Ben was slow to develop his speech, relying on Abby telling us what he wanted and using non-verbal communication to get his point across, which usually was him grabbing us by the arm and taking us somewhere and then pointing. After some very hard work by Ben, his speech therapist, and his family he has gotten it figured out and is now talking constantly! Some fun ones:
- Currently he enjoys pointing at Daddy and saying "Daddy Bad guy", then making a fist and saying, "Ben fight bad guy" and then punching me. This is all good fun except for when it actually hurts. Then we jump on the computer and watch videos of good guys fighting bad guys - usually Star Wars lightsaber fights.
- Completely obsessed with Finding Nemo and sharks in general. He sleeps with two stuffed Great Whites and a stuffed Hammerhead (along with a T-Rex, two froggies (one is his most special friend), and Mario). Although he loves fish and sharks the other day when I took him and Abby to Underwater World he was terrified of the sharks in the tank - I think the way the swim so close to you (behind glass of course) and even over your head really freaked him out. He enjoyed everything else at the aquarium, but those Sand Tigers were a little much I guess.
- I just got back from Los Angeles and brought him a toy space shuttle, which he was immediately obsessed with, and we ended up watching videos on the computer of space shuttle launches, and eventually looking at pictures of what the Mars rover sent back. Ben was pretty bored by this part, but Abby was completely into it. She currently says she wants to be a "bone scientist" when she grows up so she can find dinosaurs in the mud (or a Pony trainer), but maybe astronaut isn't too far off.
- Since Ben's talking now he comes up with his own names sometimes, and Grandma Wickman has now become "Noma". It's pretty funny because both Mom and I along with Grandma and Grandpa always said our kids weren't going to call them silly names and they'd always be Grandma and Grandpa, but now we have Noma and Papa, and somehow that seems right.
- He's also really enjoying the phone. One day when we were at Noma and Papa's I called Mom and then asked Abby if she wanted to talk to her - predictably she said no. I asked Ben, and he said yes and then had a 10 minute conversation! It was pretty amazing to see this kid just jabber away.
- I brought Ben to a Twins game last weekend, just the two of us, and he had a pretty good time for 3 innings. It was cold and a little rainy and the Twins were terrible and the stands were mostly empty since it was a Sunday at the same time the Vikings were playing, but all in all I think we had fun. He wouldn't eat anything except a bag of chips (what else is new) but when we went into the souvenir shop he found what he wanted. I had planned on getting him a new Twins shirt, but he saw the baby blue mini-Twins bat and he had to have it, saying "blue bat" over and over no matter what else I showed him. He's really coming into his own with the ability to communicate now, and we are seeing even more of his personality and he's still a class clown but even more so. Really not looking forward to coming to get him from the principal's office for disrupting class, but I have a feeling that's where we're headed. Such a goofy kid, I love it.
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