Indiana Jones Apparently Lives at My House

Ben is truly a fearless little boy. He walks right off the edge of a step into our step-down living room, sometimes remaining upright, sometimes not. He careens up and down a flight of stairs with surprising speed for a boy that young. He runs after his sister, sometimes running right into her and purposely colliding heads. He'll throw himself into and out of the bathtub, step off of a bed just figuring that the person in front of him is going to catch him, and in general shows a surprisingly small sense of self-preservation at this stage.

He's also an adventure-seeker. We recently had to relocate our end table to the other end of the loveseat because he would use the height of the entry area to climb onto said end table and play with the lamp that was there, pulling it over a couple of times (and almost pulling it over a few more times, were it not for my lightning-like reflexes).

My plan for our Christmas tree was to put it in a corner and surround it with our couch and our coffee table on its two open sides. The coffee table is lower than the end tables, and even without the height advantage of the entry area, it clearly is a plan that is not going to work. That boy is not going to let a little ol' coffee table stand between him and a big tall tree with shiny things and flashy lights on it. I'm truly puzzled about what to do, since I'm not willing to pay for a fence to put around it and would rather not have to put it downstairs in the family room. I'll figure something out, though, I'm sure.

Today Rachel and I were reading on the couch when he started clamoring for my attention. I figured he felt left out and wanted to be up with us, so I picked him up. He immediately turned to the back of the couch and started to scramble over the couch cushions so that he could grab the string of orange lights that we've had up for Halloween and Thanksgiving. I thought "Well, we'll just remove that temptation and I'll sit on the floor to read." A minute passes, then I feel his hand on my shoulder and realize he's used his jack-in-the-box to step up and my shoulder as leverage so that he can throw himself onto the couch and have another go at the string of lights.

I'm pretty sure he will be the child that bungee-jumps, goes rock climbing, parachutes, and does many other things that will generally cause his mother to have heart palpitations one day. Also, and not coincidentally, I'm sure he's the child most likely to break bones.

The Nightly Scam

For reasons we don't understand, the aquarium in Ben's crib can be turned up to insane levels. Bright. Boy that he is, he's figured out how to pick which sound he wants he hear and how to turn up the volume really loud.

Many nights, I will go in there and turn the volume down. Often when I go to do that, he's standing right up against it staring at the fish and the bubbles. When I open the door and walk in, he dives (literally) to the bed, as if he was asleep. When I first discovered this, I had to show Lori Ben's cleverness. But, no, he won't, instead crying to be lifted out of his crib.

Every time.

The Quest for the Light

As you know, we have a sunken living room. So lately Ben's been climbing on to that end table by the light switch so that he can play with the lamp. Every time we yell at him, he climbs right off. Today I caught him standing on the couch reaching for the lamp. Couldn't figure out how he got there until I remembered that a few minutes before that he had been playing with the black plastic tub. Turns out he had turned it over and used it as a stepping stool.

Ooh, Scary!

Ben has taken to getting a mischievous smile on his face, then saying "Bah!", trying to scare me. He loves when I react to it and will just chuckle and sometimes laugh big belly laughs doing it over and over again.

Clever: Combining Airbags + Seat Belts

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What Say You?

If you're Ben, quite a bit, actually. In the last week, he's said:

• more please, when he wanted more cheese puffs
  
• ball, when playing with a ball at his grandma Jan's place
  
• apple, when he wanted more apple at lunch
  
• Amen, after we prayed for a meal
• sister, after we got home from picking up Rachel today.
  

It seems like the puzzle pieces are all starting to fall into place and he's picking up words left and right. It's so neat to hear him be able to express himself more - just really exciting to hear words out of that little mouth!