1.5 years old

My little dude, the mangiest of all the mangimens, little min min, Benjamuffin/Benjamima is 1.5 years old.  He is no longer a suitable dinner companion at restaurants, he loves stuffed animals, he has a penchant for drama, he still loves to twirl hair between his fingers (god bless you white fluffy doggy), he is trying his darndest to jump but hasn't quite mastered the knee bend and upward momentum at the same time.  He LOVES cheese of all kinds and pasta and peas, pretty much everything else is take it or leave it.  He knows most of his body parts and in the last month has really taken his talking to the next level, he knows a fair amount of words but really tries to imitate what we say by trying the sounds, he knows inflections and knows to say please and wave his little hand like the Queen of England to get us to do whatever he wants.

He still makes it into our bed by the time my alarm goes off, and is still not a morning person.  He can throw things really hard and is mastering his climbing technique (into the tub, into the toilet, up the TV stand).

We still love him and can't imagine our lives without him.

Going old school on this day with 4 posts, official 18 month photos.

And the grand finale, the true spirit of Mino captured in one photo:::::

The Spring that Wasn't

We started off Spring on a cold note. The first day of  Spring was below zero.  By the time I got my act together and documented the temperature we had risen to 0.0 degrees F.  Should have known at that point what we were up against.

Several snowstorms and a month later, we aren't doing much better.  We have warmed up into the 30s but as of April 19th got officially 10 more inches of snow.  My ruler was placed on sidewalk so isn't the most accurate place to document snow accumulation.

We are making the best of it though and playing outside.  The sun is still warm.  Heck it is at the same place in the sky as it is in August.  I swear, if we still have snow in August I will not be happy.

We wandered down to the pond in back which is really high right now due the the several days we have had above freezing and the snow melt.  It had frozen overnight and made a beautiful pattern.

We had fun throwing snowballs on the ice.

It is actually a really cool thing to have in the back yard.  Usually there are ducks and geese, but for obvious reasons they had abandoned ship at that particular moment.

You can still slide with a snow suit on.  It actually makes you go faster!

The garage doesn't have gutters.  Some pretty sweet icicles form there on occasion.

If you blow the picture up below you can actually see his broken little front teeth.

 

And just to point out that I am not being overly dramatic, he we were exactly one year ago today, when he was 6 months old.  Outside in short sleeves with green grass and dandelions.  What a difference a year makes.

Mino-Daddy Disney Trip!!

Martin's family decided back in October that they were coming to Disney for Felix's birthday.  How exciting!!  I did the calculations and sadly found out that with our already planned vacations this year and two weddings that I didn't have enough vacation time to be able to go with my boys :(  Martin made the brave decision to go alone to Disney with Mino.  Wow.  I don't know if I could have done it.  Once he got there he stayed with his family, so he technically wasn't alone, but still.  It is tough.

Martin had dreams of taking Mino on his favorite rides he remembers from his childhood and now.  But quickly found that it is tough to stick to your plans with little children and large groups.  They found plenty to do for a kid that is 16 months old which actually surprised me a lot.

His Abeuelos got some great cuddle time with their little American grandson.

He got to play and fight with his little South American counterpart Clara.

 I guess the condo that they stayed in had a nice playground, so the kids got some good time to work out their willies.

His favorite documented ride was Its a Small World.  Martin said he made this face the entire time.  He said that he couldn't get enough of looking at all the moving puppets and the song.  He took a video that was like 3 minutes long, too long to put on here or to send to my phone but was basically this with him turning from side to side.  I would have loved to have seen that.

I guess he did have one melt down moment. It came on a particularly hot day, in a particularly long line for Pirates of the Caribbean, with a particularly full diaper, and a certain ride that broke before those waiting in line were able to ride it.  After his freak out, a clean diaper and a walk, I guess all was well.  This is as close to his angry face as we got.

I think my favorite documentation of the trip was a video Martin took on one of the first days of Mino dancing. The dance moves aren't all that slick, but he just looks like a proper Florida Retiree.

Martin was sad as he realized that the whole time there the baby didn't get to see Mickey Mouse or any character for that matter.  He said that they don't wander the parks anymore, that they have assigned meet and great times at meals and what not.  So luckily at the Airport on the way home Mickey was there to greet him.

Next time we will all go.  Martin has decreed that "we will do it right and stay at a Disney Resort" and Mino will get to have all the amazing experiences that Martin remembers from waaaaaay back when he was a youth.

Wow, Little boys have just a bit of energy

Mino has been keeping us on our toes as of late.  He is a full fledged toddler.  He runs all day until he is angry or falls, he is happy until he is crying, he is laughing until he is screaming.  I wish it was OK for everyone to be as open with how they really feel as this child is.  We have found that the days of sitting on a mat in the living room batting at toys and having that count as fun are long over, this one needs to move.  Since it seems that there will always be snow on the ground outdoors we have branched out taken advantage of some of the great indoor things to do around here.
Obviously eating is key, he goes for week long phases of what he loves.  For a while he couldn't get enough waffles, now he wants nothing to do with them and prefers Raisin Bran.  Who knows.

The Mall of America has a great aquarium that, with a coupon after 3pm is pretty cheap.  We went to go try that out and it was a resounding success.  They had a tank where you can pet animals like star fish and horseshoe crabs and sea urchings.

They had a room that was dark with almost black lights with tubes of jellyfish and mirrors.  It was pretty sweet.

There is a huge walk through aquarium tunnel that has some very large fish and sharks.  That is one thing, my child is not fearless.  He is happy happy happy then all of a sudden very scared.  I tried to lean him against the glass when the shark was swimming by.  Whoops.  That didn't happen.  I suppose I can see why, that shark is multiple times larger than him, and even with his little broken fang teeth, the sharks teeth are more intimidating.

The octopus was more his scene.  And the gift shop that you have to walk through on the way out.  Without having a kid I never would have noticed this, but you know those vats with rocks you can pick out.  Those are small rocks, the vat is really low.  Mino likes rocks.

For Christmas we got him this sweet RadioFlyer wagon thinking that in the next couple months we could go walking to the park.  Well, we are, just bundled up under blankets with winter hats on.

We improvise at home.  Rudolph's nose is a surprisingly painful weapon when swung around really fast.

Nana and Granddude came so we pulled out the big guns and went to the Science Museum.  Martin and I geeked out thinking that Mino would love to experiment and learn about cells and weather.  Wrong, he loved the steps, and anything he could climb on.  Once we found this section he was having a blast.  Around the corner there is one of the best fully preserved Triceratops skeletons in the world, so that was the highlight for me.

Whilst sharks scare my child, apparently heights do not.  He enjoyed the panorama of the Mississippi river with the paddleboats.

After yet another snow storm (and Mino doing his darndest to have his hairdo match doggies) we were really struggling with ideas.  Martin's coworker mentioned this great indoor playground.  We scoped it out.

Amazing.  If I was 20 years younger I would have died.  It is broken up into the under 4 years section and the over 4 years section with a separate open gym and a pool.  The big kids section is 4 stories of rope ladders, slides, chutes, monkey bars.  Super cool.  Mino couldn't get enough of going up the stairs.

And down the slide.

And up the stairs.

One thing that is fun year round is baths.  The kid loves them.  But I learned the hard way that it isn't a good idea to let him learn how to drink out of regular cups with bathwater.  That makes for an upset tummy and a screaming baby all night long.

And we have a biter.