mama, da, kitty, car, elbow, puppy, apple.

Such are the words that our kid can pronounce (well, sorta) thus far, in the order that he's learned them. A few are perfectly clear, while others require a bit of aural creativity on his parents' behalf.

Most amazing of all: today marks the first day that Ben initiated play (as those child-rearing guys phrase it) before I left his daycare room. On Mondays and Wednesdays, he immediately sits down for his lunch, and on Fridays, he usually whines and/or cries and/or clings and/or looks absolutely stricken while I shove his food and sippy cups in the fridge. Yet, this morn, after the (cling-free!) fridge-shoving, I turned around to see him happily wheeling a toy shopping cart around the room. Shocking. He seemed content until the other Ben shoved him away from the cart and--insult to injury--stole the lone block that was inside. Of course, lead teacher reminded both Bens that "nice touches" were expected of them, which remarkably prompted Other Ben to look a bit ashamed and wander all of 16 inches away to play with Other Shopping Cart. And my Ben was still playing with his cart after I left the room (yes, I peek, every lovin' day).

Dearest Ben, have we turned over a new leaf with the daycare thing? Other Ben, where did you learn to glower like that?

Drawing a blank.

I really, truly do believe that having a baby really, truly rots one's brain, just a little bit. I can think of nothing witty to say (well, I've never exactly been Oscar Wilde), yet I feel compelled to type. Perhaps it's best that I'm doing so on my very own blog, which no one ever reads, rather than on Facebook, or in an e-mail, or in a chatroom. Do chatrooms still exist? Haven't seen or been in one since circa 1998, at Chris's old apartment. (On AOL. Does AOL still exist? Does dial-up AOL still exist?) Mostly, I just logged in to politically conservative rooms and tried to rile people up with liberal comments and arguments. Yeah, that's me: the troublemaker, the rabble-rouser, the rebel. Ah, memories...

And as for the word "e-mail": are we skipping the hyphen these days? Has it come to that, finally? At one point it was "electronic mail," and then "E-mail," and then "e-mail." Or is everyone else texting or twittering or whatever, and e-mail's just totally passe? I, for one, am sticking with "e-mail" and e-mail.

I think this is why I never took up journaling after 6th grade-ish. I think I need to get to bed...

3.

So, I'm only posting again because it's depressing to have more than 5 full months of the year under one's belt--well, under all of our belts, I suppose--and to see that I only have "2" posts for 2009. And now it says "3." And I think I shall take this as my accomplishment for the day...

14 months, 3 weeks...

I thought that I'd planned to post here more often, yet I see it's been (almost) 4 months since my last...and I'm only posting now because I likely will forget next Friday, when Ben is 15 months by the calendar. Ye gods...as Rob and I say nearly every day--as maybe most people with little ones think every day--where has the time gone? Walking, babbling, imitating, feeding himself...and Ben's really progressed as well (ha).

Well, Ben, you and I have a full (vacation) day tomorrow of garage sales and thrift stores, just in case your Da is laid off/fired soon; Guy must be fashionably dressed, and there are still a few things I'm hoping for that are a bit too pricey new (wagon, bike trailer, etc.). Oh, who am I kidding? If we earned triple what we do now, I'd still hit the ol' Value World and block sales...

11 months. Holy crap. HOLY CRAP.

This child is 11 months old. ELEVEN MONTHS OLD. And looking less like a baby, more like a little boy lately. Just look at him:

Ben is quite the talented one. He says "mama" (to and in reference to Mama and Da and the kitties and anything else that pleases him). He eats finger foods (tofu and pasta and all manner of fruit and veg, taking what he wants and throwing the rest on the floor quite methodically and calmly). He grooves to music (big fan of R & B and the oldies station). He knows the meaning of the words "no" and "NO" and "NOOOOO!" (laughing and moving faster as soon as he hears any variation, of course).

Unfortunately, some bad habits persist: How dare we consider, even for the briefest of moments, that cribs are appropriate sleeping environments for babies? How dare we put him down to use the bathroom or brush teeth or put on socks? Yeah, he's coddled, and I'm wrapped...

Better get moving on the first birthday extravaganza...