Best Night.

Tonight I had a fantastic evening with Ben. Nothing really stellar or special happened, but it was one of those nights where everything just seemed to go right. I want to make sure I don't forget moments like these, so to the blog I take. :)

This last week or so has been particularly difficult at our house. It seems Ben has discovered a bit of aggression and is showing it in the way of hitting, biting and pinching. I have no idea where this came from - no one in this family hits, bites or pinches him. In looking through some babycenter.com articles, I have to go with this is just a stage in his life. We're struggling with the right way to discipline him while maintaining our own cools. It's difficult, but we'll figure it out.

So, because of that difficult period we're going through, it makes me stop and appreciate nights like this even more. After Nick went off to school, Ben & I headed out to the elementary school a block over and spent time just playing. He went down the slide a time or two, but mostly he was having fun picking up the little wood chips from the play area and making a pile with them on the steps to the jungle gym.

I noticed the sky was getting pretty serious looking, so we walked on back home. He held my hand every time we crossed a road with no struggles or fuss. He found a little lilac bloom that had fallen off a tree and sniffed, sniffed, sniffed before handing it off to me for smelling.

Once we got home, it was time for some play in the living room. We played with his fire truck steering wheel dealie, we made music, made silly sounds through blocks and danced. We took silly pictures of ourselves and looked at them on the camera.


Then it was off to bath, where he played and played - took time putting his little wash cloth on top of his head and then giving me the cheesiest grin ever.

When the wind started to get loud and crazy, we came back out to the living room to get jammied up and then looked outside at the blowing trees.

When it was time for night-night, he went to his room with no fuss (usually he "escapes" once or twice and I have to chase him back to his room). We read a story, the whole way through, again with no fuss. We said nighty-night to nana and turned on his music and spent some time cuddling.

There are times when he absolutely tests my patience and I wonder how we're ever going to make it to two years old. Those times make me question my sanity at ever wanting children in the first place and being certain (at that time) that there won't be any more children. Then we have times like this, everything goes right and I think "yeah, this is why I had a baby."