A Crossover Post: Conversations Between Siblings

This is a picture of the second conversation that Ben had with Josie. Mostly Ben talks to us about Josie, or pats her hard on the head and yells "Okay! Okay!" to try to get her to stop crying (which, as you can imagine, has just the opposite effect). But he has twice now tried to engage in dialogue directly with her and explain to her about the world.

The first conversation--when she was about 2 weeks old -- was when Ben tried to tell her about the main crush in his life and it went like this: "Music Class! Miss Amy!"

The second conversation took place when I had laid Josie down on the floor on a pillow, and Ben cozied up next to her. Her arm flew out and hit his shoe, and he said "Shoe!" and then proceeded to point out a whole host of body parts. He spent a good five minutes saying things like "Knee," "head," "hair," and "fingers" to her.

. . . and then he picked up her pacifier shoved it in her mouth hard, and made her cry again. Oh, well.

Buckethead!

In honor of his hero, Mickey, from Maurice Sendak's In the Night Kitchen

He dons the bucket, climbs on a chair, and cries, "Quiet Down There!"

Sayings of The Bug

Phrases we've heard lately from El Benjarino:


"Do it!"
"Leave it!"
"I want to!" (which of course means both "I want to" and "I don't want to" - the negation concept has yet to be expressed)
"Call Daddy"
"Call Mommy"
"Call Gramma"
"Call Papa"
"Josie cwying"
"JosieUp!"
"Ben socks shoes"
"My compeeler" (computer)
"ABCD"
"Pictures of Ben?"  (when he wants to look at photos on the compeeler or camera)

Halloween!

All Hail the New Crib Tent

About a week before Josie was born, Ben learned how to climb out of his crib. Ben's crib is the kind that turns into a toddler bed, so we converted it just a day or so before Josie arrived.

. . . which meant that not only has Ben been dealing with the emotional backlash of a new sibling, but he's been severely sleep deprived--climbing out of bed is SO much more fun than taking a nap. After a month of doing all the things one is supposed to do to teach them to stay in bed, I had just one (or 21) too many days of being woken up by a very-proud-of-himself toddler at 5 AM.

I put that crib right back together and got a crib tent -- and we prepared ourselves for the worst: kicking, screaming, tantrums, hitting the tent, anything, as soon as he realized he was going to be locked in.

Of course, nothing of the kind happened. When he saw the crib was back together he went up to it like an old friend. It was almost like he'd been waiting to have it back. When he saw the tent, he thought it was the best toy ever, demanded that we zip him in there and then bid us "Away!" with a summary wave of his hand. He slept incredibly soundly that night.

(Ok, he DID cry when he woke up and realized he was stuck . . . but that only lasted a day or two, and the whole household is now back to sleeping in until at least 7, and life is much much better.)