The other night on the way home from the country, he was very concerned with the fact that Mama had died. He eventually worked himself up into getting upset that all his grandparents were going to die, and Mommy and Daddy were going to die, and he'll be left here all alone with nobody to play with. I explained to him that that wasn't going to happen for a long time. He would be all grown up with a family of his own by then. (Let's pray for good health.) This seemed to pacify him, along with the knowledge that all those people whom we love who die are up in heaven and God and Jesus are taking care of them. Luckily, we arrived home shortly after that, and his attention was directed elsewhere.
Yesterday, on the way home from the CML, he asked me about the sick sea turtles they were taking care of on the shrimp boat. Apparently there was a little girl there who convinced them this needed to be done. After explaining to him all about veteranarians and how they are doctors who take care of sick animals, he asked me if animals ever die. I told him that yes, sometimes even vets can't save an animals life. This of course prompted him to mention Mama again. But then he also talked about Poppa, my grandfather who died last year. I honestly didn't think he'd even remember him. Then, just as we were approaching our house, he said, "Momma, I'm going to be like Superman and fly up to heaven and save Mama and Poppa and Gammy's friend that died." He was with Mom when she found out about Henrietta but had never mentioned it until just then. I am consistently amazed at just how big these little people's hearts can be.
Of course, we worked our way through the ball room to the water room, still my least favorite room in the place, but other than Bennett and Pinckney dumping a couple of boatfuls of water on themselves, the boys and their clothes all remained happily unsoaked. 
In natural progression, we moved on to the shrimp boat, my favorite room. It is incredibly fun for the children and requires the least amount of parental supervision. Love it! 
B and P gave it the old college try and then decided they would rather grocery shop. So CFS stayed with the older ones, and I followed the littles into the Publix. And herein lies the key to having a truly enjoyable experience at the CML. You MUST go with another adult if you are bringing a number of children who fall into different age ranges. 
Inevitably, your four year old is not going to want to do the same things your 18 month old is, and unless you have the freedom to leave one or the other with someone else, you are certainly going to make at least one, if not both, of your children extremely unhappy.
Although, you could have a day like Bennett where you pretty much just wanted to sample each room for six minutes before either moving on or going back. Needless to say, while P was shopping, I was playing Pong with B and his shopping carts. At one point, being now fully discouraged that he could not simply bowl me over with his miniature cart laden with plastic fruit and loaves of bread, my brilliant child decided to crawl under my legs and try to drag his cart through. One of these days, Alice! Anyway, the Toddler Room thankfully solved pretty much all his problems. Caroline shortly arrived to tend to Soup, while the oldest two continued to man the shrimp ship. This is where I am so proud of the way we have all raised and trained our children thus far in their short little lives. 
At this point, Bennett was DUN. When I went to check on R and F, I could hear him crying. They still wanted to play on the boat (I think the wellies they put on really drew them in), and they had done so well all day and have proved themselves worthy of relatively unsupervised play in the past, that I left them to play while I dealt with Bennett. I was so proud of both of them. There was not one scuffle, not one cross word. 
They were blissfully lost in their world of make believe adventures on the high seas, catching shrimp and taking care of sick turtles. Even when Caroline and I came out and gave them the five minute warning, they happily obliged and made the most of those last moments of play, a marked improvement to falling on the floor and crying that it is almost time to go home, wasting what little time they had left. 
And as the final cap to a great playdate, when I returned to my car, there was not a ticket on it, even though my meter had expired. Thank you, Jodie, for convincing me to get this membership, and thank you, Caroline, for joining me and mine today. 
First, I must say that you are one of the happiest children I have ever seen. You are almost always smiling or laughing. For the most part, you are instantly in love with whomever you meet, although you have recently been showing signs of shyness. Sometimes you curl yourself into me when someone new arrives, but I know this is a stage, and it doesn’t take long for you to warm right up to anyone. 
