The Joys of Being One

Well I think we had our first "toddler" day today. I know that Benjamin understands the word no....he often listens and follows it and will even shake his head no to me when he doesn't want something. Today I could not get him to stop hitting, biting, and pulling my hair. Now don't get me wrong, he's not a mean child in any way. He just gets really excited and sometimes the result is him doing one of the above. So I tried my usual stern no, pointing my finger, and shaking my head. This did no good. So I tried holding his arms to his stomach after he hit me and saying no. He gets very upset when his arms are held down and this used to work in the past. All he did was get mad while I was holding his arms and then as soon as he was free, sit up, laugh and begin hitting me again. So then I tried ignoring him and that just made the hitting turn into biting. Needless to say I was somewhat frusturated at my lack of parenting abilities! I decided to go make us lunch and hope that by the time lunch was over he'd forget about his need to hurt his mommy!

It got up to 72 degrees today (its been in the 40's) and I was so excited for us to enjoy the nice weather and go to the park. Well the time between his naps after lunch when I planned for us to go turned into a sleepy/fussy time (not a good time to go to the park). So we skipped it and then about 3:30 he all of a sudden perked up and was in a great mood. So we hopped in the car and enjoyed the wonderful day and were suprised to see our neighbor and her 3 year old at the park too. I had to skip his afternoon nap to make it to the park....but we made it! And we had a great time! Dave even joined us after work!!!!! The following are just some funny pictures from the last couple of days.....

Benjamin pleased to be sitting on his throne (just a pillow I know, but he thinks its really cool to sit on it like he's king)!


Look out Jeff Saturday, there's a new center in town! This is Benjamin's new trick, he puts his head on the ground and looks at you through his legs! So cute!


Ice cream bars are the best!!!!