must be a barge coming through

I've been wondering when Benjamin and Calvin would begin to remind me of each other. I confess that it's happened much sooner than I expected:

- papa

identification and solidarity

I found this lost image from almost a year ago, Benjamin leading the moose uprising:


His animal loyalties have moved on since then, as evidenced last Halloween.

Here's something his mother said the other day. She had scattered some finger foods on the table of his high chair, and he was trying to lower his mouth to them to eat them that way. His mother said,

Qu'est-ce que tu fais?	[ What are you doing? ]
Tu n'es pas un petit chien;	[ You're not a little dog; ]
tu n'es pas un petit chat;	[ You're not a little cat; ]
tu es un petit singe:	[ You're a little monkey: ]
mange avec tes mains!	[ eat with your hands! ]

- papa

mo' riz

New words:

136. Andrew (Miss Angel's older son; Miss Kayla's younger brother)
137. popper
138. Mamie (Maman's maman)
139. main (hand)
140. riz (rice)

We had Indian takeout for Nathalie's birthday dinner, and apparently Nathalie didn't give Benjamin enough basmati rice, as he indicated by chanting "mo riz! mo riz! mo riz!"

So riz is a word I've only heard him use in 2-word combination.

I also heard a very gratifying 2-word combination when I gave him some papadum: "Merci, Papa."

Nathalie has been reading Toddler 411, according to which these are the standard milestones:

• 6 words other than "mama" and "dada": 14–21 months √
  
• 50–200-word vocabulary: 2-2½ years √
  
• speaks 2-word sentences: 21 months – 2 years √
  
• points to pictures when named: 18–24 months √
  
• knows 6 body parts: 18–25 months √
  

- papa

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popcorn out loud

Benjamin's 90th word is "popcorn" — still his favorite food.*

86. bubble bath (pronounced "bubba bath")
87. minute (sometimes even "one minute")
88. cils (eyelashes)
89. socks
90. popcorn

- papa

* His mother corrects me: apparently his favorite foods are shredded cheese and frozen blueberries.

2 for Tuesday

Benjamin's 2 new words for Tuesday:


pain (bread)


slide

In fact, "slide" seems to be his new favorite word, judging by frequency of repetition and general enthusiasm in the use of the word.

- papa

popcorn

Benjamin's new sign is for his new favorite food:

popcorn

favorite snack recalled

Benjamin's favorite snack has been recalled. Fortunately, he shows now sign of any symptoms.

More details on the Veggie Booty recall here.

I have to say I'm very disappointed in Amazon.com for not alerting us. We're big fans of Amazon, members of Amazon Prime and subscribers to scheduled deliveries of various baby products. They have records of who has ordered Veggie Booty from them. How hard would it have been for them to send out an email warning?

I did a search on "Veggie Booty" at Amazon.com just now. No results. No warning, no nothing.

- peeved papa

and French pulls ahead ...

One of the many things I didn't know about babies is that you're supposed to train them away from bottles when all their front teeth are in. Benjamin never really took to the sippy cups, so this idea had me a little worried. Lucky for us, he loves drinking from a straw, and in particular he loves his new "straw cups" from Playskool.

Benjamin's new word today is paille (straw).

That puts French ahead of English by a nose, but he's also started to say sac (bag) and assis (sitting down) so if he repeats those soon, his mother tongue will have a strong lead over his father tongue.

- papa

A few bites

For the last few weeks it has been very hard to spoon-feed Benjamin. It's not that he doesn't like what he's being fed (usually), it's that he would rather feed himself solid foods. He also seems to think it's really funny to turn his head away from the spoon and shake his head "no." (Brian and I must shake our heads a lot to say "no.")

Distracting him from what I am spooning into his mouth has been the key. Usually I give him one or two spoons or even a bowl and he happily slams them on the table or drops them on the floor. Last week he started putting his spoon into the bowl I was feeding him from. I tried to guide his hand to put it back into mouth with food in it, but he kept his arm stiff and refused, preferring instead to feed me. Sort of makes sense.

This morning, however, he stuck his spoon into the cereal bowl and then... into his mouth! He took three bites on his own, then got bored and started splattering cereal everywhere. At least it's a start!

-maman