I thought this day would never come!

I know this sounds bad but I have been so looking forward for Ben to gain more and more independence. And finally it is happening! He is starting to clean up after himself! He puts his toys away after he is done with them (sometimes). He cleans up trash compulsively - I love this one because he is always picking up after me and taking it and throwing it away! It is awesome! We have a little guy with a servant's heart which I love. It is my goal for Ben and any other children we are blessed with to be super independent little people so I am so excited to see this starting to happen in him. After almost 2 years of doing everything for the little guy it is great to finally see his independence come through (although we knew from the start he was going to be an independent, strong willed little guy!)

Some other fun new things he is doing:

• Finally he is starting to like to brush his teeth. For the past year it has been screaming every night when we try to brush them. So it is nice to brush without tears!
• He came up to me today and just kissed me for no reason! It just melted my heart. He is also giving more hugs for no reason.
• His vocabulary is expanding daily. Most of you know I have been worried about him being behind in his speech but over the last couple of weeks it has just taken off. He is babbling all the time and saying more and more words every day. I think he is up to about 50 words or so. He has also starting putting a couple of them together.
• Sleeping is still an issue with Ben. From day 1 he has been a bad sleeper. People ask me all the time how I get him to sleep through the night and I don't. STILL!! I think I live in a state of sleep deprivation! Oh well. He is waking up a couple of times a week and wanting to play from 2-4 am or so. So I am working on adjusting naps to try to help with this. We have actually slept through the "night" for the past 2 nights (9 pm - 5:30 am) YEA!!
• Just an update. We are now down to paci only when sleeping. This is a big change for us!
• Ben has learned a new form of greeting - the fist pump. He will fist pump you when he first meets you. So cute!

Here are some pictures from the last couple of days.

Play date with his friend Anna! They always have so much fun!

One of Ben's favorite things to do is to play with daddy's iphone! He knows how to work that thing and can do just about anything on it!

Today was a super rainy day so I had to get creative with things to do. We made lots of pictures with our new art supplies and played with play dough! Lots of fun!