Benjamin and Sarah Babyblog. From a geek and father.

2007-02-07

Madrazo!

Sarah fell from the sofa this evening and smashed her head against the edge of the coffee table, which caused an ugly laceration. We took her to the ER immediately where she got some stitches and a pretty pink band-aid.

She's fine, although we keep monitoring her continuously. She was her normal self after coming back home, in her good humor and fascination with unicorns/little ponies.

Oh, and yes, we were tremendously scared for several (very long) minutes. Thankfully, or hopefully, a scar in her forehead should be the only lasting trauma from this episode.

We're also grateful to, and proud of Sarah's big brother, who was very helpful and told the doctor exactly what and how it had happened, and always showed concern and care for his little sister.

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2006-12-16

Benjamin is 5

He's been very excited about his birthday for months! counting the days, and it's finally here. Today the enchantment breaks (according to himself) and he turns back into a human and his boy-name Benjamin, after being a Cheeta named Rahw-rahw for so long.

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2006-11-28

Benjamin Scissor-hands

Our son has always been very crafty. He loves hands-on activities, so he's had his own easel and brushes, finger paints, glue, construction paper, scissors, etc for some time. As Mom noted, it was bound to happen one day that… he cut his own hair.

Yep, Daddy found him taking a chunk off his own forehead, and after—as calmly as possible—explaining to him that this wasn't such a good idea, we all went back to ourselves, for a little while.

Five minutes later I came back to check on him and found him cutting hair again: his Sister's! Fortunately the damage was minimal.

How to let him continue his explorations into hair-styling-land while preventing the not so flattering consequences?

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2006-11-14

Tell strong-willed toddlers what they should DO.

In contrast of course, to telling them what they shouldn't do.

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2006-11-01

Happy Halloween

Finally the world gets to see our family of cheetas in their full glory. See our Halloween photos. Some other recent photos in our Flickr album.

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2006-10-19

Team Hoyt

Dad inspiration.

Their website: TeamHoyt.com.
via Digg.

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2006-09-08

Grand Canyon Railway

We finally made it to the Grand Canyon over the Labor-day weekend. Mommy booked our trip with the Grand Canyon Railway so we could in the same trip have a great Train ride that we knew Benjamin would love. You should have seen his excitement when the Steam engine came into the station!

So we drove to and spent a night in Williams, AZ in the Hotel right next to the train depot, and next morning took the train to the Canyon, spent a few hours there and took another train back (this time pulled by a Diesel engine), during which we were robbed by horse-riding bandits that boarded the train and took all our money! Benjamin loved this part too. Sarah was too excited with the horses.

I tried to take more video this time, so I don't have much to show in the way of photos, but here are a few. Also I couldn't really enjoy the Canyon much...

The truth be told, from the night before I was very stressed about it, my mind constantly invaded by visions of children going over the edge. And when we got there and I saw the "railings" were so low, or there were no railings at all, I was petrified and didn't want to take my eyes off of my kids for fear they would run and jump off. We made it back home safe and sound of course, and now I can laugh at a funny article from The Onion titled "Earth to be made child-safe". Last Sunday I very much wished for that Grand Canyon Funtime Ball Bath.

Finally, for reference, here's a discussion about the safety of the Grand Canyon.

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2006-06-11

Happy Birthday Sarah!

Our little girl is no longer one-and-a-half, no sir!

Now she's a fully qualified Terrible Two.

See recent pictures.

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2006-06-10

Numbers in Benjamin-ese

Benjamin is obsessed with numbers these days. True to himself, He has his own way of calling things. He can count to 130 now, although not necessarily the way we'd do it. His system goes something like this:

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10
12, 11, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20 (called ten-teen, or sometimes twenty).
21 (twenty-one) through 29 (twenty-nine) = all normal.
30 = twenty ten, or thirty, depending on his mood. Then come thirty-one, thirty two and so on to 40 = thirty ten, or forty again, so then you get fifty, sixty, seventy, eighty, ninety, TENty (makes sense, no?).

He asked for the light to be left on for "tenty twenty-ten" minutes at bedtime last night. I had to think about that one for a few seconds! (130, for those of you who still don't speak Benjaminese fluently).

--Mommy

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2006-05-24

Five reasons to stop saying "Good job!"

The bad news is that the use of positive reinforcement really isn't so positive. The good news is that you don't have to evaluate in order to encourage.

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Benjamin & Sarah