Vegas, baby!

Ben had his first airplane trip and first visit to Grandma Gerry and Grandpa Larry's house last month. He has proven himself yet again as the best baby ever by traveling better than I could have dreamed. On the flight out, he slept 3.75 of the 4.5 hour flight, and flirted with the flight attendants and anyone he could make eye contact with the rest of the time. He even behaved when we drove up to Utah the morning after we arrived so that we could spend a couple of days with Ralph's sister Heather and her family and see his Great Grandma B. for the first time. We had a great time, and our only regret is that we didn't get to see more of our friends and family while we were out west. While we didn't get to see everyone, we made a notable effort.

Benjamin continued to prove worthy of his title (Best Baby Ever) on our day trip to Cedar Breaks, our return flight home, and then when we had to drive up to VA unexpectedly 2 days later to be with Ralph's family after Tinka and our nephew Tasman were hit by a car while crossing the street. They are both doing well, Tasman with just some nasty scrapes and bruises, but Tinka will have a long recovery as she teaches her shoulders and arms how to work again after hours of reconstructive surgery. Needless to say, we had quite the eventful October, but none of it seemed to phase Benjamin, who continues to grow at an alarming rate and learns new things every day.

Catching up

I'm in the process of putting the last several months' worth of pictures up on the Kodak site. I have been VERY neglectful, but this way there's lots to look at, right? I'll post the links to each slideshow here when I'm finally caught up for those of you who are suckers for pictures. In the meantime, I thought I would post a sampling of the best photos here. Enjoy! For those of you not as familiar with this site, you can click on any of the images to see them full size and download them for printing.

June 08



July 08


August 08


September 2008

Escape Artist

Sometimes I think that Benjamin is too smart for us. We've discovered that Ben's desire to get to the dogs' food and water dishes was strong enough that he figured out how to get through an almost completely closed door. I wonder if one of the dog's leashes would fit him.

Mmmmm...FOOD

Ben's been eating cereal of some sort since he was about 5 months old, but within the past few weeks he's started eating all kinds of stuff, and he's really good at it. The doctor was a little concerned over his drop in weight gain at his 6 Month appt and so prescribed a solid food feeding for him 3 times a day in addition to all of his normal nursing. Needless to say, we're doing more laundry and diaper changes these days. Benjamin seems to be following my lead in the palate department--he eats anything and everything and can't stand it if one of us is eating and he doesn't get to share. (Please forgive my camera work-- I was trying to film and feed at the same time!)

Look what I can do!

Last Friday, I put Ben down on his tummy on a spot of carpet near where the family room carpeting ends and the vinyl kitchen floor begins and went upstairs to take care of some things while Ralph watched him. A few minutes later, Ralph yelled up to me that I should come see what my son had done. He was 10 feet from where I left him, tangled up in the legs of the chairs under the kitchen table. Ralph informed me that Ben somehow made his way onto the smooth kitchen floor and discovered how to scoot himself around on his belly. I'm sure it was close to happening anyway, but something about the friction of his bare feet on the kitchen floor combined with the lack of friction of his clothes on the smooth surface made everything click and he was purposefully mobile! Ralph traced Ben's path from the living room into and around the kitchen, and under the table. He caught on quickly! The video above was taken only 1 week from his initial voyage. I thought it was bad when he was rolling himself everywhere--now I can't seem to keep up with him! He definitely likes being able to direct where he's heading, and always goes straight for the dog dishes we have both upstairs and downstairs. And so the mischief begins... Thank heaven for port-a-cribs, Exersaucers and doors that shut!

6 Months Old!

Benjamin had his 6 month appointment yesterday. He's doing well, although his weight gain isn't up to par, apparently. So we have graduated from solids just once a day to three times a day. It's a good thing my kid is such a good eater! He's his mother's son--he doesn't shy away from anything and will eat volumes beyond his stomach capacity if I'll let him. While I'm not looking forward to lugging around the extra weight, I'm excited to have the go ahead to be more aggressive with feeding him solids. Here are his 6 month stats:

Height: 27"
Weight: 15 lb. 12 oz.
Head Circumference: 44.25 cm

Still no teeth (thank goodness) and no crawling in the normal sense of the word (hallelujah), but he rolls everywhere and has started to get up on his knees occasionally, and he scoots on his belly a bit to reach a toy (or anything that's on the floor, which he automatically assumes is his toy). He sits pretty well on his own, but doesn't seem to really want to stay upright, even though I know he can balance himself. His new thing is that he can't stand to be reclining and will do these crunches in order to try to get to a sitting position. He's just shy of being able to get vertical from a recline without any assistance at all. It's pretty amazing to watch.

