he melts my heart.

When Chris puts Ben to bed, he gets him changed and dressed, and they sit together on the chair in his room and read. I lower the shade, dim the lights, get his bed ready and turn on the music. On my way out, I tell Ben that I love him and ask him for a kiss. Usually he says no, and I steal one or ten anyway. But for the second night in a row, Ben has leaned up to give me a kiss.

Talk about wanting to freeze a moment in time. For one, he understands what I'm saying - he understands what I'm asking of him. That in itself is enough to make me proud of him and in awe of his little self. But the fact that he chose to give me a kiss, when toddlers pretty much do whatever they want and don't do anyone any favors... I love this kid.

Today we took a walk and got a smoothie - a 20-ouncer that Ben had more of than I did. I had to ask him, 'can Mommy have a sip?' and then he'd hand it to me, but only if I asked. We had a window seat, and he yelled, BEEE! and CAH! when buses and trucks rode by (cah is truck, cah-cah is car). I think the hipsters inside were getting flustered, so we went outside to watch the traffic.


Afterwards, we went to pick Dad up at work. He says 'DADA' all the time now and it is so cute. We pull onto Chris' block and Ben knows where we are. He looks out the window and up to Chris' floor and says, 'dada?' I took a picture of him while we waited for Chris.

And another of him straining his neck to see a bus that had just passed.


Dinnertime. A video. I know the videos are probably boring to everyone out there, but as his parents we eat this stuff up.