Benton 3.75

It's been a good long while since I dedicated an entire post to my little man.  He is equal parts fun and exhausting at this age!  I only wish I could bundle up half his energy.

 He loves to be outdoors in any capacity.  Bugs, mud, water, grass, rocks, and animals are all right up his alley.  We walk to the mailbox and back (almost a mile) and he runs the entire time.  Benton chatters almost nonstop and is full of questions.  He is gone to Angel Fire right now, and our house is soooo quiet!  I can't wait for him to walk in that door tomorrow.

Benton is still an animal lover.  He has added a love of insects and dinosaurs.  We have read many a long and detailed bug and dino book as of late.  This makes the teacher inside me so happy.  I am amazed at how he absorbs new information, and he notices if you skip over any little bit of his books.

Benton makes us laugh every day.  Here are a few that i've written down, most of which he's already outgrown:

• The golden rule he says "Do to ovens as you would have them do to you."
• guacamole is blackamole
• tennis is "Tennessee"
• "A little wild" instead of a little while
• "I'm a scorpion.  I squirt"
• "This is a happy road, not a whiney (windy) road"

Benton loves to go farming with G-Daddy!

 We are working on getting dressed independently.  It is a work in progress, to say the least.  I lay out his clothes the night before school, and most mornings he comes out with his underwear, shirt, shorts, and shoes all on wrong.  He even does his socks upside down.  I've tried laying them out every which way, we've talked about tags, zippers, and buttons till I'm blue in the face all to no avail.  I have about 20 more pictures just like these, but you get the point I'm sure.  I just keep telling myself someday he'll get it right.

 I picked him up from school this particular day and was confused as to why he was wearing pj pants.  He had just put his jeans over the top and I didn't catch it before school.  He told his teachers during a bathroom break he just wanted to wear the comfy pants.  Notice the shoes on the wrong feet.  Seriously, he's a smart kid.

 Benton is a good big brother.  Caleb and Clayton adore him.  Benton enjoys tickling them, dancing with them, and really enjoys playing their toys.  I leave it up to him if the twins can come in his room, and most of the time he chooses to shut his door.  He plays in their room if he shares with his brothers.  Like any other 3 year old, we are working on the whole sharing thing.  He is very gentle with them for the most part.  He does a good job of entertaining them in the car, and is my little roving reporter as to who is doing something they shouldn't.

Big boy has fun dressing up.  It's hard to find manly dress up items, but he has quite the imagination at this age.  Often times, he can be found pretending to be a "baby lion," "female ladybug," or "polar bear cub."  He is usually very descriptive in what he and you, should be doing at that time.

Since the beginning of this year, Benton and I have been dedicating a little bit of time during the twins morning nap to a learning time.  He has been demonstrating lots of pre-reading skills for a while now.  Benton can rhyme, listen for beginning, middle, and end sounds, can spell out simple words when he hears them, and asks me to read lots of words he sees.  We spell out lots of words with letter tiles and do a lot of reading together.  I got him some little beginning readers, and off he went!  I am so proud of my little reader!!  This video is the first time he'd seen this book.  We just went over the title.  We have also been memorizing a scripture to go along with each letter of the alphabet.  I want to stuff as many verses as I can in that little mind!

This was our first attempt at his name a few months ago.  He's not real interested....

Sweet boy loves to have a routine and know what we're doing for the week.  He adores Wednesdays because his daddy takes him to get donuts for breakfast and stays home.  Benton loves school, class at church, and kids praise time during worship.  He also loves staying Saturday nights at Nana and G-Daddy's house.  I can't believe he's going to be 4 soon.  We love you Benton Blayne!