afternoon, I learned that "The Sublime Numbers" was one of two pieces awarded honorable mention in this contest. (There were two pieces awarded first place, so "TSN" was basically tied for the bronze medal.) I had really bipolar opinions of "TSN" — some days I loved it, some days I could barely listen to it — so I'm quite happy that the judges seemed to agree with the former opinion.

Also, yay me.

(Also, here is an MP3 of the first movement, "12.")

Daddy's Reading Chair

As promised, moM has tracked down some pictures of Matthew in Benjamin's reading chair. I just love that Benji has Daddy's chair!


I think Daddy's reading the dictionary in the reading chair. When will Benji know that many words?

Matthew looks like he's had it with this photo shoot and with sharing the chair with Josh.

The Reading Chair

In wandering around the new Blogger, I have found a few orphaned blog posts. For one reason or another, they were never finished. So, I shall share with you a blast from the past. This one was started back in August, so I guess Benji was about 9 or 10 months old here.

For Benji's first Christmas, Gramma (aka moM) re-upolstered a kid's chair that Daddy used when he was little. It's a nice bright red and I love that Benji has a family piece of furniture. It doesn't match the color of our family room at all, but it fits in absolutely perfectly. At Christmas the chair was huge (or was Benji tiny?), but now it's just right. Benji loves to sit in his "reading chair" now and flip through his books. It's so cute! And I love that he enjoys both his books and his special chair.


Benji looks like he might slide out of the chair, but Gramma has a good grip on him.


It looks like he's grown into his chair now.


Benji loves to read in his reading chair.

Putting up the Christmas tree

Christmas is over, the outdoor lights are put away, the cookies are almost gone, and Benji's presents are finally all opened (he lost interest quickly in present opening so we didn't finish opening Santa's presents until this past weekend). So, that means it's time to write about decorating for Christmas, right?

As with everything else these days, decorating the Christmas tree took longer than usual. Matthew did most of the assembling while I entertained Benji, and vice-versa for the lights and garland. For a while Benji was actually interested in the tree and bringing Daddy branches but then the allure of the front staircase was just too much and he went climbing. You see, the front of the house is gated off so Benji rarely gets to see the front staircase or the front rooms and it's always a new adventure to him when he does get to explore there.

That night Benji also started using everyday objects as telephones. He found the remote for the Christmas lights and held it up to his face like a phone. It's particularly interesting that he has picked up on this since we normally use a headset phone and fairly rarely use a receiver. Still, it was very adorable and the start of a new Benji game. Over Christmas he loved when Grandpa would give him the real phone and Benji would stand in the kitchen waiting to be picked up and given the phone. And when we called Grandma for her birthday this week, Benji kept coming over and grabbing the phone to listen to Grandma. No talking; just listening. Apparently he does the same thing sometimes when I call home from work.


What a big boy helping Daddy assemble the tree!


Climbing the stairs is more fun than putting up the tree, especially since Benji doesn't get to see the front staircase very often.


Although Benji could walk by this point, he was still crawling far more than walking. Today he rarely crawls.


Benjamin has started pretending various objects are telephones. Here he's using the remote for the Christmas lights.





I think the Hershey's Kiss lights were especially appealing to Benji with their bright colors and cartoon-character shape.

Libellés : Benji

The Benji-to-English dictionary.

"ahhhh" — this drink is refreshing to me
"ash" — fish
"dadadadadada" — daddy
"dadum" — daddy
"dah" — dog
"dat" — that
"duck" — duck

Benji's pet rock

As has the rest of the country, we've had an exceptionally warm winter this year. We've had several seventy-degree days in December and January, including today. Of course we like to spend as much time outside as possible on those days — and so does everyone else. When Matthew and Benji go to the playground on weekdays they get the swings and slide pretty much to themselves. On these warm weekends in winter, though, the playground has been so crowded! The slide is especially problematic with lots of bigger kids running around that area.

So when we went to the playground on one of these warm December days just before Christmas, Benji decided to leave the slide behind and take us on a nature walk. At that time he still didn't like to walk in public without holding a Mommy or Daddy finger so he grabbed Daddy and walked him into the wooded area around the playground.

While wandering around in the woods, Benji stopped to look at things in far more detail than any of us jaded adults do anymore. Everything was fascinating to him — the dried leaves, the tree bark, the rocks on the ground. Ah, yes, the rocks. He found one rock in particular that he loved and carried it around the rest of the afternoon. Even when he dropped it, he found that specific rock again and picked it back up. And in classic Benji style, he would give it to one of us, but expect it back again. Is this the beginning of a rock collection?


Do you like my new rock?


Uh oh! I think I dropped it.


Daddy, can you hold this please?



I don't want it in my pocket!!!


Mommy, we're going this way.


Aren't we cute twins?

Libellés : Benji

Richmond's Tacky Lights Tour

Ever since I was a little girl I've loved Christmas lights. There were several houses across town that really went all out, including moving figures like in department store displays (long before you could buy moving Santas and blow up snowmen at Target). I took that love of Christmas lights and decorations to college, covering my dorm room in lights. When we moved to Richmond we heard about the Tacky Lights Tour and it became an annual tradition for Matthew to plot out a map based on the listings in the newspaper and to take me on a several hour drive around metro Richmond, crescent cookies and milk in tow.

This year with our newly-toddling Benjamin, we didn't go to as many houses, but we went to the best several times each. And we spent quite some time at each house, getting out of the car and letting Benji walk around (it was an unseasonably warm December with temps as high as the 70s, so it was quite comfortable to walk outside). Similar to the Disney Electrical Parade, Benji was entranced and his eyes sparkled each time we went light looking. As we drove up to or away from each house we could see Benji looking out the window at the lights. But it really was much better to get to them up close. Getting down at Benji's level is a completely different way of seeing the lights, and I bet that up on Daddy's shoulders is a unique vantage point, too. I can't wait for next year, both because I love the lights so much and because I want to see what two-year-old Benji thinks of them.






Things sure look different from down at Benji's eye level.




I love Benji's eyelashes in this photo. So long!


Of course if we let Benji walk around he wants to go up and touch everything. This Christmas tree of traffic signals seemed sturdy enough to let him get close to it.


He looks a bit like a tour guide in this one. "And on the right we have a lovely display of Christmas cheer..."


We also had a daytime stop on our Tacky Lights Tour -- Mommy's office. I went all out this year and completely covered my cube row in Christmas! It was very reminiscent of my old dorm room decorating tradition.

Benji and Ava.

On the 10th day of Christmas, my true love gave to me...

...nothing. On the other hand, the Austin Handbell Ensemble gave me a CD with the world premiere of my (10-minute) Christmas arrangement for vocalist and handbells, "The World in Solemn Stillness Lay." And because I'm such a nice blogger, as my Christmas present to you, I will let you listen. (The very nice vocalist is handbell clinician Beth Watson.)