Nephew Time

Here is a pic of nephew Ben. He is two. This is him 'raising the roof', just like his Aunty Lindsay taught him. He has a stuffed Elmo, and occasionally, while he is playing quietly on his own, you will see him throw Elmo's arms in the air and say "Elmo raise the roof!". Ah, it's good to see I can have an intellectual influence on the future generation.

I include him here because I have realized my life has been a lot of moaning, groaning, ranting and raving recently. Now, I'm not one to get sentimental about children being innocent and seeing the positive in things (believe me, I work with the little runts every day!) and I can get positively ill when people go on and on about their cutesy-wootsey kiddy stories (Reader's Digest reader stories, anyone?!) , but Ben's little outlook on life does make me laugh.

Two stories, if you'll indulge me:

1) We were walking through the mall recently, Ben being carried by a female relative, who will remain nameless to protect the embarrassed. Being a doctor's son and a nurse's nephew, he is quickly learning all the parts of the body (I don't like to brag, but he can name and locate his carotid, brachial, radial, and femoral pulses, as well as his kidneys, clavicle and many others) (yes, we are losers!). Anyhoo, he likes pointing out body parts. So he turns to the lady carrying him, pats her belly and goes, "Your little belly". We all make the appropriate praising noises, thinking, what a charmer! He is thrilled with the attention, and, showing off now, he turns to her again, pats her boobs and goes, "Your big belly"

2) Ben certainly already has his own definite personality, and likes things 'just so' - doesn't like things to be untidy, likes people to do things the 'right' way and likes to correct people if they don't say things the 'right' way. He was having an omelette for dinner the other night. His dad was helping him eat, cause he was getting tired and fussy, so he scoops up a forkful of omlette, and as he manoeuvers it to Ben's mouth, he is making chit-chat: "This is such a nice omelette, it has egg and cheese, tomatoes and peppers and broccoli in it." Ben is listening intently, with a mouthful of omelette, and he suddenly pushes the fork away and starts spitting his mouthful out into his hand. I am thinking, is he OK, is he choking? He looks his dad in the eye and says, "And ham, Daddy!", replaces his mouthful and continues eating.

Aw....