Over the past year, we've become very good friends with another daycare family. You may have heard of them.. Snickollet and her twins. Over the past few weeks, Ben has started calling Maddie and Riley "by name". "By name", I mean, he calls them "Ya-Ya". Yesterday, on our way to pick up Shiela from work, we passed the train station and he said "Mamom?" and then a bit later in the same drive we were in traffic next to a the same make/model/color car that Snickollet drives. It took me FOREVER to figure out why Ben was going nuts yelling for "YA YA!!!". This morning.. when we drove up the hill to school.. Ben pops his binky out and says, in an excited voice, "Ya ya?".

At some point, Riley will belt Ben for calling him Ya Ya... at least when they get to high school. Of course, this would be contingent on Riley and Maddie starting to call Ben something other than "Baby". When Ben started at daycare, the twins were about 10 months old and Ben was "the baby" in the group. As they started to find words, Ben became "baby". I became "baby mama" and shiela became "baby other mama". Both kids now will say Ben.. and occasionally will call me Jen and the wife Shiela.. but more often than not.. we are "baby", "baby mama" and "baby other mama"..

I don't think I'm ready for these three to grow up quite yet.. so... here we go with some Then-and-Now photographs. Thanks to Ting Ting for taking the school pictures that are mixed in with the bunch!

Benny "Cheeks" Hinckley - June 07



Maddie "feeding" Ben - August 07



Riley and Ben - August 07



Madeline and Ben - August 07



Benji and his favorite babysitter - January 08



Ben showing enthusiasm - January 08



The three amigos - January 08



Maddie and Ben Chillin' - August 08



Riley and Maddie sharing Ben's toys...



Ben sharing his toys with Riley and Maddie...



Two Ya-Yas and a Baby - June 08