Your blue eyes shine with a perfect contentment and glee. It’s usually your eyes that draw people in. They are the first thing anyone comments on – they’re so big and so blue. And poor Reeves when it comes to this. He has made it no secret that blue is his favorite color, and while he loves your eyes, he also points out to us that his eyes are blue too. Most times we try to correct him, but sometimes it’s just not worth the meltdown. I hope you don’t use this against him later on.
Speaking of Reeves, he is by far your favorite person. Oh, you love Daddy and me, and you take a special delight in Lolly and Grandaddy, but you adore Reeves. When I come to get you up from bedtime or a nap, you are not necessarily super happy, but as soon as I say, “Let’s go find Reeves!”, you start jumping up and down in the crib, clambering at me to get you out. Heaven forbid I should have to change your diaper. Those are precious seconds where I am keeping you from your brother, not that you calm down and let me do it very quickly. I’m hoping that you really get the whole cause and effect thing down by 19 months, because it’s a little frustrating at times.
On the verbal front, you are far exceeding your brother when he was this age. Your words include, “Mama, Dada, Lala, juice, ball, book, shoes, choo-choo, ketchup (which you actually pronounce “babup”, but we know what you mean), and stop.” And I must expand a little here on your favorite word, “Stop!” I hadn’t realized what you were saying until Lolly pointed it out. It was a noise you always made when I changed your diaper or wiped your face and hands. It is more like a sing-song than actually saying the word. “Staaaaaaaaap!” How I didn’t realize that you were saying “stop” is beyond me, but I now totally hear it from you. You use it a lot during said diaper changes because you loathe having your waste cleaned off of you. You’re lucky I love you so much because honestly, I really only want to change you once or twice a day. It’s not a quick process like it was with Reeves. It is usually an all out battle involving lots of flipping you back over, lots of saving you from throwing yourself off the table, lots of using my elbow to hold you down, and occasionally hanging you upside down by your ankle when you have successfully made the dive towards the floor. “One day,” I keep telling myself, “One day you won’t fight me on this.”
Bennett, you are growing up so much faster than we could have ever imagined. On the playground, you pretty much keep up with the older boys. There is almost nothing you won’t try at least once. You climb up to the highest slides all by yourself, and come shooting down them without so much as even holding onto my finger. You take the knock downs and bumps like a man and have even started giving some of them back in kind. Just yesterday, you fell off a little structure at Moultrie. None of us saw it, but when I came running over and scooped you up, you curled yourself into me like you haven’t done since you were an infant. I just knew something was terribly wrong. But, after about 15 minutes of Mommy time, you were back down, ready to go. I checked all the obvious appendages and made sure of your balance, but you were fine. And you climbed right back on that horse and showed him who’s boss. Whoa would be so proud.
As tough as you are, I cannot overlook your sweet side. You have finally started to give real hugs. You wrap your arms around our necks and squeeze with all your might. Sometimes you grab our cheeks and pull them in close for a kiss. I randomly find you patting Reeves on the back, and I’m certain it’s “just because you love him.” You have also recently taking quite a liking to baby Campbell. Other than trying to poke his eyes out a couple of times, you are very gentle with him. (I wonder if we can convince Daddy that you need a baby brother or sister. Doubt it!) I love seeing this tender side of you while knowing that you can also take pretty much what anybody can dish out on you. It’s kind of like seeing a big football player holding his newborn after a game.
Sweet Benny, I promise to do better in writing down and sharing these memories of you so that you will have them forever. There is so much more to say even now, but I just can’t get my mind to conjure up and put into words just how gooey in love we are with you. You have brought so much happiness into all of our lives. We love you more than you’ll ever know and count our blessings that we are so lucky God gave you to us. Happy 18 months!
Gotta love the drool. (Will these molars never make their appearance?!?)
It's just Bennett rattling his cage. Apparently he's awake now and ready to get out. I think I'll toss him a metal coffee cup for effect and tell him to keep it down in there.
Recently he has been advertising his book The Christmas Sweater. He also mentioned that he was going to be in town signing books on Dec 16.
