Blogging Benjamin: January 2011

Emma and the Potty

Last weekend we had a big potty party for Alex, and Ben was simultaneously part of the action and also jealous he wasn't getting nearly as many potty treats as Alex (though he negotiated getting them again for himself since we are such pushovers...).

Part of the training day was Alex's doll getting trained too. Armed with a squirt bottle in my apron and a few rolled dates, Emma had a few accidents, and a few successful attempts in her small potty during the day. My mock-ups were particularly convincing because Ben just couldn't wrap his head around just how this had happened.

He went to bed asking Jeff, "How did Emma go potty? She doesn't eat real food. Was that someone else's poop?" and then, a couple of days later, gleefully telling the grandparents that "Emma the doll pooped and peed in the potty!"

Alex, meanwhile, had no issues with the whole thing - seems it was just another day with Emma in his book...

Dragons

Ben got a big Playmobil castle for Chrismas. He loves it and tells us so everyday. He recently got obsessed with having a dragon (or dragons) for the castle. By obsessed I mean constant requests to get a dragon, to go to toystores until we could find the one he wanted, buying it online, finding pictures to print out, etc.

This escalated to such a state that the other night Ben stated:

"I want to have a family meeting to talk about the dragons"