Anyway, back to the matter at hand...
Yes, yes, I have been neglecting to finish these posts about my children. Well, here is #3, and then I'll be halfway done... for now... ;)
(Oh, and PS, I am still really excited about baby #7. How could I possibly be otherwise?! I've been working away at his afghan and thinking all the while about how he's going to love the colors. They're so bright and happy!)
Oh, Benji! How I love this boy! (Keep in perspective, please, I love ALL my children. I'm just talking about Benji today. ;)
When I think of Benji when he was little my heart just melts. He was the perfect size for such a long time - perfect for carrying around and cuddling. And the way he talked was so cute! One of the things I liked best about his toddlerhood was his friendship with his cousin Tyler. They were the cutest little friends I have ever seen. One of my favorite of all our family video clips involves them spinning in circles and clapping. It was just so darn cute.
Nowadays Benji is still pretty darn cute. He is 9 years old. He has an infectious, fun laugh. I love making him laugh! He still likes to be tickled and is a very physical guy. He loves to pretend to be a baby with Michael and Jill, and is often quite loud doing it. I realize that may sound kind of like a little kid thing to do, but you have to see Benji do it in order to understand that it's totally in keeping with who he is. Another thing he likes to do is pull his pant legs all the way up his legs and yank them up and down while stomping his feet and saying repeatedly, "Naked baby!" This activity works best when he's wearing sweats. Oh, it drives me nuts! Still, I can put that in my arsenal and tease him about it in front of his teenage friends someday. Just kidding.
Benji's current job is to clean off the table and sweep under it. Sometimes he hates that job, and sometimes he gets all excited and sweeps the whole kitchen. Really, it needs done anyway, you know, but that's going above and beyond the call of duty. I appreciate how quick he is to go get his jobs done when he's asked to, especially with the right bribe. ;) He's a really helpful guy, though, and I appreciate that. He also likes to be first to the bathroom at night. He runs in there and does his duty and brushes his teeth and then hurries back out to say his prayers with me before anybody else has even budged a bit. (Speaking of which, we need another bathroom bad!)
Benji is on of those charismatic guys that you can't help but love. Just ask his teacher at school. Mrs. Ratcliff really loves him. And not just a little bit. He's one of those guys who always wants more homework and doesn't get it (just the opposite of Joshua). A few weeks ago he came home so excited because he needed to do a shark report. He picked the tiger shark, and I helped him get onto Encyclopedia Britannica online. (Joshua got a free subscription for participating in the district spelling bee. Joshua was really upset that Benji was using it, but when in the world do we ever use it? I may have to assign some homework this summer. Tee hee. ;) Then he sat and wrote out a one-page report and was all pleased about it. Unfortunately, he also has a habit of leaving his homework sitting out, and Timmy, the little artist, is passionate about coloring on any paper he can find (and any wall while he's at it). So while Benji wasn't looking, Timmy wrote all over the report with pen. Benji was so upset. But he sat down and rewrote the whole report and put it in his backpack this time. The sad thing is, when he got it to school he found out that not only were they supposed to do the reports at school, but they were supposed to draw a shark out of a hat at a later date, not just pick one. Still, I don't think he was very sad because he really enjoyed doing some extra homework.
I know you all are going to think I am weird for going back and forth on this subject, but I am pretty positive that I'm going to homeschool at least Benji next school year. You and I both know that our whole family is homesick for Cedar City and that we want to get our kids back into the same schools they were in before. (In looking at the schools before we moved there, we found that the school we ended up with had the highest test scores. Plus we ended up LOVING the school, and I actually cried the last time I walked out of it. I'm telling you, it was a great school.) But even so, I have a pretty strong feeling that we need to do some homeschooling this next school year, even if Benji's the only one. I was surprised to discover this, but I do feel very strongly about it. Benji is really self-motivated. He gets along well with people and just does an all-around great job in school. I think I could get him into one of those virtual academies like we did with Hyrum when he was in first grade, and I think he would love it and do really well. But I kind of would rather do our own curriculum, though, so that he could participate in things like choir at a regular school. I know you can't do dual enrollment with those virtual academies. Anyway, we're thinking it over, but we do know that Benji will most likely do it. I've thought about doing it with Joshua many, many times. I think it's more likely now that we could be successful with him doing it now as he's learning to be more self-motivated and to just get things done. And it would give me the opportunity to really focus on some of the gaps that he has. But I can't decide if it would be to his detriment. I feel like the social interaction at school is something he needs, especially in a place like Cedar City when it was all so positive. I think Hyrum and Michael would also do well, but I just don't know. I know Michael misses his Mommy every day, so for that reason he would like to do homeschool. And Hyrum likes to get things done and be done with them. He'd do well. But once again, would it be to their detriment? We'll have to pray about it.
Anyway, moving on from that tangent...
