Ben’s Blog

Crash Bandicoot and Beemer

me: Hey Ben. Do you want to go to Park Day tomorrow or do you want to stay home? You could meet some new guys at Park Day.

Ben: Yes. Go Park Day. My no like meet new guys. My meet new girls.

It all started with an owl.

An owl swooped in front of my car one night as we were driving home and Ben (who has Issues with owls) assured us that his Dada would catch it and kill it because… well.. there’s meat in an owl.

Then, a few weeks ago at the science museum, in the barnyard animal area, Ben spies a turkey.
I told him, “Look Ben, a turkey”
Ben says, “Yum! Mine yes yike. Meat in!”
An old lady who was standing nearby *dies laughing*

Today we were outside playing with the boy across the street (affectionately referred to by Ben as “my guy”) when the boys found what was probably a squished toad in the driveway. Ben picks it up, with his bare hands, and brings it to me.
Ben says, “Mommy! Look! Meat!”

I am so. proud.

Then I had to throw the “meat” in the woods before cooper found and ate it.

When Brian came home tonight, Ben was happy to tell him about the meat. Ben told him, “Mine find dead meat!”

Ben is very focused on “bad guys” lately. Where they are, what they are doing, whether or not they need shooting. He spends a lot of time catching them and putting them into police cars. I hear this is popular with male 4 year olds. Glad to know he read the memo.

Also, I don’t know if you heard, but his dada got a new blue car. This comes in his play at least seventy thousand million times a day. New. Blue. Vroom.

The other day Ben was “stuck” and thought he needed help but before I could respond he realized he could do it himself. He said “Mommy, help me. No, wait. Mine help me.”

Ben’s brother is here this week. It is pretty awesome. That is all.

Ben tuned 4 this week! He was disappointed when he woke up on his birthday and found that he hadn’t grown “big” overnight. He is, however, still a “big guy” now. Being a big guy means you eat hot food.

We had a party last weekend with a few of his friends and a good chunk of our relatives. And Wool E Bull.

On his actual birthday he got to have ice cream for lunch and pizza and ice cream for dinner. Don’t tell his pediatrician.

His big birthday present this year was a castle. He’s been excited about knights since we took him to the ren faire in Wake Forest a few months ago and he saw knights fighting and jousting. We’ve had a lot of sword fights in the yard with his plastic swords recently.

I’d been starting to worry a little (I know you’re shocked) because, although he has a great imagination, he doesn’t do a lot of pretend play with little dolls or people. He’ll turn his car ramp into a dustbuster, pretend to plant “pea soup” in my flower pots, host tea parties (and no, not *that* kind of tea party!), and make me stomp around in the woods looking for elves and killing dragons and the red eyed Mario. But he wouldn’t do much of the talking for pretend characters or making up little scenes with his play people.

Turns out he just needed more bad guys. The knights in his castle engage in endless conversations, mostly about fighting and knocking each other off their ponies. It’s all in good fun, though, because after the fighting is over, they all go inside the castle to have hot tea.

Apparently we’ve moved too much. Granted, he has moved house once for every year of his life (Guatemala to KY at 5 months, Ky to Cary, NC at 23 months, Cary to Raleigh at almost 3). The past two springs have been spent packing, moving, and unpacking. This spring rolled around and suddenly Ben is asking when we’re going to move. Shouldn’t we be packing? Where is his new house? In his new house the bathroom will be red, not blue.

He loves this hat so much, he slept in it last night.