Sound it out

Ben walks into the bedroom while I'm getting dressed, toting a book.

"Daddy, does this say 'president?'"

I look at the book, Duck for President.

"Wow! Yes, it does!"

"I sounded it out all by myself."

"That's fantastic, Ben. Great job!"

"Duck for President... What's a president?"

Must... bite... tongue...

"Well Ben, ask me again in a couple of years, and maybe I'll have a respectable answer to that."

A selection of Ben's latest drawings

Ben's drawings keep getting more elaborate. There is usually a narrative behind them, too, beyond what's easy to decipher. The concentric circles next to the stop sign? Those are fireworks. I'm not really sure why they're there, but I'm sure kids would be more enthusiastic about going to school if there were fireworks at the bus stop every morning.


He calls this one "How to Get Dressed":


More to come as I scan and upload.

4 going on 14

A few months ago Ben exhibited the first signs that he was progressing far more rapidly than we had ever hoped. I was expecting a few years of tranquility somewhere in his middle childhood, but no. He has decided to go directly from toddler to teenager without passing Go, collecting $200, or beginning kindergarten. He is, of course, still well under the height requirement to get on the cool rides at Cedar Point, but the seeds of petulance have already been planted.

Ben has always been sensitive. Nearly a year ago he came home from daycare upset about something, and finally confided to my mother-in-law that someone had been mean to him. Last fall, though, when I picked him up from his current preschool, he sulked over to me looking grumpy. I asked him what happened, but he just sulked. Trying to coax out a response, he hissed "I just don't want to talk about it!" That was Sign #1.

Peer pressure has also reared its ugly head earlier than I expected. It hasn't stopped Ben from wearing a tiara and carrying a purse when his class is playing dress-up, but some criticism is apparently registering with him. Yesterday he told me that his friends said the zucchini muffins we include in his lunchbox "look disgusting." Sign #2. Granted, his friends aren't wrong; they look nice and tasty when they're fresh, but after a day they turn a bit grey, and look like they've been in the bathtub too long. He still ate them, but it's only a matter of time before others saying they look disgusting turns into Ben insisting they taste disgusting, so he won't eat them. Then the only vegetable in his diet will be ketchup. Which might satisfy the school board, but not our Whole Foods ethics.

Now he's starting to get opinions. I'm not talking about infants and toddlers having a favorite toy or preferring jumping on the bed to sleeping in it. I'm talking about a kid electing to veto a decision that has already been made. This morning, as Ben was getting dressed, he announced that he didn't like the underwear I'd laid out for him, so he went back to his drawer and chose a different pair. Never mind that I had made sure his outfit was coordinated from head to toe - even where it didn't matter - and that his selection clashed mightily with his shirt. Nope, Ben had an opinion, and he was going to act on it, by golly.

What's next? Is he going to start picking out all of his own clothes? Is he going to object to wearing the same outfit Ian has on? Because really, there's a practical purpose behind that. If we're out and one kid goes missing, we can simply point to the other and say, "He's dressed just like that, officer!" And when he's found, we can prove he's ours because they're a matching set, and what are the chances of that being coincidental? We've tested this theory, and it worked flawlessly. Pretty soon, though, they'll start wanting crap from Abercrombie.

At this rate, things should get really interesting by junior high.

I need a larger bathroom

Sort of lends a whole new depth of meaning to "shaking the dew off the lily," doesn't it? For those who felt the need to elaborate on the metaphor, now you can simultaneously put the dew on the lily. I bet you can save time cleaning, too. "Oh that? Little spots of pollen." Not that you'd notice anything with that giant yellow whatever-it's-called erupting from the bowl. God forbid you stagger into the bathroom in the middle of the night and mistake the urinal for the toilet. Better mount that sucker high on the wall.

The best part? It's only $10,500! A pittance for a pisspot of such caliber.

Things that go bump in the night

Last night I tiptoed into the kids' bedroom after they'd fallen asleep to put away some of their freshly-folded laundry. Ordinarily I would have left it on the nearest level surface until morning, but I needed said surface for my laundry, so something had to move. I contemplated stacking mine on top of theirs, but I've been burned too many times by clothing avalanches. Hell if I want to fold things twice.

