31 for 21: Day Three of Five: Seven Things

I've noticed other bloggers posting 21 things about their child with Down syndrome.  I think that is a great idea!  I'm going to break mine up into three posts, since I am not keeping up with my daily posting goal for October.  

Seven things to know about Ben:

(1) He's a music lover.  He started with Signing Time, then fell in love with Laurie Berkner, then it was Elmo and the Sesame Street celebrity songs on youtube.  For a while, Mother Goose Club intrigued him, and now ... he likes the music from Frozen.  If I have a chance, I'll try to video his interpretation of "Let It Go."  He doesn't really sing at all, but he knows all of Elsa's moves.  You can't help but smile.

(2) Ben has over 200 signs.  He's been slow to speak, so sign language has been a great help!  

(3) He is Mr. Independent.  I appreciate that Ben wants to do things himself (get dressed, walk up/down stairs, take the bottle of juice out of the fridge), but it also makes me a wee bit crazy.  I'm learning patience.

(4) Favorite food: pizza.

(5) Ben is fascinated by doors.  He LOVES the automatic opening doors at our church.  Every time we are in the lobby, he has to go in and out of the automatic doors.  He walks out, then moves to the right to stand next to the building while the doors close.  Once they close, he steps up so that they'll open again, and then he strides in again.  But he's not particular - he likes regular doors, too.  Emmett and I used to joke that if we could only find a toy (kind of like this one) that was just a door to go in and out of, Ben would play with it all day long.

(6) Ben's got a little Russell Westbrook in him.  If we're outside playing basketball, Emmett will pick him up so Ben can throw the ball in the tall hoop.  Once Ben's on the ground again, he has a whole taunting/celebration act that he does - lots of arm waving and yelling.  We're perplexed, because our house is tuned into Spurs basketball, and we know that Duncan and Leonard don't go on like that.

(7) Ben has been saying more words.  His first and most reliable word is "up!" accompanied by a finger pointing in the same direction.  Otherwise, he says "bubble," "mama," "dada," "papa," and just this week busted out "blue."  Preschool has had a huge impact on his verbalization.

This is a photo from last summer.  He looked so little then.