When the Big Kids are Away....

...Ben gets to play!

Alright, well, first off the big kids weren't away today.  They were napping.  At the SAME TIME!  That gave Ben two whole hours of unlimited free access to Mama, the toys, the books, and Mama.  Normally, whenever any one of the kids is asleep that's my cue to get as much done as humanly possible.  Nothing makes changing the sheets while supervising two kids seem as easy as trying to change the sheets while supervising three kids.  It's all about perspective, really, isn't it?

Second, Ben gets to play plenty.  But usually whatever he's playing with is some treasure that he searched carefully for and tried to play with quietly so as not to be noticed.  He always is noticed, though, by Natalie and Jack, and they almost always take whatever he was playing nicely with and shove something else at him to avoid punishment, give the illusion of sharing, and appease a crying Ben.

So, unlike normal days, I didn't rush around, and instead sat on the floor with Ben and played to his little heart's content.  He got to climb and roll over me, he cruised around the furniture and took what was his first real attempt at an actual unassisted step (twice!), he laughed, cried (when he wiped out reaching for more toys and scraped his forehead on the fireplace--just a scrape, not a direct hit), we looked at books (for about .25 seconds...he isn't nearly as enamored with books as his sister).  It was splendid.  He makes the most adorable little truck sound when he pushes anything with wheels around.  I don't recall Natalie ever really doing that.  A boy thing?  If my internet will cooperate, I got a video of it.  If not, I promise I'll update the post once the video uploads.

(ladies, don't be too jealous of those eyelashes!)

(He still loves that wooden ball.)

All I can say is that Nat and Jack better hope that Ben stays the softy that he is now, because one day soon he's going to pass them both up on size and then the toy stealing and picking on him might have a whole new outcome!