Magnetic Personality

What can I say? People just want to be near to me... .they want to reach out and touch me... at least when they're in their cars. That's right. I was in yet another accident this morning. Nothing major, but it still pretty much sucks. Fortunately for me and our insurance rates, this one was totally not my fault. I was coming back from the grocery store with 2 weeks worth of groceries in the back of the van. Yes, our brand new van that we've had less than 4 months. I was driving in the right lane, and I'm not even sure if I had gotten up to the posted speed limit yet. All of a sudden, a pickup truck that was driving in the middle lane just ahead of me decided to make a right turn onto a side street. I slammed on my brakes, laid into my horn, and then proceeded to smash into the side of him. After calling 911, I called Andrew to have him come and get the groceries out of the back of the car so they didn't spoil in the 110 degree heat while we waited for the cops. I had no idea how long it would take for someone to get out there since it was a minor accident with no injuries. But thankfully the cops were there within minutes. Gotta hand it to the Chandler police! The guy's story was that he was driving around hanging signs for John McCain (is this a sign that I shouldn't vote for him?). When the signs in the back of his truck started blowing around, he decided to pull off and secure them. He told the cops he was changing lanes and just didn't see me, trying to downplay the extent of his bad driving, but we both know what actually happened, and the cop saw right through his story. I think the guy even knew he wasn't making sense, but he still had to try, I guess. But it doesn't matter. He got the ticket, he admitted fault, and even got his claim with his insurance company set up at the scene. So we should be taken care of. It just makes me sad that our new car is hurt. But it's all cosmetic, so it shouldn't be too bad. I just gotta say grrrrr!

Joshua Sings the Hits

What a musical household we have! It seems there is always some kind of music going in our house. Lately, our main musical source has been our little maestro Joshua, who cannot get enough of singing. Gee, where did he ever get that?!? He learns the words to songs fast...well, at least most of the words. Sometimes he doesn't get them quite right, which makes it all the more entertaining to listen to...over... and over... and over again. There are some days that we don't even turn on the radio on the way home from work because Joshua provides the musical entertainment. Here are some of our favorites:

"I've been working on the railroad, throw my lunch away!.... Someone's in the kitchen with Dino, someone's in the kitchen I know-o-o-o..."

"Do you know the muffin man, the muffin man, the muffin man? Do you know the muffin man who makes us very late?"

"Row row row your boat, gently down the stream, mary, mary, mary, mary mary, lika bika dream!"

"I like to eat, eat, eat Aypples and the banaynays!"

"Boom boom, how to be crazy! Boom boom, how to be crazy!"

"He got the whooooole world in his hands, he got the whooooooole world in his hands, he got the whooooooole world in his hands, he got the whooooooole world in his hands, he got the whooooooole world in his hands...." I think you get the picture. It's a never ending song!

The other day he totally surprised and amazed us with his photo and phonographic memory. A week or two ago we were watching a show on the Disney channel called Little Einsteins. They incorporate classical scores and famous works of art into an adventure. They had applied words about springtime to one of the classical pieces and sang it a few times throughout the show. Well, Josh has a toy in the car that plays the same song, without the words. When he heard it, he started singing the springtime song. I couldn't believe that he remembered the song from that long ago.

We can't wait to get him into piano lessons! Maybe he'll be the next Harry Connick, Jr.!

3 Year Old Checkup

Josh went for his 3 year old check up today, and passed with flying colors. He weighed in at 31 lbs, so he is finally at the 50% for his weight! We couldn't believe it. He's still so skinny, with his little chicken legs and his teeny tiny heiny that we love so much, we were surprised he had jumped up on the growth chart like he did. Especially considering he only gained about 2-3 lbs the whole year. Apparently growth tapers off around this time. He measured 40 inches, which keeps him in the 95% for height. At this age they start measuring his Body Mass Index (BMI). He was only in the 3% for BMI. There is not an ounce of fat on this kid! Cognitively, he is right on target, and even a little ahead of the curve in some areas. He is completely potty trained and has been for a while now, he loves to read and can memorize entire books (there are at least 3 that he has memorized word for word). He picks up the words and tunes to songs and can start singing along very quickly... all in all he's just one smart little boy. So we got the clean bill of health this morning, and got out of there without any pokes in the arm or the leg. Whoo hoo!

Sippy, Sippy!

I didn't think he would EVER do it, but Ben has finally decided to try drinking out of his own sippy cup. Yay! I was beginning to think he was going to want me to hold his cup for him forever! I guess one drawback to nursing is that he only gets one bottle a day and doesn't really get the chance to practice holding it himself very often. I knew he COULD do it.... he just WOULDN'T do it. The lazy bum! But the other day he started to show some interest in doing it himself. So, in order to encourage him, I broke down and got him a little bottle of juice (gasp!). I am not a fan of juice, but wanted to try to give him some way watered down incentive to put his little hands around that cup. It seems to have worked. He was double fisting the cup and taking swigs tonight. Go Ben!

