"So Someone's Looking for our Green Blankets?"

This past weekend, we went to the beach with my parents and younger brother. The boys had a blast with their grandparents and we got a couple evenings to ourselves. We got to fly kites and play on the beach and swim in the hotel pool... It was a great time.

Sadly, we managed to leave Ben's green blanket in one of the hotel rooms. And this isn't just any green blanket, it's his special lovie. We realized this about 6:30 last night and did some frantic looking and called the hotel to see if they could find it. Ben hadn't brought it up yet, so we were going to wait until he brought it up and then explain what happened.

Of course at bedtime it was requested, so I sat him down on his bed and told him what happened. He was pretty sad at first, so I told him about when I was a little boy and I lost my special blanket and that I remember being really sad too. Then I told him that some people at the hotel were going to look, but I didn't know if they'd be able to find it. He thought about that for a couple seconds and then said,

"So someone's looking for our green blankets?"

"Yes, Ben. Someone is looking for your green blanket," I said.

"And yours too, Daddy."

It was so sweet that he wanted to make sure someone was looking for my "green blanket" too.

Single Minded

Kyle has really started moving quickly lately and it makes for new challenges in corralling him. He's also turned out to be very single-minded at times. None of this out of sight, out of mind business for him.

The other day, while we were getting ready, Kyle was playing on the floor in our room. The bathroom that adjoins our room has a couple boxes of toiletry items that are not safe for Kyle to play with. Of course what is he drawn to...

So I pulled him away from the box, faced him the other direction and placed two or three favorite toys in front of him. Problem solved, right? Nope. He immediately turns around and makes a beeline to the bathroom. This time, I close the door and he's sad for a few seconds until I get him back in place in front of his toys again.

Everything was hunky-dory for a few minutes until I had to go back in the bathroom for something. The minute the door opened (and I tried to do it discreetly) Kyle was turning to make another run for the bathroom. He wanted that box and was doing everything he could to get to it. Including pushing the door when I didn't latch it after I came back out. It's fun to see him have that much focus, and a good reminder that we're getting to that stage where a lot of extra vigilance will be required.

Forethought

So Ben and I were playing a little game kind of like follow the leader where he'd do something and I'd mimic it and then we'd switch and I'd do something for him to mimic.

We were having a lot of fun with it and then I did something where I put a block in a box and put the box in a specific place. I hadn't thought about the fact that we'd have to get the block out of the box before Ben repeated the action.

So Ben was giggling and hopping around getting ready to repeat it and he headed over to the box. He took the block out, put the box where it had started and then came back over to where I'd started my action. Needless to say, I was very impressed by the forethought that he had to think about what he was going to do and get the box reset. What fun watching your child figure stuff out like that and become more independent every day.

Quoting Easter Stories

Ben was really enjoying the Easter stories we read to him this year out of various books, so we read them to him a lot. Not suprisingly, this led to him quoting them in random places.

A couple of weeks ago, he was playing with his toy boats in the bathtub, when I hear him talking about Mary's encounter with Jesus in the garden after she found the empty tomb. Then without skipping a beat he said, "This boat has a big motor! VROOOM!"

Then, just a couple of nights ago, he was reading his Noah's Ark bath book in the bathtub. We was relating the part where Noah builds an ark out of wood. Then he says to whoever he was reading the story to in the first place (I didn't ask), and says, "Jesus died on a cross made of wood, for the forgiveness of our sins."

I love that he's just taken this story in as part of his general knowledge. It's so exciting to see him grasping bits and pieces of these things and be reminded of the stories by other things. This is one of the joys of being a parent that makes all the frustrations and heartache worthwhile. I love being a Dad.

I Love You Too Much...

Recently we've been struggling with argument where there's no real why to explain to Ben that he's mistaken. For example, the other night I was feeding Kyle some squash and Ben was convinced it was potatoes.

After going back and forth a couple of times with Mindy, she effectively ended the argument by saying: "Ben, I love you too much to argue."

Essentially, it's not worth the argument to change your mind, so you can think they are potatoes all you want.

A couple weeks later, Ben was coming out of his room during quiet time and Mindy asked him to go back into his room and close the door.
Ben responded, "Mom, I love you too much to argue."

Needless to say Mindy was speechless