And Just Like That, He's Two!

It happened. I did it. I blinked. And POOF! My teeny tiny Baby Ben is now a two-year-old. How is it possible that an entire year has passed since I wrote about his first birthday? I know that all moms say this, but honestly, where in the world did the time go?!

In the midst of 2020 and the crazy pandemic world we're living in, we experienced the same "blur of a kind-of-not-really-summer" summer that most other people did, or at least that's what I've been told. Mid-march shut the world down, and all true sense of the passing of time stopped as soon as the weather got warm enough for the mosquitoes to come out. And now we're on the other side of lockdown: school is back in session (although it looks vastly different even between local school districts), and this crazy life is at least feeling like it has a more normal-type-rhythm... kind of. But half a month has gone since our boy had his birthday and, yet again, I'm scrambling to catch up with him. Benjamin is growing and time is moving faster than I can truly process.

Ben's birthday was on a Monday this year, so we decided to do a family-only celebration on Sunday. We decided just to make a day out of it. For a lot of reasons, we're not planning on doing any big birthday parties unless it's a milestone birthday, so we went to town with just loving on our boy and loving our time together as a family. The morning began with a typical breakfast and the opening of presents. Patrick had wanted to get him a child-size basketball hoop since March, but I persuaded him to wait and give it to Ben for his birthday, which was a big hit! Along with some musically-themed books, a musically-themed puzzle, wooden cars and a mat to drive them on, this boy was spoiled by his parents and grandparents that day. We have vowed not to give more than three gifts at Christmas and on birthdays because, really, the giving could just get out of control so quickly. Ben has been so in love with the specially-curated gifts that he doesn't need anything else!

Ben's birthday continued with a birthday adventure for a special birthday treat: donuts - Hurts Donuts, nonetheless - and a quick jog to the park were next on the list. Now, Ben hasn't had refined white sugar but a handful of times, and usually in the form of a marshmallow or part of a chocolate chip cookie. He also still hates bread (it's the texture), so a donut might seem like a risky venture for a toddler. Alas, his momma knows him well, and this boy will do just about anything for chocolate. I knew without a shadow of a doubt that our Benjamin would want a Cosmic Brownie donut - a chocolate cake donut with rainbow-colored chocolate chip sprinkles. And, well, if the picture doesn't speak for itself, I can't give it any help.

Ben didn't even have to taste that donut before he knew that he wanted it. I accidentally called it a birthday cake donut (it *is* a cake donut, you know). The video of him asking for "some birtday cake, pwease" has been watched by me more times than I can count. Ugh, this boy is just too cute and sweet for his own good! Our trip to Scissortail park lasted for approximately five minutes as none of us were that fond of melting in the sweltering summer heat. We made the long trek back home with a pouch tiding him over until we could get him a true lunch, and then we enjoyed singing him "Happy Birthday" while letting him blow out the candles on his brownie birthday cake. In fact, we sang it a few times that day... and the next day... and the next day. If you haven't figured it out by now, we'd do just about anything that this sweet boy asked.

About two months ago, I started keeping track of the things that Ben was saying and doing knowing that I would be writing a blog post, and also knowing that I would cherish these tiny details one day in the not-so-distant future. But since I started keeping those notes, and even since he has turned two, Ben has changed even more.

Before I get into that, though, I need to talk about how big this kid has gotten. Our sweet Baby Ben, at the ripe age of two, is 29 pounds and 36 inches tall. I didn't get to go to his well-checkup, but I was told that those measurements put him in the low 60s for weight percentile and 97th percentile for height. My baby is taller than 97% of the other kids his age - and I'd believe it! He's currently wearing 3T clothes but quickly growing out of them (shirts, mostly), and I started putting him in 4T pajamas at least a month and a half ago. They used to be a bit long at his ankles, but I haven't noticed any extra length lately. Ben has also been wearing size 6 shoes for the majority of the summer. I was silly and bought him brand new shoes in both size 5 and 6 (all the secondhand stores were closed). He wore the 5s for maybe three weeks before they were too small. Rookie mistake. I blame the pandemic.

