Benjamin – 20 (almost 21) months old

Several of my “blogger friends” who have children write letters to their kids describing their development and personality at the moment, so I thought I’d steal the idea. Here goes…

     Dear Benjamin,

Today you are 1 year, 8 months, 3 weeks and 3 days old. You are a fantastic, loving, cute, cheeky, temperamental, stubborn TODDLER! You are most defiantly a toddler in every sense of the word. You are extremely curious about the world around you. You love to examine and manipulate every new object that you see, to discover what it is and how it works. This can get a little irritating for your poor mummies, but we must step back and remind our selves that you are only doing what you are supposed to do, how will you ever learn that moisturising cream doesn’t taste nice if you don't taste it….. to you, it smells nice, so it should taste good too!

You are very good at walking, running and climbing. You are very clever at going up and down the stairs. If you do it alone, you crawl up, and scoot down on your bottom. You prefer us to help you by holding your hand while you walk up and down. If you want us to help walk down and we don’t notice, or can’t help you (usually because we have something else in our hands, or we’re helping Ethan) then you often have a melt down at the top of the stairs, and cry and cry until we come and carry you.

Your vocabulary is growing in leaps and bounds. I’ve lost track of how many words you can say. You say new words every day. You are like a parrot, you try to say so many words when your mummies ask you to. Below is a list of words you’ve used on more than two occasions, and used appropriately – well, the ones I can think of at the moment!.

Mummy, mumma, Eeee (Ethan), bubby, please, ta, kitty, puppy, doggy, birdy, ducky, raaa (when asked what noise a tiger or lion makes) e e e e (when asked what noise a monkey makes, or when you see a monkey), zazy (our cat), missa (our cat), bath, spa, tree, sky, water (only related to water in water features/fountains – not drinking water!), cookie (related to cookie monster), elmo, ernie, dorothy (the dinosaur from the wiggles) dora (the explorer), plane, car (for cars, busses, trucks, earth moving equipment, boats and several things relating to the wiggles, because of the wiggles big red car), wiggles, anthony (blue wiggle), murry (red wiggle), guitar, ball, kick, throw, star, blue, green, two, three, four, go, yes, no, daddy, nana, cassie (nana’s dog), grandma, uh-oh, weeeeee, cool, here you go, beep beep beep (when riding his bike backwards), garage, key, teddy, shoe, knees, toes, coke, coffee. . .

Wow, that’s 60 words my Benjamin, and that’s only the ones I can actually think of at the moment. I’m sure there are many more. Most of these words you will say without prompting. There are many many more words that you say when prompted (eg “say table” and you’ll parrot and say “table”). You are so clever, you’re adding new words all the time. Just this week you’ve put two words together you said  “throw ball” as you walked around the house playing one of your favourite games, picking up and throwing a ball, then chasing after it and repeating. You can amuse your self for ages throwing and kicking balls. You LOVE to throw things at the moment, and watch them fall. You prefer to throw light things, like paper as it falls slower, and in different floating type motions.

You love our cats. If see either of them you point, say “kitty” and rush over to see them. Unfortunately for you, then don’t quite feel the same way about you, and usually run away! You don’t seem to mind, you just chase after them until they run out of your reach. We have a gate that blocks off the stairs down to the laundry, study and garage. The cats escape down there and you always seek them out whenever we leave the gate open.

Ben, you also love to ride your bike and play on your slide. You climb up, sit down and say “two three go” before you slide down. I’m not sure why you don’t say “one” but perhaps it’s because we often start you off by saying “one” ourselves. .

You love to be outside. We have built you and sandpit and you love playing in it. You love to walk around when we are at the shops, and you protest VERY LOUDLY if we try to restrain you in the pram or in a trolley (a cart to our American friends). We have been torn between allowing you to walk and enjoy your independence, and our need to keep you safe. We have recently bought you a teddy-backpack-harness. We’ve only tried it once, but it was quite successful. You loved being able to walk around, and didn’t mind the restraint. For the most part, you kept close to us anyway, so you barely noticed it was on.

You love anything and everything to do with The Wiggles. You like their music, and often ask us to put some music on, by pointing to the iPod dock in the kitchen, or the CD holder on the sun visor in the car.  You also like their TV show, and dancing along with the actions. Your favourite songs are “rock-a-bye your bear”, “move your arms like henry”, “toot-toot chugga-chugga big red car” & “do the monkey”. You often attempt the actions to these songs, and you’re getting quite good. You also love the few Wiggles books you own, and get them off the book case and bring them to your mummy/mumma and nudge her with it until it gets read to you.

