What Is Ben Up To?

First off, Ben's big news is he's starting to read. His teacher at school has been sending him home with "early reader" books, so he can read them to us. In fact, his teacher said he was the youngest "early reader" she had right now in the class, and felt like he was a little bit ahead of the curve as far as reading goes. As a parent, you sure like to hear things like that. Anyway, here's Ben reading.



Ben is enjoying his new bicycle. Everyday he rides it up and down the sidewalks, and all over. In the few short weeks he's had it he's shown real improvement. He's moving faster on it now, and seems to be getting more comfortable controlling it.

Believe it or not Ben has shown some improvement in his eating. For several months now Jenny and I have been working with him on improving his eating habits, and opening up to new foods. This has been a challenge because he has such a limited appetite to begin with (unless you put a tub of popcorn in front of him.) We've been making progress over the past few months, and mealtimes have become a lot less stressful. He's now opening up to pizza, chicken nuggets, lunch meats like ham and turkey, mashed potatoes, hamburgers, all kinds of pasta, carrots, lettuce, breads and tortillas, etc. He's trying and we're slowly making progress as we continue to introduce different foods to him. The challenge has been his picky taste buds. He just has a preference for bland tastes right now. Anything saucy, (like spaghetti sauce) he won't try. Also, he seems to have a strong disliking toward cheese. I mean...all things cheese. This is another area we're working on with him. For example, he doesn't like mac and cheese, because of the cheese. So we only pour on a little cheese, or sometimes leave it plain.
But we're very proud of him, and the progress we're making. In fact, several times now he and I have gone to Subway for lunch. I know that doesn't sound like anything special, but for Ben it is. Taking him to Subway for the first time...willingly and without crying or fussing...was a huge victory for us. I would say now his taste buds and appetite are more typical for his age now.

Let's see...Ben has also pretty much given up on taking a nap. We now call it "quiet time," where he will sit in his room or lay in his bed and read books or play with toys. He just hardly takes a nap anymore, and the few times he does he's actually grumpier afterward, instead of being happy and refreshed. So the lack of naps during the day has obviously helped him fall asleep faster at night at bed time.