Ben is super, duper excited about seeing Aunt Ris this week. He’s been playing doctor to the glow worm and me. Glow worm is not doing well, as Ben demonstrates in this video. I’m not so sure about his technique, though. I bet that smashing the patient on the table is discouraged in medical school (Aunt Ris will have to verify).

Ben’s current plan: bring a box of band-aids up to Toronto for grandpa (who had quite an accident).

…because you really can’t grow tomatoes in NY, despite what I thought when I lived there.

These are some of the first in from our garden, and they are fantastic. For some reason, Ben will only eat the cherry and grape ones…which Ariana (the tomato monster in the family) is not complaining about.

So, I figured that Ben was about the right age to shoot off a model rocket. Some amount of coffee and glue later…

We and the rocket were ready to go at the Park! We dragged along Maddie…this was her, Ben’s, and Ariana’s first rocket…

The first one went into a tree. Luckily, I was able to climb up and shake it out. Ben then decided to go waayyy over to the edge of the field. The next one: perfect recovery!

After two more launches we exceeded the attention span of the four-year-old, and headed home.

How you know that you’re at Starbucks too often? When your four-year-old says “the usual,” and gets it.

(sorry for the multiple posts…trying to work out something in Facebook)

This happened about a month ago. Mocha (our aging I-don’t-know-what mutt) swiped a whole bunch of noodles from Ben’s dinner place. We were all shocked, especially Ben, who is a self-professed noodle monster (no kidding…breakfast, lunch, and dinner). On the spot, Ben came up with a plan to prevent such atrocities in the future. Check out the video for more details. Don’t miss the temporary diversion into half-forgotten gingerbread men in the middle…

Today Ben decided that he wanted to be a paperboy (inspired by a Curious George episode). We folded up a bunch of newspapers (admittedly from the recycling bin), stuffed them into a bag, and off we went! We left a few for friends… and then, of course, Ben wanted to leave them everywhere. Attempting to avoid a littering fine, we convinced him to ring a doorbell and ask the occupant if they wanted one. After a confusing conversation, a very nice older gentlemen agreed to take a paper and shook Ben’s hand. Success!

P.S. This is a test…hopefully this post will show up on my Facebook wall.

Here you go…a video of the whole Easter adventure. Ben loved the presents that you all sent to him. And, yes, he also enjoyed the candy. This was the first year the Easter Bunny left baskets for Ben—he had a lot of fun tracking them down.

‘Twas the night before Easter, and Ben decided that it was important to leave a carrot for the Easter Bunny. He also said that we should leave a “good note” for the Bunny. We had heard from Ben about “good notes” being written at school vs. “bad notes,” which we were told were a consequence of someone’s poor behavior.

The thing is, I’m not sure that Ben ever has seen one of these notes. Yes, that’s an eighth note below “BB”, which he told us was a very good note. For the Easter Bunny.

To be continued…

Yesterday Ben tried his hand at photographic composition while poor, sick Mocha was tethered to the kitchen table (I did not want to have to clean up after him again). This composition using our flexible cutting boards was entirely Ben’s idea.

And here’s the best shot, straight off of the camera that Grandpa Steve gave to him!

Today we had a lot of fun at the roller rink. Ben was pretty good! We went onto the rink for awhile, but spent most of our time on the carpet. By the time we left, we was getting around completely by himself.

We discovered that roller skates and roller rinks haven’t changed a bit in thirty years. This brought back a lot of memories for both of us! The rink was complete with arcade, skee ball, air hockey, and a snack bar (with pizza!). I spent so many, many hours playing Jungle Hunt at Skate Estate…