Ben says . . .

I didn't expect Ben to be so verbal, and I certainly didn't expect him to talk non-stop as he often does. There are times when I wish he were a little less verbal. He has 3 very verbal big sisters, and with so much verbosity in the house, sometimes, my brain just wants a break from conversation. When we are in the car, Ben talks almost incessantly, and he demands that I be part of the chit chat. If I allow my mind to wonder and don't answer one of his endless questions or don't recognize the very cool truck that he tells me about as we pass it, I am reprimanded. So - we converse (a lot), and Ben frequently ends up saying something that makes me smile or laugh out loud.

[Now - this really isn't the Ben blog even though I do a lot of Ben posts - but I want to remember his words years from now. If I don't record these moments, I will forget them. I know this, for sure. I have not been a proficient record keeper in the past, and though I know my girls have all said things at this age that made me smile or laugh out loud, I cannot reach into the far corners of my mind to remember the details. It makes me sad that I have forgotten, and I wish I would have written them down, but I didn't. And because I didn't write the details, I remember only a few of the things my little girls used to say. I remember that Madi could sing the ABC's before she was two - and that she loved to sing - a lot. I remember that she was the one who nicknamed my mom "Mammy" because she couldn't say "Grammy" and that she asked her dad for cinnamon toast and chocolate milk for breakfast every morning. When Katie was little I loved hearing her call her cousin Jacob, bup-bup, and loved listening to her say good night to Brad every night, saying "see you in the morning, daddy" in only the way an adorable, blued-eyed-brunette, 3-year-old can say it. And, I remember how she asked for "pampakes and syriup" or chocolate milk and milky for breakfast. I remember how Lacey couldn't say her "r's" and would call Brad's mom "gwamma Judy." I remember that she did a mean dance to Hokey Pokey Elmo and that she would always talk about our "baby" and would want to buy things for our "baby" long before Benjamin was a reality. I wish with all my heart that I could remember all of the details of what my little girls had to say, because they definitely had plenty to say! Sadly, the details fade from memory, and 13 years of parenting become a convoluted blur.]

Since I want to remember the details of the early years of at least one of my children, I come to my blog to record the profound sayings of Benjamin Bradley Wallace. Here are sample conversations from the past week or so -

"Mommy, when you grow up, you can be a worker man, and when I grow up, I am going to be a first grader and then I am going to be a garbage man."

"Mommy - how do firefighters fight?"

Ben - "Mommy, when I get older, I am going to have a blow dryer."
Mom - "What are you going to with a blow dryer?"
Ben - "I am going to blow some trees."

Lacey - (on the ride home from school with just Lacey & Ben in the car - the big girls stayed late) "I am so hungry. I want something really good to eat when I get home. What can I have for a snack, mom?"
Ben - "Lacey, what would you like? We have steak or pasta."

Ben - "When I grow up I'm going to be a daddy and drive in a truck."
Mommy - "And will you have a little boy?"
Ben - "No, I'm going to have a little mommy."

Here's to remembering the details of our lives and the lives of our children. I want to remember when my life was filled with details like firefighters and garbage men and trucks and little boy questions and endless conversations . . .