I had really wanted to get a picture of Glenn with the boys, but they had asked you not to because it would really slow things down. I understood that, but I had still told myself that I would sneak one in. But as in most situations, I chickened out when the time came. Still, I'm so glad we were able to do this as a family, and I can only hope that our boys share our same conservative views when they grow up. Heaven knows, I'm doing all I can to build a good foundation for that right now.
When we got home, we got our only family picture in front of the Christmas tree. It's amazing what a little tripod and a timer on a camera can do. 
I think the boys just liked watching me run back and jump into place over and over again. 
There were lots of outtakes, and Reeves even proved he's turning into quite the little photographer himself.
It is mainly for the dads, since the moms and the babes are together a lot. (It keeps us sane.) It's amazing to watch our growing brood interact with each other when the dads are around. While they are content to go and play by themselves and pretty much leave us alone, when the dads are there, they really want them to be involved.
There were plenty of leaves to keep them occupied. They would build themselves big piles and promptly destroy them, simultaneously being showered in a downpour of leaves.
It was a perfect day for going on lots of adventures, eating yummy hot dogs cooked over the fire, collecting hickory nuts, collecting dinosaur bones, and driving all over on the golf carts. The children loved having smores and getting them all over themselves. 
A few of us even ventured out over the marsh all the way to the ICW. 
This trip was extra exciting because there was a sailboat that had run aground across the river. This, of course, prompted all kinds of questions from curious little minds. 
"What's it doing there?" "How did it get up there?" "Is it going to be there forever?" I think if they had had a row boat, they all would have gone over to check it out.
Reeves showed Bennet the ins and outs of his blue jeep, and they even got some good bounce time in on the home made joggling board. 
Daddy is a good bouncer.
You all made it a wonderful, memorable day!
The big boys were fascinated with the turkey. They loved running up to it on the counter, leaning in really close, and sniffing. You would have thought this might translate into a large amount of the bird being consumed by Reeves, but you would be wrong. His quest (at his grandparents' house) to subsist only on things containing sugar continued. He ate the marshmallows off the sweet potatoes and the broccoli and grapes from the broccoli salad with that sweet dressing. 
Oh yes, and he did partake in the pumpkin pie for dessert. You know, because he had earned it. (Sometimes it's just easier to throw in the towel and go with the flow.)
As soon as we walk in their house, he is pouring himself out of my arms to get into Grandy's. I love it, and, naturally, so does Big Reeves.
We found many treasures, most notably, a turkey feather. Preston decided it would best be used as an Indian headress.
We spotted an owl almost as soon as we got back there. It amazed me as it didn't really fly away from us. It would move a couple of limbs away, but for the most part was content to sit and watch us watch him. 
The boys loved it. I have rarely seen an owl out like this in the daytime. It was quite a treat. 
Preston was much more agreeable than Reeves, but somehow, the older cousin was able to persuade the younger one to cooperate, and I actually ended up with a couple of shots I wouldn't even mind printing.
Naturally, I had to take advantage of the video feature. Bryant had come back to gather up some firewood, and the boys had been helping him. They were thoroughly impressed with themselves. They really got into the picture taking when we returned to the back and built a fire. Of course, now it was time for silly faces. 
I think the tossing of leaves and the ambient smoke from the fire brings out the goofy in them. And where they get their endless energy, I'll never know. I wish I had one tenth of it. Since Family day was the next day, we were spending the night out there, so we were able to spend a little extra time by the fire. It was a good Turkey Day, and my boys loved waking up together at their grandparents' house. 
Still, I was able to snap a few still shots after this. It was a special day because Reeves got to spend it with both of his grandfathers and his aunt Lolly. 
Days like this seem to be few and far between given everyone's busy schedules. I'm glad I had the camera. Sorry, Son, you've got three choices. Learn to live with it. Move to a place with absolutely no beauty near it at all. Or quit being so cute. It's up to you.