On the way out, I noticed Ben was precariously close to the edge of his bed. He was facing toward the middle, though, and he rarely falls out, so I decided not to risk waking the proverbial giant and let him be. Not two minutes later, I was climbing into bed myself when I heard a whump that was too loud to have been made by one of the cats, so I immediately headed back to check on Ben. Sure enough, there he was on the floor, sitting up but looking groggy, a bit like Senator John McCain at the State of the Union address the night before. Luckily, he climbed back into bed without fuss and was none the worse for wear.

Looks like it might be a while yet before we let one of the kids use the upper bunk.

Snow!

Ben's months of prayers were finally answered when it started snowing yesterday. Of course, watching it fall from the sky, he immediately asked when we could make a snowman. I'm sure our neighbors wouldn't have minded our collecting all the snow from their property in order to construct a single snowman, but fortunately Ben settled for rolling snowballs around the yard. I kept waiting for him to pelt Ian with one (or vice versa), but to no avail. Maybe next time.

Even an inch of snow can be crippling here. In Michigan, crews salt the roads like fast food joints salt their fries. Salt is ubiquitous and plentiful. It supports the automotive industry by rusting through metal and necessitating new car purchases. In DC, however, real estate is far too precious to waste under an enormous salt dome, and snowstorms are so infrequent that the city usually chooses to shut down rather than put up a fight. Government workers are fond of their numerous holidays, and one or two snow days during the winter are seen as an entitlement. Lobbyists for digital cable providers probably make a flurry of calls (Ha!) to Capitol Hill the night before inclement weather is predicted to arrive, urging them to shut the government down. Especially during sweeps week.

As luck would have it, we were out beyond the beltway when the snow started falling, so we got to see how drivers here react to slick roads and ice-encrusted wipers. And let me tell you, most do not react well. Michiganders are far from universally capable, but aside from a few twits who spend the warmer months forgetting what it's like to have no stopping power, the majority are passably competent. Here in DC, however, a good number think that if you're having trouble gathering forward momentum because a wheel is spinning on ice, the obvious solution is to spin that wheel faster. I saw a BMW apparently built before traction control came standard demonstrating that water can indeed go directly from ice to steam if you simply hit 5,000 rpm. Meanwhile, my midwestern experience and Subaru all-wheel-drive crept past them all, the patient tortoise to their overeager hare. A Camaro driver looked dumbfounded and bitter. Of course, I suppose that describes most Camaro drivers, regardless of road conditions.

Uphill both ways

One of Ben's Christmas gifts this year was an Adams Trail-A-Bike.


The Trek trailer we picked up a few years ago has been great for hauling both boys together, but it's also proved to be my most sensitive gauge of how quickly they're growing. I swear every time we went for a ride, they'd gotten heavier. A couple of hills out near the beltway actually had me in my lowest gear, which I don't think I'd ever even used before. I felt like a pansy until I did some mental calculations and realized I was hauling nearly 100 extra pounds back there. That's more than an entire Olsen twin! At least after the evening purge, that is.

Sharing the burden of child-towing with Sarah has been a double-edged sword. While I rejoice in how easy it feels with just one deadweight kid slowing me down, Sarah finally appreciates why I was so frustratingly slow sometimes. Now she's the one playing catch-up. Besides the added weight, the one disadvantage of the Trail-A-Bike versus a trailer is that kids' tendency to wiggle is far more noticeable on a single wheel. At one point last weekend Ben threw the two of them off-balance so often I started to wonder if I could make it home by attaching the Trail-A-Bike to my seat post, and the trailer to the Trail-A-Bike. I'd be like one of those extended trucks on the Ohio Turnpike, undulating as I hurtled along and striking fear into anyone wanting to pass. Might make for a good YouTube video, come to think of it.

In other news, Ben has been making quick progress in reading. He's halfway through his first level of phonics books already, allowing him to tell about the tan fat cat all by himself. At this rate, I figure he'll be blogging by first grade.

Legpit

Michigan was warmer than usual over the holidays, but that didn't prevent the boys' skin from drying out due to the cold. We've been slathering moisturizer on their legs and arms ever since we got home. Tonight Ben decided he was ticklish when I tried to get the backsides of his knees (not that I hold it against him - it's just that he wasn't ticklish at all yesterday), so he squirmed away and said "Stop! You're tickling my leg armpit!"

He thought about that for a second, then changed his mind: "You're tickling my legpit!"

Makes sense to me. I'm totally adding that to my vocabulary.