Mini-Papa

I love when people play the "who does your kid look like" game because it is so hard for me to see anyone but June or Ruben in June or Ruben.  I don't think June looks like me and while I know that she has Karl's eyes, she definitely doesn't look like him. Since Ruben's birth, opinions on who he looks like fluctuate like the weather has this winter...a lot. At first everyone thought he looked like my dad, but then he does look an awful lot like Karl as well - it's the size of his head on that one, I think. I think Ruben looks like...Ruben.  Maybe that's just years of being called "Lo...I mean, Kendra" talking. 

However, Ruben lately has reminded us of Papa just in some facial expressions and in the way he acts. He's a joker and he loves to laugh. He loves to socialize, but mostly wants to spend time with family. He's also quite the builder.  He makes towers with just about any block, and loves to put pencils or pens or straws in any pencil sized hole. He doesn't look much like Papa with his long hair but we're finding the family traits well enough. 

At Ash Wednesday service, the whole family got to sit in a pew together which happens about once a month at most. Ruben had a snack bag from Jan and had eaten everything except some round pretzels. After some trial and error he discovered that he could stack the pretzels around the pencil that is in the pew holder for attendance cards. It was great sermon entertainment.  It is amazing the creativity it takes to occupy two kids in a pew...

Ruben is very creative in a way altogether different than June ever was.  June loved babies and could turn anything into a baby. Ruben can turn everything into a car. He'll make that little vroom vroom car sound for hours (literally hours, I've kept track). He loves marbles and calls them MalBAL's. He loves these little animals we keep in the diaper bag, but I do think he plays with them as if they are cars. Except the dog ones, those stay dogs because he can make the dog noises. The other night he took his favorite little puppy dog, a nametag I had worn to bible class, and this little bilibo tied with a string and played on the kitchen floor for such a long time.  He would pull the little sled around with the items inside, then something would fall out and he would go care for it and hug it and put it back in. I couldn't resist the photo shoot.