Say Cheese!

I think we might take too many pictures of Ben... Whenever he sees a camera pointing at him, he makes a "CHEESE!" face.

Looks like he's taking after his cousin, Stevin!

Mr. Yucky Ear

Ben came down with his first ear infection today. We've made it 10 months, so I think we did pretty good. Everything was fine, and then I got the dreaded 10:00 am telephone call from daycare... that's never a good sign! They said that Ben's ear was oozing green stuff (mmmmm, green stuff). So I whisked him away to the doctor for antibiotics. You would never know this kid wasn't feeling 100%. He has been Mr. Smiley, Giggley and Happy all day long... except for the breathing treatment at the doctor. He has a little chest congestion, so they had him take a 10 minute breathing treatment while we were there.... I can't say that I feel it was totally necessary, but at the same time it couldn't hurt. So now we have antibiotics for 10 days and a prescription for Albuterol to take whenever he might seem congested. Now our wallets are a little lighter, since insurance for whatever reason didn't cover the Albuterol or the device to administer it. Oh well. What are you going to do?

Since he was already at the doctor, I had them plot his weight on the growth chart to see if the weight he had gained was sufficient enough for them to lay off about his weight. He weighed in at 18 lbs 10 oz, (at 9 months he was 16-15), which brings him all the way up to the 10th percentile, which just sounds crazy to me. To look at this kid you would think he was at least in the 50th. He is totally healthy. But the gain was good enough to make them happy, so it's all good. We just have thin kids. Nothing wrong with that!

Tummy Rug Burns

Little Benny is starting to realize that he doesn't need to get rug burns on his tummy in order to get places! Over the weekend, he started taking a few full blown crawling steps! He doesn't go very far on his hands and knees yet, and if he's trying to go any real distances, he drops down on the tummy, but he is definitely progressing into big boy crawling. We have tried so hard to capture a good video, bur of course as soon as the camera is on he tries to make us look like liars. Stinker! But we'll keep trying.

He has also gotten very fond of standing. He now pulls himself up on anything he can get those little hands on. We're so proud of him, but at the same time it reminds us that our little "Baby Ben" is growing up. Can't he be a baby a while longer? We hope he's not in any big hurry to walk. It doesn't seem like he's too close to that yet, so whew! We'll take what we can get. Still no teeth, so at least we can enjoy that gummy baby smile a while longer!

Could it be? Is he really 3?!?

Yes, Joshua is somehow 3 years old. In some ways it seems downright impossible, and in other ways it seems as though he has always been here. To celebrate the occasion, we had a big birthday bash at our house over the weekend. Just about all of our family was here (that's a party in and of itself!), and a lot of Joshua's closest friends. It was such an awesome day, and one I hope he remembers for a long time. We set up our kiddie pool and a sprinkler toy in the backyard for the kids, and had water guns and other water toys too. The kids had so much fun running around and splashing in the water. Yay for summertime birthdays!

The "theme" to his birthday party was "The Backyardigans", still one of his favorite TV shows. We even found a Backyardigans cake!


It was such a wonderful day. Happy birthday, buddy. We hope all your birthday wishes come true. We love you more than you'll ever know!

Here I Come!

You've heard about Ben's scooting... here's the live show! It may not technically be crawling, but whatever gets you from A to B!

Mobility... Ain't it Great?!?

Okay, so much for blogging more often! Now that Ben is moving around there isn't much computer time left in my day for blogging!

Ben has gotten to be a mighty speedy scooter. He's found what works for him, and he's sticking to it! Now that getting places is a mastered art, Ben has moved on to bigger and better things... standing. That's right. Ben has started to pull himself up. The conditions still have to be exactly right, but he has learned how to get those little feet under him. His favorite thing to pull himself up on is his musical Leap Frog table. It's the perfect hight for him to get up on his knees and hoist himself the rest of the way up. He gets so proud of himself!


The other milestone he has reached is getting himself into a sitting position. For the longest time, he couldn't figure out how to get his knees under him. Now he's got that down, and can crawl (or scoot) over to something, then sit up and play with it. It's great! The only thing is, you never know where you're going to find him! For instance...


Still no teeth. Although my body isn't complaining about that, I'm starting to wonder if he'll EVER get teeth! I've (partly) joked that I want to get him a dental x-ray just to make sure they're in there! It sounds silly, but it would make me feel better.