monday monday.

We had a fun day today. Awhile back I signed Ben up to participate in research being done by the University of Pennsylvania. They have an Infant Language Center and were looking for children up to 3 years old to help with the study.

We got there this morning at 8:50 or so for our 9am appointment. The researcher and her intern explained what the procedure would be, while Ben got acclimated to the new place. They had a child-size table and crayons and paper. Ben got excited when he saw that he could 'daw'.


When the experiment was ready, we went into a room and sat in a chair - Ben on my lap. He was shown a 6-minute film, and every 10 seconds or so he was shown a split screen of two objects: keys and a sock, a bed and a cup, a dog and juice, etc. A woman's voice told Ben to look at one of the objects, and a camera hidden just beneath the screen monitored his eye movements. The voice was a little too cheery, and the first few times Ben heard her, he jumped a little, but he got used to it.

So I wouldn't give cues unconsciously, I had to wear headphones blaring Elvis. It was really kind of funny. I could still hear the lady's voice, but kept quiet anyway. Apparently the study is being mirrored in the Netherlands, to determine whether English-speaking and Dutch-speaking children respond to and understand words pronounced slightly differently. For instance, in the final minute of the video, the woman pronounced bed, 'bet', etc. It was pretty interesting, and Ben got two books for 'payment' for his participation. A fun morning. It brought out the Psych Major (before I failed statistics and changed my major to English) nerd in me.

This afternoon we got smoothies and went to the park. Ben loves his smoothies. I get a blueberry, strawberry and banana smoothie for him - it is the only time he'll eat those fruits, so I'm at least giving him something healthy. He's all business when it's Smoothie Time.


I've written about this park before - it's new and fun, and there are lots of different families that bring their children there. First, we went to the jungle gym.


Ben likes the slide. He is a little daredevil and has no fear.


At one point, I was sitting at the bottom of the slide, and he realized I was there to catch him, so instead of sliding down, he ran AT me. And gave me a small heart attack each time.


We then took a walk over to the sprayers. The kid loves water.


I love watching him have fun. Chris and I are so in awe of him and once in awhile we'll glance at each other and both have these huge grins on our faces. I feel like every day, I smile so much my face hurts.

In other news, the kid in the white tank top (far left) in the picture below? Projectile vomited, three times, a few minutes after this picture was taken. It was orangey-pink. Not that you asked. But I felt bad for the little guy.