Yesterday, I was in the living room while Benji played with his diaper bag. I didn’t pay much attention, except to make sure he wasn’t doing anything dangerous. Then he got my attention: he’d pulled out both his shoes and was trying to put them on. I came and helped him with that. Then, almost immediately, he got his jacket and held it out: I put that on him, too, and followed with my own shoes. Clearly, he wanted to go outside!

This is an entirely new behavior, and one attributable, I suspect, to the picnic we took in the park the other day – there were doggies, and a couple other kids at the playground. Benji had a very fun time.

Yesterday we ended up talking with a neighbor/examining the wheels on the neighbor’s truck. Then we spent probably 30 minutes toddling back and forth from our next-door neighbors’ garbage bin to our bins and back, playing with those wheels (I tipped the bins over for ready access), with a few detours to examine truck wheels again, and a slight diversion to drop leaves into a plastic bin.

What an exciting day outside! I need to look up the sign for “outside” andmaybe “play,” because I think we’ll be using those words often.

Speaking of signs, I just realized we know the key signs in “I Like To Eat Apples and Bananas.” Granted, that’s not saying much, but hey, it’s fun. I just don’t know how you’d indicate the changing vowels.

Lately I’ve seen Benji sign drink, diaper, music, and all done, in addition to please, thank you, help, and more. Some of those do take significant interpretation – music involves waving one hand wildly in a certain way, and all done is waving another way – but still, so fun!