Anything But Gray

As mostly everyone knows….Ben is a tough kid to be a parent of. He has been difficult since the day he came out of the womb. About the only thing easy with Ben was his entrance into the world. 2.5 hours from start to finish.

There are things Zak and I have come to accept with Ben and we have learned to pick our battles with him.
Now, don't get me wrong….I adore this kid…..but boy, does he make me crazy. He's stubborn as all hell, loud, rambunctious, defiant and downright ornery sometimes. But he's also super friendly, absolutely adorable, tough, determined, sweet at heart and very affectionate and loving. And handsome behind belief. He's a charmer. If you were to meet him in a store, you would want to take him home with you. Everyone does. He really is that charming. Now, once you got him there you would realize what you have gotten yourself into and you would turn around and bring him right back…but when you meet him, he would charm the pants off of you. 🙂

A couple of battles that we just don't bother fighting Ben on are:

• getting himself dressed. He just flat out refuses to do it and we have gone with the philosophy that he will when he is ready.
•  Another one is food. The kid will not try anything. He has his staples and luckily they are mostly healthy staples….but it's all he will eat. Mac and cheese, hamburgers (homecooked ones), cheese quesadillas, spinach ravioli, spaghetti, cheese, mandarin oranges, carrots, pistachios and peanut butter sandwiches And some snacks here and there. But those are his staples. Pretty friggin' healthy, if you ask me, so we are lucky. But it's maddening for him to not try things. Like pizza. He freakin' loves spaghetti and he loves cheese…but he won't try pizza. <rolling eyes> It's that kind of stuff that makes us crazy because we know he would love it if he tried it.  

I don't know if I am speaking too soon but I think my little monster has turned a leaf this week because TWICE this week he has tried 2 new things and has loved them!! Yay!!! We are so psyched.

And then this morning he went upstairs, without being prompted and picked out his own clothes and got himself out of his pj's and into his clothes!! AND what he picked out totally matched AND he put his pj's in the dirty clothes! I was so, so proud of him!!!

Tonight we took the kids to the library so Jaime could get some books and Ben is old enough for a library card, so we signed him and he picked out some books.

Tonight I just felt like, finally….Ben is becoming easier.  It feels like he is "getting it" and it's going to be easier to parent him. I hope I am not jumping the gun by writing this down, but I'm just so proud of him, I wanted to share!!
And even if he does revert back to Ben being Ben…I saw progress and I know he can do it….and that makes me happy!!!