20 Months.

My, MY another month has passed in the blink of an eye. What's changed with Ben since I wrote my 19 month post? In some ways, a whole bunch. In other ways, not a whole lot. :) His vocabulary continues to explode. He'll repeat just about any word you ask him to now and is associating more and more words with the correct object.

He has a well defined sense of humor and knows what makes us laugh. I thought we'd have several years before we'd run into the ol' bed time routine of "one more story, please" or "can I have a drink of water?". I was wrong. The last week or so, Ben's been prolonging us leaving his room by asking for a story to be read again (even though we just finished it), asking for milk and then when he gets it, asking for water instead, when I lay him in his crib, he pops back up and asks for one more hug. It's cute but slightly maddening at the same time. Several nights I've had to leave him crying. It doesn't last longer than a minute, but it still breaks my heart. I know if I give in, I'll be in there all night giving him "just one more hug."

He's come up with a new game. It's my fault. He wanted to visit the cats who were busy snoozing on our bed. I let him crawl around and asked him if he was going to go night-night, and he'd lay his head down on our pillows and pretend to sleep. Now he'll run giggling down the hall and stand outside our room (we have a gate up across our doorway so the cats have a place to escape Ben's enthusiastic love) saying "nigh-nigh! nigh-nigh!"

I took Ben to his first dentist appointment earlier in the month. He loved the waiting room - they had a fish tank which he was fascinated with and he really enjoyed their toys. He did not especially love the dentist chair, the hygienist or the dentist. He really did not enjoy when the dentist poked her fingers in his mouth and checked out his teeth (all four of his 1st molars are finally in!). He did really like his new toothbrush and the toy airplane he got. :)

A trip to Lowe's and $4 later, I had a 50 pound bag of sand for Ben's sand and water table. This is by far his favorite thing to do. He'll stand at the back door and ask to go outside (he says "side? side?" - very sweet). He thinks it's fabulous to dump the sand into the water and the water into the sand (it does not look nearly as nice as the picture above - now it's filthy and sand is all over the ground underneath - I don't even care, he's having a good time).

So at 20 months Ben has at least 10 teeth (he's working on more but isn't very fond of letting me look). He's down to about 3 diapers a day (used for nap time, night time and if we leave the house). He wears a size 5 1/2 shoe which is hard to find, so I have him wear 6's. They're a bit big, but he'll grow into them and I'll get a bit longer wear for my money. He's wearing mostly 18 month size (especially for pants) but is starting to fit into his 24 month stuff. He's eating almost everything we eat and has decided potatoes and chicken are now yummy foods. His favorite is probably grapes or cantaloupe & he really loves those applesauce pouches. He loves music & can sing several songs (or at least, parts to several songs). He loves to dance and play Nick's guitar & my piano. He really loves to go down the slide but still hates the swings (freaks out if you even start to put him in one). His favorite toy has got to be trucks. His favorite books are Gossie Plays Hide & Seek, The Big Red Barn, The Truck Book, and Head To Toe.