Poor Dixie Down!

A little over a week ago, Ben got his first guitar.  It was a big hit, right from the start.  Usually when I go to pick him up from daycare, he's so involved in playing that it's like pulling teeth to get him out the door.  But every day last week he marched right up to me and said, "Let's go home so I can play my guitar!"  We'd get home and I'd still be down in the kitchen fixing a snack, and he'd already be upstairs rocking out.

As you know, if you've been following this blog, Ben is a serious John Denver fan.  On our greatest hits collection, there's a track where John Denver covers The Band's song "The Weight."  This led us to watch YouTube videos of The Band's original version, plus their various other hits.  That explains Ben's song line-up for this impromptu gig.

My Mother's Day

This is how it started:  I was in the kitchen making biscuits (it was a Formula 1 race day).  Ben ran in, put his arms up to indicate that I should pick him up, and announced:

"This is your Mother's Day hug!" [big hug]
"This is your Mother's Day kiss!"  [sloppy wet kiss]
"This is your Mother's Day back rub!"  [back rub]
"This is your Mother's Day cuddle!"  [cuddle]

Yeah, life doesn't get much better than that!

Here's the "John Lennon Hotel" that Ben built while we were watching the race.  He usually builds animal hotels, to house his large collection of small plastic animals, but this time he decided that John would be the featured guest.  Note John's banana slug button.

Later in the morning we went for a Mother's Day walk, during which Ben addressed everyone we met with a hearty, "Happy Mother's Day!!!"  The two school-age boys down the street who were out riding bikes were a little nonplussed by this, but the neighbor woman two doors down was tickled.

Here's a random shot from last week.  It was the first warm, sunny day we'd had in awhile, and Ben was trying on last summer's sunglasses before we headed out to a playground.  This of course meant that he had to go get his ukulele, for full effect.

He must be operating on a whole different plane

Starting at about 7:30 this morning, Ben woke up laughing.  He continued to giggle sporadically for the next half hour.  When he finally got up, he told us a joke that apparently had come to him in a dream.  It goes like this:

Where is the ball?
It got stubbed on a toe.
Why did it get stubbed on a toe?
[big punch line coming up; break into pre-emptive helpless giggling]
It is because you keep moving the bat!!!

Yes.  That's the joke.  No, we don't get it.  But that is the joke, and he proceeded to recite the entire thing, without deviation, at least 50,000 times during the rest of the day.  Even tonight, roughly 12 hours after the initial recital, he was completely unable to contain his hilarity as he built up to the final punchline.  At least he knows how to entertain himself!

The holidays in pictures

  Ben carefully places an egg on the Seder plate on the first night of Passover.  We didn't have a real shank bone, so that's a cut-out of a picture that Neil found online.

 

On other nights, we do not dip even once. But on this night, we dip many, many, many times. Apparently, dipping gnocchi in salt water is our new Seder tradition.

On the second night of Passover, we had friends over for a Seder (hence the good tablecloth, and the kids table in the background).  Here's Ben chomping into a lemon-shaped candy.

In his Easter basket, Ben got a new magnifying glass and some more rocks for his rock collection.  Yes, this is the kind of nerdly family we are.  Ben seems to fit right in.

As if that weren't enough, he also got a set of tangrams.  Oh, yeah, and a chocolate rabbit and lots of other candy of a traditional Easter nature.  We're math geeks, but we also like our chocolate.

We went over to Jackson's house for a wonderful Easter egg hunt and Easter dinner.  I don't have any pictures of that yet.

More from our budding philosopher

This will take a bit of explanation.

Ben has a large collection of small toy cars, and most of these have real wheels that turn on axles.  Y'know -- Matchbox and things of that ilk or a little bigger.  He also has a set of "squirties" -- those soft plastic bath toys with a little hole somewhere so you can fill them with water and then squirt your child silly.  Many of these are in the shape of vehicles -- car, firetruck, submarine (of course), etc.  These do not have real wheels, so Ben refers to these as "fake" cars.  We usually keep them in the bin with the rest of the cars, because, frankly, we don't like using them in the bath -- it's hard to get all the water out of them, and we aren't fans of mildew.

So last night he was playing with his wide assortment of vehicles, and he declared "This is a real person who likes to play with fake things."

He just needs a beard with bits of food in it*

Today Ben's daycare was closed for staff meetings, so after preschool Ben got to sit in on one of Neil's office hours.  Neil was giving an exam in his logic class later in the day, so he had plenty of anxious customers.  As if their pre-test anxiety wasn't high enough already, Neil taught Ben to say to them, "Your statement is the negation of a tautology."

For logicians, them's fightin' words.  Seriously, if a logician ever says that to you, consider yourself served.

It was pretty cute.

Later, we all had lunch together over in the Math Department, where Ben and one of my colleagues (a fellow John Denver fan) gave us a rousing concert.

*If this title makes no sense to you, it's because you know relatively few professional logicians.  Count your blessings.  My father once threatened to disown me if I became a logician.  I think he was joking, but I've never been completely sure.

School pic

Here's a cute picture of Ben in his speech therapy session this morning.  The director of the preschool sent it to me.