The Jennings Four: Accessing my Memory

Our Family at Easter

Notice Andrew's tongue?

My 31st Birthday
I died when I downloaded this pic. Jason asked "What's wrong with it?" I said, "Look at Andrew! Doesn't he look like his daddy with a frosting goatee?"

I've gotten in the bad habit of not writing my stories down anymore. That wouldn't be a big issue if I blogged every day, but I don't! Here are some of my boys' most bloggable moments!

Ben:
Ben hates to be scared. When we play hide and seek, you can often hear him saying, "Andrew, why don't you check the closet?" while he stands safely at the doorway.

Ben typically eats two Eggo waffles every morning for breakfast. One morning I happened to time him. He ate two waffles in one minute, thirty seconds and then asked for more.

Ben had a project at school where they made snowmen out of construction paper. At the bottom the teacher had written, "If I were a snowman, at night I would (fill in the blank)." Ben's paper said, "If I were a snowman, at night I would just stand there." I asked him about it later, and I said, "Why would you just stand there? Wouldn't you do anything?" He looked me in the eye and said, "Mom, if you saw a snowman walking around at night, what would YOU think?"

Ben loves the "Made you look" game. The two of us started it in the car one day, and he got the hang of it quickly. (I'd like to think of it as using your imagination skills!) We'd be driving along, and I'd say, "Oh my gosh, Ben, look at that elephant! What's it doing there?" And he'd be all like "WHERE?!" And I'd yell, "Made you look!" It was Ben's idea to keep score. And he always wanted to be tied. He'd say, "Hey, look at that purple cloud!" And when I'd say, "There aren't any purple clouds" he'd say, "Made you look. Now it's 2 to 2." When he finally caught on that I actually had to look, he got sneakier. He'd say "Mom, Look at that car behind you, it's really close." When I automatically reacted he laughed hysterically!

When Ben gets out of school one of the first questions I ask was if he had a good day. That's code for "Did you get any timeouts?" When he doesn't get any timeouts, he'll run up to me and say, "I didn't get any timeouts today, and I'm not even faking!"

When we got rid of our old couch Ben was shocked. He asked us lots of questions about why were getting rid of old stuff. I told him that the couch was nice while we had it, but it was getting old and dirty, and we wanted something nicer. Ben's eyes filled with tears and he said, "But mom, that was the best jumping couch EVER!"

At Ben's school program this year, he was a total clown on the stage. He exaggerated all of the motions and made faces at friend in between. When he got his diploma, he'd "shoot" at some other boys with it. He had moments of seriousness, but since he couldn't find us, I think he thought that we couldn't see him, and he was very charismatic! As we were leaving, another spectator stopped us and said, "Your little boys was so cute! We watched him the whole time!" When they walked past Ben looked up and me and said, "Who were they?!"

Ben's preschool graduation

Ben at the zoo with his class

Andrew:
Andrew's favorite book is called "Are you ticklish?" It's a little rhyming book that asks if a list of animals are ticklish, and ends by asking if you are ticklish. For instance, on the first page it asks is Lions are ticklish, then it proceeds to read, Yes, lions are ticklish. When I get to the part where it says, Yes, the animals is ticklish, I tickle Andrew. He cannot resist this book. He'll bring it over and will either hover near me when I read it, so that he can escape being tickled, or he'll toss the book to me and ask for it to be read while he's on the other side of the room!

Every year at the change of the spring season we get ants in our kitchen. Andrew noticed them one morning and he crouched down to look at them. Then he yelled, "Ewww, bee's."

Yesterday I pointed a ladybug out to Andrew. He crouched down to watch the bug, but he was careful not to touch it. When I called Andrew inside he waved at the ladybug and said, "Bye bug".

Andrew doesn't like loud noises, or confrontation. His usual response to any confrontation is a loud "Dop it! (stop it!)" For any type of loud noise he's started "shh"-ing people!

In the car the other day I was asking Ben a series of questions, like what's you last name, church name, address, phone number, etc. I asked him what his mommy and daddy's names were, and he got those right. Then I asked "What's your Meena's real name?" He couldn't remember under pressure but recognized it when I told him. Then I said, "What's your papa's name?" As Ben was thinking it over, Andrew yelled "Jennings!"

Andrew is really big on saying "Thank You." It's kind of nice actually! When I put him to bed, he says Thank You. Same thing when I give him lunch. He's even said it after a diaper change. He can be very polite! When Ben was jumping around the living room, turning circles and flipping over, Andrew yelled, "Good job, Ben!"