Ben at 3

The last time I did an update on Ben was about three months ago (). As I read back through it, not a ton has changed.

He still likes the same "characters" (Sid and Curious George) but has calmed down a bit about his obsession with Steve Songs and John Butler Trio.

He likes the same foods, but I would add that pasta is by far his favorite food. He will go nights without eating dinner, but if you put pasta in front of him, he'll often ask for seconds.

He is into anything art project related. I think this came from being in school. He likes stickers, paint, crayons, markers, glue, etc. Many of his birthday presents (and soon-to-receive Christmas presents) are art supplies. He even made up a song about art projects. (It's basically the words "Art Project" over and over again to the tune of him strumming his guitar.) He also got a new guitar (hopefully better quality) for his birthday since he plays his one from Lincoln All The Time.

He's also getting back into books, so that's awesome. He wants to read them more often.

He's a chatter box, asking lots of questions and telling lots of stories. He also keeps track of things way better than I do. If something is lost, we often tell each other to ask Ben because he usually knows where it is. His memory and imagination continue to grow as he recounts stories from months ago and imagines things that we've never done or places we've never gone. I find it very fun to go on these "trips" with him to see where we end up. :)

Since I wrote last, Ben has been in preschool for a few months and he DOES love it. It took him about a month to leave me without a fuss in the morning and still sometimes he has some clingy days. More often than not though, he walks right into school to see what fun they are going to have that day. He ALWAYS greets me with a VERY big smile at the end of the day. Mrs. Foy (the assistant teacher) is his buddy and he LOVES her.

I didn't write about this last time, but I do want to document it. Ben can count to 10 consistently and has probably about 1/2 of the numbers to 20. He's also pretty good at actually counting things (like if there are 5 horses in a book, he can count them and tell me there are 5 of them). He knows his colors and can identify his shapes. He sings the alphabet about 90% correctly. He cannot yet identify numbers or letters..hopefully that will be next.

Ben is very sweet with Lincoln and finally Lincoln is very into Ben. It will be soooo much fun to watch this relationship grow!

As with my last update....no child is perfect. Ben's crying is driving us crazy. I'm hoping this is a stage and I CAN'T WAIT for it to go away. "Use your words" and "I can't understand you when you're crying" have become phrases I use constantly. He also seems to have selective hearing. I hope someday we can figure out what works to get him to listen to us....before he really gets hurt doing something that I am telling him to stop doing!

In reference to his sleeping....we took the gate off his door at Thanksgiving which has made the bedtime and nap time routine quite a bit better. Until the last week when all our family was here for his birthday.....going to bed had been pretty easy. I'm assuming we can get back to that after Christmas when we are home and back to normal again. Let's just hope we make it through Christmas (at Kathy and Don's and then at my Mom's house) without any major sleep issues (from Ben, anyway :)).

Ben is still not potty trained....by the next time I do an update on here, I hope I can report something different!

Can't believe Ben is 3! We had a wonderful time celebrating with our family. Ben is a lucky boy! For his birthday, my Mom and I took Ben downtown on the train (awesome!) to the Comcast Center to see the Christmas show on the huge screen in their lobby. It was really really fun and an inexpensive and really great activity for his birthday! He's already asking to go again...which we will do, but maybe not until next year. :) After 4 days of birthday celebrations between celebrating in school on Friday, birthday party on Saturday, family here on Sunday and his real birthday yesterday, hopefully he's celebrated-out. We had the last 3 cupcakes last night. Now only 5 days until the celebration begins again for Christmas!

Happy birthday Benny!!