Batting practice

Sorry I'm so irregular! I've been getting complaints! I'm trying to get back into the habit, but I'm overwhelmed with work and school! The kids are still keeping life interesting though.
Tonight, Jeremy and Ben played baseball for a long time. Ben stood at our sliding glass door with a red fat bat and Jeremy sat on the floor by the couch pitching ball after ball. Benjamin hit the ball so well, he bounced them off of the front door - that's about 25 feet. At one point, I was in the bathroom giving Hadley a bath. I heard a noise and looked up to see a baseball in the bathtub!

Ben wanted to pitch to Jeremy. I'm pretty sure on the first pitch, I heard a smack and Ben started sobbing. Jeremy hit right in the eye. It was one of those cry until you can't breath heaving sobs. I was putting Hadley's PJ's on and was getting up to check on him. He stopped mid sob and said, "That's okay, Jer. I'm fine." That was that. He came over to show me the mark and went back to playing!

Part of the time I tried to get some video. He hit the ball directly over my head so I screamed - probably a little girlishly! While we were getting ready for bed tonight, Ben prayed, "Thank you for me playing baseball." After prayer, he said, "Mom, I hit the ball at you and you said, (Insert high pitched making fun of me screaming voice) 'Don't hit me with the ball!'"

What a great night!

Verse confusion

We do a devotion with Ben at night. Each one ends with a verse and short prayer. We try and get him to say one or both of them with us.
Today's verse was Exodus 20:12: "Honor your father and mother. Then you will live a long, full life in the land the Lord your God will give you."
Ben's version: "Honor your father and mother. Then you will live an awful life and the land the Lord your God gets you."

All star in the making

Today was a rough day with Ben. He's such a sweet heart 90 percent of the time... really even more than that. However, those times when he's not in a "sweet" mood are ROUGH.
The beginning of our time together, however, helped me get through the evening that we had. As soon as we got in the car to come home, he started excitedly, "Mom, when we get home, when you are done making dinner and you put it in the cooker, will you play baseball with me?"
I told him that I was making chicken tacos (which was really exciting to him) and that as soon as I cut up the chicken we would play.
As soon as we got home he RAN through the house looking for baseballs and baseball gloves. As soon as I could get away from the chicken, I was on my knees with a toddler baseball glove on my hand dodging baseballs being chucked at my face! Every ball I caught was met with a squeal and "Mom, good job!" If he didn't catch it, he'd say in his big man voice, "Moooom, you missed my glove!"
It was only about 5 minutes before I had to deal with the chicken and he ran off to protect his sister from something. But in those minutes, I saw a little boy turning into a boy - a ball player! He was so encouraging, but he also took the lead. He "instructed me" on how to throw and catch. He's my little leader, my all-star. He's his father's son, a future coach. He's my baby always!

Benjamin and the Lions' Den

Tonight, Benjamin decided that he wanted us to read the story of Daniel and the Lions' Den. We read it and were talking about how Daniel got in trouble because he was obeying God. We've been working with him a lot on obeying Mommy and Daddy because God says we need to. I took this as a great opportunity to teach about the benefits of being obedient.
Ben sat and listened and then looked at me and said, "Does God come with his shoot-gun to shoot the lions and keep us safe?"
I said, "No, God made the lions so he can tell them what to do. He just told them not to eat Daniel."
Ben said, "Oh, Jer, do you have a shoot gun to shoot the lions and keep us safe?"

Apparently, he didn't pick up on my hints!

My leg... my leg...

Benjamin was supposed to be sleeping. He'd called for us a couple of times, but neither of us had gone in to talk with him. Usually, he'll call for me because I'm the first to go in. When I get there, he says, "I need my dad. Can you send him?"
Today I was letting him go. He yelled, "Mom, I need you. My leg hurts."
I responded, "I'll come check on you in a minute."
He yelled back, "Mom, if you don't come and check it, my leg's gonna bleed!"
So, here I am blogging about it. Now I'll go check!

leaning tower of milk

Benjamin, in all of his efforts to be helpful, was putting a container of strawberries away in the fridge. Somehow, this resulted in a gallon of milk coming out of the fridge. He carried the milk to the living room and told us that he couldn't get it back in the fridge. Jeremy told him to put the strawberries under the milk, meaning the shelf under the milk. Ben went back to the fridge.
After a few grunts and groans, he came trudging back into the living room with the milk.
"Jer," he said, "if I put the milk on the strawberries, it makes a tower and falls down."

I laughed until I cried. I hope everyone else finds this as funny as I did!

holding a grudge

A few weeks ago Jeremy had some of the guys over to play poker. Ben always gets to play with the Jokers. At one point in the evening he was throwing the jokers back on to the poker table. Uncle Andrew folded those cards in half so that they would know which cards they were and they wouldn't get mixed in with the rest. As you can imagine, Benjamin was NOT happy and yelled at Uncle Andrew for breaking his cards.
For the rest of the weekend he would tell me about how he was mad at Uncle Andrew. A few days later (as we were getting ready for a funeral) Benjamin walked into the room and said, "I'm so mad at Uncle Andrew." Being that I am in a class about child discipline and communicating with your child, I decided to engage Ben in his feelings about his uncle.
"Why are you mad at Uncle Andrew?" I asked.
Ben's reply, "I'm really mad at him because he ripped my cards."
I knew that Andrew was home so I asked if he would like to call Uncle Andrew and discuss it. I really was interested in what he would tell his uncle. After a few minutes of telling Andrew how unhappy he was, he concluded the conversation with "I hate you, Uncle Andrew." That prompted my crisis mode and I quickly explained that we don't hate anyone - especially Uncle Andrew - and that was never an okay thing to say. We talked about it for a while longer and the issue settled. He hasn't talked about it since.
Tonight we read a devotion about how God heals our hurts - inside and out. I asked him if anything made him sad. He thought about it for a second and said, "I got really mad at Andrew when he tried to rip my cards."
Apparently, he hasn't given it up. And YES, Andrew, I have told him he needs to forgive you. I am NOT encouraging his anger!