You’ve been very needy over the last week. You’ve been crying over the littlest things, you get frustrated all the time, and you always want to be held. We think you might be getting your 2 year molars. You’ve been dribbling a lot more than normal, and you’ve had your hand in your mouth a lot. Still no visible action in the gums, so we don't know for sure, but Panadol seems to help. so perhaps you are in pain. We bought you an amber teething necklace, as we’ve had a lot of success with Ethan’s, but it has not seemed to help. In fact your eczema has had a major flare up since you started wearing it 4 days ago, so we’ve taken it off to see if you’re allergic to it. We are also wondering if your reflux is playing up. We stopped giving you your antacids, as we ran out, and we weren’t even sure if it was working, but you’ve had the hiccoughs a lot lately, so perhaps it is reflux bothering you. I will buy you some more antacids tomorrow. . . .

You’re still a skinny little boy. We haven’t had you weighed in the last 2 months, you’re due for a check-up in 2 weeks. We hope you have gained some weight. Your hair is finally starting to grow on the top. You’ve had two haircuts to trim off your mullet that keeps growing at the back. Last time we also got the hairs on the top of your head trimmed to match the rest of your hair. Now that it’s all starting to grow evenly, it’s starting to look like you have more hair. Your hair is a strawberry blonde. In some lights it looks blonde, in other lights it looks quite red. Your eyes are a brilliant clear, bright blue.

About 1-2 weeks ago we bought you and Ethan a potty. We’re not ready to start toilet training you yet, but we want you to be familiar with the potty before we begin. You have sat on it about half a dozen times. You know what it is for, and have asked us if you can sit on it by walking over to it and trying to remove your pants and nappy. You’ve done two wees on your potty. Unfortunately we didn’t notice your first wee for about 5 mins, and by that time you’d forgotten what happened, or perhaps you didn’t notice. You looked a little confused when we were congratulating you. Today you did your second, and Mummy noticed right away. You were quite pleased with all the attention you were given.

You are getting better at eating. You aren’t as fussy as you used to be, and you’re better at eating your vegetables. You’re favourite dinner meal is chicken and pumpkin risotto that mummy makes. Your favourite fruit is blueberries and you always gobble up any chocolate or lollies we give you. You would love to have a sip of mummy’s coke or coffee, but so far you haven’t been allowed (much to your disgust!) You are allowed to have a baby-cino (frothed milk with chocolate powder on top) which you think is a coffee, as it comes in a cup like mummy’s. So far you have been satisfied with this compromise! You still have issues with your swallowing, and we will probably be taking you to the speech pathologist after our next check-up in two weeks. We are still taking you to the allergy clinic every 6 months about your egg allergy. It is slowly improving. You are also still somewhat sensitive to salicylates, and we have to watch your diet to keep it balanced. You break out in eczema if you’ve had too many salicylates.

You are a great sleeper. You sleep 12 hours overnight, approx 7pm to 7am without waking unless you are sick. I can’t even remember the last time you woke us in the middle of the night, must be at least 6 months ago. You love your dummy (pacifier), which you only get for sleep, and other special needs situations, like when you’re upset or hurt. You are good at giving your dummy back to mummy when you get up. You nap for about 2 hours after lunch. You LOVE your cot, and can only sleep in your cot, or in your car seat if you’re super tired. You will not allow us to rock you to sleep and you wont fall asleep anywhere else. If you are tired, you sometimes lie down on the floor or couch in the living room. Other times you just whinge! You always take your blankie to bed with you. This blankie is a quilt that your nana made for you, and you love it. You also take a teddy or two to bed with you. You have a very stable and established bedtime routine that gives you lots of sleep cues. You have one bottle a day, right before bed, then you clean your teeth and go to bed. You fall asleep without crying at least 95% of the time.  You or your brother wake us in the morning by talking and laughing in your cots. You sleep in the same room as Ethan, and you can see him from your cot. About 2 nights ago you said “nigh-nighs” to me, which is what I say to you every night. You’ve only said it once so far.

What else can I say Ben? You are a lovely little boy, and I am so proud to call you my son. You are so smart, and so funny. You enjoy being the comedian, and intentionally try to make others laugh by doing or saying silly things. You are kind to your brother (as much as is to be expected for a toddler). You are very good at giving Ethan things when we ask you to. Lastly, We’ve been dying to hear you say “I love you mummy”. We’ve simplified it to “love you” which we’ve been saying to you recently. We’ve heard you “love you” a few times, and each time it melts our hearts. We’re looking forward to more fun times and fantastic conversations with you in the future.

Love Mummy and Mumma