weinraub’s words

Benjamin recently rebuffed Annie’s attempt to wake him by replying “Leep. Lone.”

Translation: “Sleeping. Leave me alone.”

Just love that kid.

We are in that toilet training phase with Benjamin and he’s doing great. He announces his intention (usually), goes into the bathroom (usually), and does his business. Of course, we have a little potty for him. His aim is horrendous, but slowly improving.

Lately, he has been opting for the full-size grown-up toilet. In general, I view this as positive; he has apparently figured out on his own that everybody else does their business in the big toilet, so he ought to do it there, too. Excellent.

However….

He’s not quite tall enough. So the poor kid’s little pee pee can’t get over the rim and point down into the bowl. Instead, we get a vertical spray that occasionally launches forward, but never even gets close to the bowl.

Ai yai yai…

Benjamin has now begun to use two expressions, one Thai and one English, to express that he wants to do something for himself.

In Thai, to “do it myself” is ทําตัวเอง (tam dtua eng). In keeping with the apprently-now-standard Weinraub early-development pattern of using only the last syllable of anything he wants to express, Benjamin pronounces this as eng. So, when he wants to to do something by himself, without assistance, he will bellow Eng! Eng!.

More recently, he has started using an English version. But instead of “Do it my self” or even the single syllable “It”, he comes out with “Do it! Do it!” as he grabs for the remote or the keys or the scissors or the flamethrower, etc. The pronunciation resembles a kind of run-together, single word, almost a “Doowit”.

Very cute!

Man, my cup of parental pride just runneth over.

Last night, after returning from swimming, we put Benjamin in a long shirt, almost a night-shirt, and we had not yet bothered to put pants on him. No biggie, he’s mostly got the toilet training down, typically announcing his intention to pee and then running off to do his business, usually in the bathroom, though sometimes outside, firing a stream off the front-steps, off the porch, etc. He still wears a diaper while sleeping.

As it got close to bedtime, we started to turn down the lights, to lower the volume on the TV, all that stuff that begins the transition into “quiet-time”, etc. The kids were alone in the bedroom for a few minutes watching TV.

Before Annie or I got a chance to go back inside and get everybody off to bed, Benjamin emerged from the room to show us that he had sourced a new diaper from the shelf and had put it on all by himself.

Holy smokes! 2 years, 4 months?

That’s my boy!

So, we are watching Bugs Bunny videos – dubbed into Thai, interestingly enough, with a whiny voice for Bugs. As he attempts to escape from the hunter Elmer J. Fudd, he begins a tap dance routine.

Both kids – Becca and Benjamin – attempt their own tap dance.

Gregory Hines can still probably sleep at night, at least for a little bit longer.

Yesterday, the kids ask for some chocolate milk, so i go out into the kitchen to cut open the little milk boxes and pour it into bottles for them.

[ Becca still likes a bottle sometimes; gonna have to deal with that at some point. Probably wouldn't hurt to wean Benjamin off that pretty soon, too. ]

Benjamin comes out into the kitchen to help. So, I pull out two bottles and count off so he can hear: “One….. Two….”

Benjamin chimes in unexpectedly: “Three!”

Next up: Tensor calculus.