Benji likes to read, especially when he has new books from the library. And just like his brothers, his favorite books to check out are Garfield books. He's not as crazy about reading as Hyrum is, but he still likes it and is a good reader. Another thing he likes is to put on his curly mullet wig that I gave him for Christmas. (That was probably the best gift I gave this Christmas because I got a great laugh out of him over that and because he's enjoyed it so much.) So he puts on his wig and turns on the Richard Simmons video that Jeremy got as a gag gift for Christmas, and he does the whole thing and loves it. I love that! He and Hyrum have done that video a lot, and it ebarrasses the heck out of Joshua, even when we don't have anybody over. Ha, ha!
Benji has a big interest in cooking and always has. Whenever I go into the kitchen to start cooking Benji runs in ready to help. I feel bad because quite often at dinner time I'm too hungry to deal with helpers. But I try to let him help anyway. It always turns out to be a nice experience. Yesterday he wanted to make chocolate cake, and he ended up doing most of it by himself. Hyrum helped a little because I was kind of busy and Benji had never made a cake before. He did it in the Bundt pan, which we all love because it's easier to just pick up and bite. It came out good, if a little crumbly. I was pretty proud of him. He loves it when we make fry bread once every 3 months or so. (Or are they sopapillas? Jeremy knows all the definitions for all those types of fried bread, but I can never keep any of them straight - except for scones.) He does really well rolling those out and enjoys it A LOT. He and Michael are usually my best helpers with that. They roll while I fry, and it works out good.
Benji really likes guns. The scariest ones we have are BB guns, so nothing too serious, but he really likes them. Each of the three oldest boys owns a BB gun. Benji also has some of those pistols that take rolls of caps. We have a hard time keeping caps because Wal-Mart doesn't keep them in stock. They always have the ring ones, but they hardly ever have the roll ones. He also has a marshmallow gun, a dart gun (which is currently missing all the darts), and a great big Nerf gun that shoots discs. The disc gun was something he picked for Shop with a Cop, and he loves that thing. I honestly like it pretty good myself. It even has a scope that lights up, and it has two magazines. I can't tell you how many times I've picked up discs and filled the magazines, but I do kind of like filling them. That gun is just too big sometimes, though. One day a few months ago I was trying to get the boys ready for school and somehow knocked the big gun off Benji's dresser onto my foot. I've still got a little red spot on my foot from that. Ouch! Still, I must admit that I like all of Benji's guns. And I think it's a little funny that all he asked for for his birthday was ammo and batteries for his guns. XD Benji's always been easy to please like that, though. He hardly ever asks for things that are very expensive at all.
Another thing Benji likes is digging holes. It's a good thing I don't mind that our front yard is full of holes. He likes to find Papa's big shovel and see how far down he can dig. I thought I had some photo documentation of this, but apparently I don't. I'd better get busy!
I keep wanting to blog about Timmy lately, but he's not next on the list. He's growing and learning so fast, though, and at this rate he'll be three by the time I get around to blogging about him. Ha, ha! Anyway, here are some quick tidbits about Timmy.
Timmy is a huge Spongebob fan lately. Whenever we turn on a movie for him (which he still calls a moogie), he prefers Spongebob. He talks all the time about Sbah-bob a Da-tick (short a in Da-tick, of course, because it's Patrick) or Sbah-bob a Swih-ward (Spongebog and Squidward). He also likes Scooby Doo (Stoo Doo a ah you) (Scooby Doo, where are you, of course). And he still really likes to watch Cars. He likes talking about Queen and Maner (long a). That's Lightning McQueen and Mater. And he still loves to play with toy cars. He spends a good deal of time every day driving this or that car from his collection. He also really likes to hammer things. Somehow or other we've ended up with 3 toy hammers over the years, and he loves to find them and pound things. He really started doing this after we watched Wreck-it Ralph. One of the characters is Fix-it Felix, and he's always fixing things with his magic hammer. I think Timmy really likes that. And another character that Timmy really likes is Backpack Bear, a character from Starfall.com. Jill and Timmy like to sit at the computer, and Jill navigates herself all around Starfall. Timmy calls the bear Pack-ack a Bear, and he talks about him all the time. In fact, every teddy bear he sees is Pack-ack a Bear.
Timmy has also started to use some sentences. I tell ya, that boy's vocabulary is growing by leaps and bounds lately. He still babbles a lot, and overall he's mostly a pretty quiet boy. You can see that the gears are turning in his head, though. He's definitely a thinker. One sentence he uses quite a bit now is, "Kwon. Ess go." (Come on. Let's go.) And that makes me remember that lately he likes to pump his fists up and down while he's walking, kind of like he's marching. Oh, so cute! And one morning last week he was sitting and eating breakfast when Jill came out of the bedroom. He actually greeted her! He said, "Hi. A doin'?" (Hi. How are you doing?) He's used that sentence several times since. I love it! I also love that he's learning to interact more with people other than me. What a cute boy.
Timmy punctuates a lot of his words and sentences with, "Uh." Sometimes it reminds me of those Canadians who say "eh" (or at least the people who say that Canadians say that), and sometimes it makes me think of Navajo.
And the new little guy is getting bigger! I've got 18 weeks or so left. He's really starting to kick now. It's exciting!
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