Ben Stories

Ben loves to "read" me the grocery list when we go to the store. We were at Costco over the weekend and as usual he reached for the list. So I turned it over to him and said, "What's on the list, Ben?" He scrunched his eyebrows, and pursed his lips into a very serious and concentrated face. He looked at the list and said, "Hmmmm . . . . French fries, Donalds." My jaw hit the floor and I started laughing out loud and said, "Oh really? Is that what my list says?" He looked up at me totally innocent, looked back down at his list and said, "Hmmmm . . . French fries, Donalds." I almost died. He was totally serious! We don't go to McDonald's very often, usually it is a treat to go with Grandma, but apparently it has left a lasting impression. ( I guess I can't give my mom a hard time about me asking for "fries, coke please" when I was 18 months! )

Last night when we were eating dinner I hit my hand on something and said, "Ouch." Ben looked up at me and said, "Mommy sad?" I said,"I am sad can you give me a kiss?" He paused, looked at me with a mischievous grin and said,"Toot?" and then started laughing hysterically. "I funny" he says. Well I guess he cheered me up, but he also proved that he is a boy through and through. How does he know that toots are funny?

Ben is 2!!!

How did this happen? Part of me can't believe it has already been two years since Ben joined the family. The other part of me says, "Of course it has been two years! You have done every single day of those two years with Ben. Good and bad!" But either way, he is growing up and I can't stop it! He talks up a storm all day long about everything. He learns new words all the time. I thought I would be able to know all of the words he knows how to say but he just keeps throwing new ones at me. I wish I had a recording device in my head that allowed me to recall all the things he says during the day so that I could replay them over and over as he gets bigger.

For his real birthday daddy had to work so Ben and I went snow skiing with Grandma Gwen and Great Grandpa Duane. (That is four generations on the mountain skiing together!) We took Ben skiing at the very beginning of ski season and I wasn't sure he would remember it, but sure enough as soon as we pulled up to the lodge he started yelling, "Ben skis, Ben boots, ski-ning, please, my turn!" We just couldn't get him ready fast enough.

We tried to get him to ski by himself with one of us skiing backwards to hold the front of his skis. He made it half way down the bunny hill all by himself! But he preferred, of course, to ski in between my legs with me holding his arms so that we could go fast like a jet and he didn't have to do nearly as much work.

He kept saying "ski-ning fun. again!" He got to have french fries for lunch, which is his favorite food of all time because he can dip them in ketchup. After lunch Ben and I went outside to play in the snow while Grandma and Great Grandpa went skiing. Of course he mostly wanted to eat the snow. We did throw a few snowballs however.

Then Ben was cold so he went back in the lodge with Grandma and begged his way into a package of peanut butter m&ms. Spoiled, spoiled. After an m&m break we went back to the bunny hill for a few more runs with Ben. He made it down twice, but fell fast asleep on run three!

When we got back to Grandma's house Ben watched Wall-e (another all time favorite) and then grandma made him a birthday cake!! What a great day to be two! We love you little man!!