In addition to how much Ben has grown over the past few months, my mind is blown by how much he is learning. Guys, this kid is SMART. And I know that it's a totally biased thing to say, and I am, but his verbal communication skills just continue to knock me over. He's constantly talking in 4-5 word sentences, but he woke up the other morning and blurted out a 7-word sentence before we even got out of his bedroom: "See water tower outside Baby Ben, please." He wanted to see the picture of himself that was taken outside at the lake when we went to visit the water tower (one of his favorite things) that was on the other side of the room. What?! Add the fact that he has starting putting multiple sentences together and asking different kinds of questions ("Who is that?" was today's) and I'm just constantly impressed.

"I'm gonna get you, Mommy!" (duh, he wants me to chase and scare the tar out of him)
"Turn the 'cussion on, please." (Latin percussion record)
"Here come city bus down the street!"
"Sit on seat mommy's car! Turn the wheel!"
"One more piece of chocolate please!"
"Little bit more in there."
"No thank you, please."
"Thank you so much."
"Hello? Thanks. Bye!" (playing phone)
"May I help you? Pigeon, hot dog." (Quoting a Mo Willems book)
And today, "Hey, stop that, monkeys!" (Jungle Book reference)

I could go on and on listing the cute things that he says, but I'll scribble those in a journal someday. They're mostly just adorable to myself and Patrick anyway. Ben is still obsessed with the orchestra and can name every standard symphonic instrument that exists, although his love for music is expanding; he loooves the Jazz book and has memorized all of those sounds and instruments, too - scatting included. He'll not only play the bongos for us, but he loves playing the bells and the harmonica, too.

Mr. Rogers is a staple in our house, and Ben has rotated through his favorite episodes: the long-reigning champion was the "Tuba" episode (brass quintet), won out by the "STOMP" episode (the stomp dance/percussion group) for even longer, which has recently been won out by the "Cello" episode (Yo-Yo Ma), and he asked me to watch the "Dance" episode today for the first time (Harlem ballet studio, which he started imitating for the award of cutest thing ever). The classic Disney cartoon 101 Dalmatians finally won over his seemingly unwavering love for Spirit, something I'm totally okay with since the latter makes be cry about 10 different times each time we watch it (I can't take that kind of emotional wrecking on repeat). Peter Rabbit and Pooh Bear are still beloved, but it seems as though they are old friends at this point instead of new obsessions.

Our sweet Benjamin knows all of his colors and letters (although he sometimes gets a handful of the letters mixed up, which is totally normal), and he is familiar enough with numbers that he can point them out but not necessarily count in order yet (again, totally normal). I might or might not be teaching this skill via Hamilton lyrics. When we were visiting my dad and stepmom a little over a month ago, Ben pointed at a sign in the kitchen and said, "Letters! E! K! A! B!" The kitchen sign spelled BAKE. I was shocked. He loves to point out the letters of the stop signs, as well as just the general existence of stop signs.

Oh, and I cannot forget this kid's love of buses! It all started with his fondness for the bright yellow school buses (probably a combination of Mr. Rogers and Mo Willems influences), but this love has expanded to ALL buses. There are two city buses that pass right by Ben's school around the time that I pick him up each day, and it is the highlight of his day to watch the bus "come down da 'treet" and pass us by. We waited for at least 20 minutes for the bus to come yesterday. If the bus isn't there, he'll say, "I tink we missed it" and it just about breaks my heart, so we waited. And waited. And the joy that spread across his face when that city bus drove past us was totally worth every minute.

Honestly, I could go on and on about how much fun it is to have Benjamin as our son. Of course there have been a few epic toddler moments, but the truth is that Ben is such an easy kid to love that those moments are quickly forgotten. The most frustrating thing is his lack of adventurous spirit at the dinner table, but even that changes by the day. He tried some of our tortellini pasta today and I practically fell out of my chair with joy. 

That's every day with Ben, though: practically falling out of my chair with joy. His smile, his hugs, his stubborn streaks, his moments of brilliance, his tender heart for others - it all fills me with joy for this precious life we get to be a part of. Benjamin, YOU are a joy, and I am so very blessed to be your Momma. Happy (belated) birthday, my Baby Ben!