Ben's Blog

A couple of weeks ago, I took Ben for his 2 year development check.  It was a bit daunting for us both at first as we went to a clinic we had never been to before.  Ben didn’t take too long before he was playing with the toys in the Health Visitors clinic though.

Basically Ben is up to speed with everything he should be and ticked all the boxes for his abilities which included kicking a ball, jumping and running without falling over etc.  He also recognises colours and can count past ten now!  His sentences are coming together very well and some days he doesn’t stop talking.  He also now asks questions all the time, like “what’s that Mummy?” and “what you doing?”.  Can sometimes get rather annoying being asked the same thing over and over, especially when he knows exactly what IT is and what I’m doing.

Ben had his height measured and was slightly above the 50th centile line.  He pretty much refused to stand on the scales and be weighed, even though I did it first!  We know his weight is about average anyway as he will happily stand on the Wii Fit board and be weighed, so we can record it ourselves anyway.

We don’t have to go to have Ben weighed or measured any more unless we have a concern, even though he will be with the Health Visitor clinic until he turns 5, which will be school age!

Ben had a really good 3rd Christmas and Father Christmas brought him lots of presents!

On Christmas Eve Ben put out a carrot for the Reindeer and a drop of milk and a cookie for Santa with a Christmas Card as well, and when he woke up in the morning, they were gone and a Christmas Card from Father Christmas had been left behind for him.

Typically, Ben had been waking up early all week (as we had had a lot of snow) but on Christmas morning, he decided to have a lie in so in the end I had to go in and wake him up at half past 7.  When he woke, he was very excited though, as Father Christmas had completely filled his stocking up which had been left at the side of his bed.  I helped him bring it in to our room and we opened up our stocking presents.  Unfortunately, Ben turned a bit naughty as he wanted to eat all his chocolate from his stocking, so we had to hide it all in the end!

We then went downstairs and Ben was very excited when he saw the gigantic stack of presents underneath and beside the Christmas Tree.  I had to hold him back from diving in as he went straight to a big present and was just about to rip it open before we even had chance to get settled!

It took ages to open all the presents and Ben had a wide range including a hoover, a kitchen, a remote controlled car, magna-doodle, a play tent, a laptop, a camera (that actually works and takes pictures and video!), a Thomas and Timmy Time set, lots of clothes and lots of chocolate. He played with everything and loved it all!

He didn’t really eat his Christmas Dinner as he had been scoffing on chocolate and sweets all morning, and he was too excited to sit down and eat for very long!

Anyways, we had a really good day and Ben seemed to love it all…he was very tired when it was bed time, although he still woke up several times during the night!

He had more presents on Boxing Day and over the next few days from various people, which he loved as well!

So a big thank you to everyone who bought Ben a present for Christmas!!

Here are some pictures –

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Well Ben has been getting quite excited about Christmas, especially when we have been wrapping our presents up!  When I was wrapping up Kelly’s, Ben grabbed it and ran off downstairs and tried to give it to Kelly to open.  He then got quite upset when we said we had to wait till Christmas!  Poor boy. ;0)  So I think when Christmas morning arrives, he is going to be bouncing around the house when he first sees that Father Christmas has brought lots of presents.  Should be interesting!

We had a good amount of snow over the past few days and Ben was excited about this as well.  We went for a couple of walks around the local area, which Ben enjoyed, although he wouldn’t walk all the time.  In one of the fields we walked in, there were lots of other people walking their dogs, so Ben decided to run after the dogs!  I had to chase after him at one point.

With Christmas fast approaching and snow still lying on the ground, we may actually have a white Christmas!

This week marked the first week where Ben has gone to bed at night time without his dummy. It was actually him that said no on the first night when asked if he wanted it, so we were quite surprised but relieved as we have been thinking about getting rid of his dummies for a while now.

He managed to sleep OK without a dummy as well, so that was great! He was a little restless but no more than usual. The next few nights he still asked for it but we reminded him that he was a big boy now and didn’t need it.  We had also thrown them away so we didn’t have any to give to him anyway. Luckily he seemed to be happy enough with that explanation and went to bed fine.

Our little boy is growing up…… 😉

Well, Ben is growing up quickly now!

His speech has come on leaps and bounds over the past few weeks.  He can now say ‘Daddy’ correctly but still calls me ‘Simon’ and ‘Si’ occasionally when he want to be cheeky!  I must admit I do miss it when he couldn’t say ‘Daddy’ properly and said something like ‘Gaddin’ instead.  Other than this, he is now stringing several words together and is close to saying whole sentences now.  He can almost count to ten and knows some of the letters of the alphabet.

This past couple of days, he has now started to talk on the mobile phone to me.  It was lovely to hear him speak to me via the phone and he sounded so cute! 😉  Apparently, he wanted to speak to me down the phone after Kelly had spoken to me first.  Now we just need him to talk to others!

He loves going to Playgroup on a Friday morning and has already made me a Christmas card, and when I got home from work, he made sure he told me all about it!

He always asks, every day, to go for a ride in the car.  He is obsessed with it! haha A couple of weeks ago, I took Ben out shopping for Christmas presents and we both enjoyed it, although he was a bit naughty in the shop.  This was the first time Ben and I had been out shopping on our own.

He is very independent and wants to do everything himself and is obsessed with the hoover which he calls something like ‘wonna’.  Not sure where he has got that from! He also sits down like an old man with a cup of tea and a biscuit to watch the catch up of X-Factor on a Monday morning with his Mummy, and he also likes Eastenders apparently.  But more importantly, he likes football, snooker, darts and motor racing and cheers for Everton all the time.  Another Evertonian in the making I think!

We put a little Christmas tree up in his room with some lights over the past weekend and he loved it, so he is going to go crazy when we put the rest of the decorations up.

Finally, he is also convinced that the new baby will be a girl!  So we will see.