Sakes alive, he's a boy!

Benny in his birthday suit before the trim.

The new do.

Only a few people ever called him a girl. And although I'm a little sad that the curls are gone, it had to happen. I mean, I'm not even really good at doing my little girl's hair, so after bath when it was time to brush out Ben's tangly knotted curly fro and he was having fits about it, I realized I didn't even have to be fighting that battle! "Chop off the locks!" I thought. So that's what I did. I put a show on, filled up my spray bottle, and went for it! Don't look too closely. Curls are forgiving, though. I had fun pretending like I knew what I was doing. I kept the scissors out all day and kept fixing pieces that were too long. I imagine I'll be finding pieces of Lucy's hair on the floor now since she watched me cut Ben's hair. That's kind of her thing.

Ben Learned a new trick

We spent a lot of time this summer at our adopted Grandma Nellie's pool. For all his short little life, Ben has tried to keep up with his sibs and actually done pretty darn good at it. I still can't believe what he's willing to try and how he's not really afraid of anything! I wish he had a little fear of drowning or the deep end (I always thought Jaws lived in the deep end of my Grandma's pool) or something, anything. He was afraid of the pool sweep for awhile, but not anymore. So yeah, he's swimming and he's 2 1/2. Swimming is a strong word. He's wriggling around and strategically grabbing edges of the pool. But he can get somewhere. Lucy's learning to swim, but since her bro is 2 years younger, he's stealing the lime light. But when I'm not watching him like a hawk, we get girl practice time too.

Thumbs up!

Ben has hit a peak of cuteness lately. He's awesome. And he likes to say awesome, too. And gives thumbs up. Watch and see.

This is what sign Benny gives you when you give him a thumbs up. He hasn't figured out where his thumb is yet. He doesn't just raise up his index finger, either. He lifts it fast and with a purpose, just like when someone gives you a thumbs up. It's darn adorable.

Here's Benny getting to be the center of attention, something he's very good at.

Here's what Benny does when he's being quiet. At least it was lotion and not, oh, I don't know, petroleum jelly. I didn't take pictures of that mess. It wasn't nearly as cute.

I love my Benny Boy.