So many toys, so little time

Ben's Aunt Wendie gave us this Exersaucer, and while he has been sitting in it for quite some time (about a month now), he has just figured out within the past couple of weeks that he can actually play with all these toys instead of just staring at them. And boy does he play!

Ticklish

Benjamin has started to break into full blown belly laughs when he thinks something's REALLY funny (usually it involves his Dad), but it's still a fairly rare occurrence. Today we discovered a ticklish spot that got him going, allowing us to share a small sample of his cutest new thing.

4 months old!

Benjamin turned 4 months old while we were on his first vacation/road trip. And what a road trip it was! 5 hours to DC where we stayed for a few days before driving out to Indiana with Ralph's parents to visit his sister and her family. And then 13 hours straight back from Indiana to Raleigh. Ben did VERY well. Apparently he's much more resilient than his mother, who was a wreck on that long 13 hour drive, mostly because I was so worried that I was going to have to finally deal with an unhappy baby. But, lucky me, I still don't have much experience with that.

When we got back from Indiana, Ben went to his 4 month appointment. He had another round of shots, which he didn't like (who would), but he got over it quickly. He's now 15 lb. 1.5 oz and 26.5" long. He's just above average weight for his age, but his length is the average length of a 6 month old. No wonder we were having trouble fitting into the 3-6 months clothes! We're keeping our fingers crossed that this bodes well for a child who will be taller than the genes his parents gave him might indicate.

3 months and counting

I can't believe it's been over a month since I last posted anything! My parents got a webcam so they've been able to see Ben in action that way, so I've been less diligent about posting images and videos here. Here's a quick update on how Benjamin's doing at 3.5 months old:
Height: 25" (roughly)
Weight: 14.5 lb (according to my not-so-accurate home scale)

Over the past month and a half, he's started to talk even more - lots of strange new noises including laughing, gurgling, squealing, raspberries, and some sounds I wouldn't know how to describe. And he's definitely gotten LOUDER as he's gotten older.

He's discovered how to control his legs and feet and started swatting at and trying to grab his toys with his feet at about 2 1/2 months. He's progressed to grabbing with his hands AND feet, and is getting really good at bringing things to his mouth. His newest ( and cutest, in my opinion) trick is that when he's lying on his back, he grabs his toes with his hands and hangs on, just jabbering away.

He can roll over both ways (front to back and back to front) but he doesn't do it that often. we watch him carefully though!

Photo Links-up to 3 months old

Here are the links to all the photo galleries I've posted to date, with a small sampling of the images included above.

Ben's visitors and Blessing Day

Ben's first month

April 2008-1 month old to 2 months old

Ben at 2-2 1/2 months old

Ben-2 1/2 to 3 months old

Talking to the animals, part 2

Another cute video from the same day.

talking to the animals...

I took this video one day after his 2 month birthday. There's another video I took the same day that is even more adorable, but I'm having problems uploading it. Hopefully I can get it uploaded soon, so check back.

Stanley Cup Playoffs!

Like father, like son. We've discovered that in addition to his father's good looks, Ben has also inherited Ralph's innate love of sports. With the Stanley Cup playoffs underway, we've had a lot of exposure to hockey, and Ben will twist his head all the way around to stare at the TV when there's a game on. Could be that he just likes the contrast and movement of dark figures skating around on white ice, but we prefer to think he's a sports fan from birth. He tends to have a similar reaction whenever ESPN is on, and I have pictures just like this one from the NCAA Tournament in March. The introduction to sports is well underway!

2 Month Appointment

My brave boy had his first round of shots today (other than the ones he received in the hospital) and I think he handled it pretty well, considering. And I think that I handled it pretty well, too, thank you very much. It's a heartbreaking experience, to say the least. To give you some frame of reference for his current measurements, here are his stats from his hospital exam and his 1 month appointment, along with today's measurements:



He went from being in the 1st percentile to the 50th percentile in weight in just 8 weeks, doubling in size in the process. Amazing. It's nice to know that I'm fulfilling my motherly duties, at least in the feeding department.

The pictures below show Ben at one week, almost 1 month, and today. Barely recognizable as the same kid I brought home from the hospital!