Ben- 2 years, 4 months, 3 weeks & 5 days old.

Well, Ben is changing a lot these last few weeks. He's really a little boy now. My little baby is gone. But he will always be my baby. :) (I'm sure he'll love me saying that to him in about 7 years from now.)
-he's using full sentences now... well, full TODDLER sentences. Some of my favorites lately have been "Ouch Mommy, that hurt me! don't touch my boo-boo!", "mommy, I go to the pool with daddy in da morning, okay?" Yesterday when I picked him up from school I said "How was your day?" and he said "I be nice." When he wants us to pick him up he says "want you". He uses "okay?" a lot after things he says now too. And my favorite word he says is dirty pronounced "Duw-tee". No R sound! Love it! The other day I was washing fruit that we got at the grocery store and he was observing me and after watching said "mommy, it's duw-tee... it's duw-tee"!! -speaking of being nice at school, the last couple weeks he wasn't so nice and was on a hitting tirade. Tirade is I guess a strong word, but he had a few "Boo-Boo Reports" and a lot of time outs at school. He wasn't very nice to one of his friends he plays with a lot one day, and she told him off and it hurt his feelings. After that he seemed to stop hitting! Now if Daddy and I are playing and he happens to see us doing anything that resembles hitting, he PROMPTLY tells us to say sorry to one another. He's a peace maker. OR a tattle tale... either way.
-Ben, I hope, will continue to have a good sense of humor. He laughs a lot, and has THE greatest chuckle of all. He still gets the hiccups when he laughs hard, which is adorable.

-Ben also has a pretty hefty temper... but I guess that's pretty typical. He can get pretty shook up... but he can get over it pretty fast too. Although, it's hard to distract him nowadays, he's started to remember a lot more. And REPEATS HIMSELF constantly. I know, typical 2 year old.

-Ben is giving sweet hugs and kisses, knows how to squeeze when he hugs. I love it. He's been having a hard time saying goodbye in the mornings lately. Not sure why. One day he cried so hard I had to hurry out so I wouldn't either. It's extremely difficult for me.

-Ben right now LOVES watching "my giraffe" which is the movie/cartoon Madagascar. He also really enjoys Nemo and Veggies Tales and of course still Elmo. We took him to the pet store last weekend so he could see the fishies and "tuuhrtuls" (turtles) and we got to see Nemo and Nemo's daddy and Dori. He was pretty excited about that.

-Ben doesn't really show excitement like others typically do, like maybe clapping hands or jumping up and down. Ben observes and smiles gently and looks and learns about it and if he feels comfortable he'll want to get down or walk closer to the subject... but then we know he really was affected by it if he talks and talks about it after we've left. He's so much like his daddy.

-Ben's favorite songs to sing right now are: Happy Birthday (to Daddy specifically- EVERY day is Daddy's birthday), No More Monkey's Jumping on the Bed! (which he likes to repeat in different voices and tones quite frequently), Twinkle, Twinkle, ABC's (of course which he still muddles a little and stops at V occasionally and sings the end to the song), the newest is Barney's "I love you" song which he promptly hugs and kisses me during which is A.O.K. with me!!! Other than that I hate Barney! Ha! He likes the few primary songs we have on our iPod and there are a few songs of ours he likes to listen to and tries to sing along to, in particular "Could You Be Loved" by Bob Marley! So cute!

-Ben is still very protective of Ally. They have an interesting bond...nothing too noticeable. But occasionally he will show his love for Ally in random ways. We took her to get her hair groomed this weekend, and he cried his little eyes out when we left her. He was so afraid for her, he thought she was going to get hurt or something. He's very sensitive and can tell when a person (or Ally) is not feeling right or is sad or scared.

With this (I think) he has a really good trait of being sensitive in general. I've had a few nights where I've just really missed my big sister, and have cried and he remembers the next morning. And while I'm crying he almost always apologizes, because I think either he's trying to comfort me or that he thinks he made me cry. It's very sweet and he comes and touches me and gets a very concerned look on his face and says "Sowwy Mommy... Sowwy". It's so sweet and I love his tenderness.
-pretty much, Ben's best friend is his daddy. Must I say more? He just really adores his dad. And his daddy adores him. He also adores his grandparents. All of them, yes mom. :) Oh and I think he digs me too!-Ben loves the pool A LOT, and thank goodness because it's been a life saver in a lot of cases especially because it's been so blasted HOT and HUMID here this summer. He asks to go to the pool pretty much everyday. We use the Elton's pool a lot, but if we can't make it there and have time we fill up his little pool out on the driveway. (Our backyard has tooooooooooo many mosquitoes.) He loves his floaties and will probably be full on swimming by next summer. I think we might try swim lessons during the winter, in an inside pool of course. What kind of parents do you think we are!-Still loves to sleep. Still needs about 10-11 hours a night, to be "normal". Even if he's not sleeping for like the last hour, he likes to rest I guess. He never cries out for us if he wakes up before us, he usually just hangs out and talks or sings and plays with his feet and rolls around. (I've watched him before, this is how I know.) He's still taking naps- a lot of the time on the weekends he'll take 3 hour naps still.-I don't know if he'll ever grow out of it, knowing his dad, but he's pretty shy. Until he feels comfy around you. But he does keep to himself a lot. After the weekend of staying with Ryan's parents I asked his teacher that evening when I picked him up if he talked a lot about Poppy's house. She said "no, he doesn't really talk much. If we ask him questions he'll talk to us- but he doesn't talk much". BUT that was ONE teachers comments, I don't believe that's totally true because the OTHER teacher the other day said that Ben told her he was going to the pool that night and then she asked me if it was Daddy's birthday!!!It's hilarious only because he LITERALLY says it's Daddy's birthday EVERY.DAY.
Proof:

That's a lot I guess for now. I'm sure I'll think of more later and want to add it, but maybe I'll save it for later. We love you BEN!