catching up on ben

I've been neglectful lately of my second-born. Not literally, I don't think, but in not keeping up with a monthly record of his second year like I did so faithfully for his brother. I suppose that's what happens when you're not the first (as much as I know it pains you, Joanna, to hear that). So, here's a recap of Ben's most important accomplishments the last few months:

Month 13 consisted of finally learning two big things: 1) that it really isn't such a bad idea to go down the stairs feet first on your belly, and 2) that real, big people food really is good. Ben started eating so much table food right about the time that we went to Kansas for Thanksgiving that we joked about leaving him there for a while since he obviously liked Mimi's cooking so much.

In month 14 Ben started learning how to use a fork and spoon--I guess he decided that if he was going to go about this whole table food business, he might as well do it the right way. He also started learning a slew of baby signs. And it didn't take long to realize that he picks up on them quickly--he'd just see us do one once or twice, and then he'd start doing it on his own without prompting. "Drink" and "hat" are the two he has since used most frequently (since drinks and hats are about on par with each other around here).

And then in month 15 the verbal onslaught began. Since Sean never said anything besides "Daddy" and "applesauce" before he was 22 months old, it took me by surprise when Ben, at 14 1/2 months old, blurted out "cah-cah" when he saw me opening up a box of crackers. After that it didn't take long for him to blurt out all kinds of things: "cah" (car), "baw" (ball), "dat-da" (Daddy), just to name a few.

Month 15 was also the month that he started to really take an interest in reading. He'd grab books off his bookshelf or pick them up around the house and just sit in the floor and "read", or if one of us was close by he'd bring it to us and raise up his little arms so he could be picked up and read to.

At his 15-month appointment he weighed 25 lbs. 5 oz. and was 32 1/2 inches long. Still a long guy, as always, but not quite as chubby as usual--he was actually down 4 oz. from his 1-year appointment. Not that he's hurting--he's still got plenty of meat on his bones for us to squeeze.

And then month 16. This last month brought a lot more words--"tzth" (teeth), "chuzz" (cheese), "guh" (yogurt), "ca-ca" (kitty cat), "bi-ba" (bible), "buh" (boo!), "booh" (balloon), "poo" (spoon), "buh-baw" (football)--I can barely keep up with all his new words.

But the hardest part of month 16, probably of the last 4 months overall, was his first haircut. I admit, I put it off until his sweet little baby curls had become an unsightly mullet. I just didn't want to say good-bye to those little curly locks around the back of his head until I absolutely had to. So instead of this...



now our little man looks like this:



I wish he wasn't growing up so fast, but if he stays this handsome, I think I can live with that.

attack of the stinker

Ben's orneriness seems to be increasing lately, and it apparently really steps up to new levels when he's exhausted. He refused to take more than a 45-minute nap yesterday, so by dinnertime he was in full stinker mode. After multiple incidences of him grabbing something he wasn't supposed to, and then turning and running, I couldn't keep it in any longer--I burst out laughing at the sight and sound of Ben running circles around the table and Sean shrieking along behind him, trying desperately to retrieve whatever Ben stole from him. I know I won't be laughing after years of this, but for one moment last night, I enjoyed the hilarity of it. Much to Chris's dismay, since he was having a *very* hard time disciplining anybody with me laughing my head off a room away.

And I think Sean tried to get even this morning. Ben, apparently, started playing with something that I had just told the boys to leave alone, and I turned around in time to hear Sean say to him, "No, Ben, no! Me give you 'pankin'!" Fun times.

"us going home"

We were riding in the van tonight and I happened to look back to see the boys holding hands and Sean quietly saying, "Baby Ben, us going home." I love to see that childish contentment. And like Chris said, that pretty much sums up life itself. We hold each other's hands and quietly remind each other "us going home." It doesn't get any simpler--or sweeter--than that.

still built tough

We joked when Ben was first born about how we could take the Ford motto "Built Tough" and use it for Ben. That still applies. I took him for his one-year appointment yesterday and he was 31.5" tall and weighed 25 lbs. 9 oz. It won't be long and he'll be the one knocking Sean over, instead of the other way around.

Oh, and after 3 shots in one leg, his response was nothing more than a few leg shakes and a look at the doctor like, "What'd you do that for?" Not even a whimper came out of his mouth. Like I said--built tough.

remembering...ben's 1st year

ben. is. one.

Baby Ben - Day 2

One year ago today, our little Benjamin Jude made his grand entrance. One year. Already. Where in the world did it go? I feel like I blinked a few blinks, slept a few sleeps, and then--poof--it was gone. Time's not supposed to go that fast, not when little ones are involved. Already I find myself looking back and wishing that I had held him more and cherished him longer, not because I don't think I did enough, but because it was over all too soon. And I'm longing for just a little bit more of the baby-ness from my Baby Ben.

I've been looking back through pictures of little Ben throughout the day, remembering all kinds of little things from all of his little stages. It's been interesting to me in my short experience as a parent to realize just how much of life is all about milestones, and the fact that they never end. You achieve one, then go on to the next one, and so on and so forth for the rest of your life. Everyone does it--it's part of being human. And yet despite how simply ordinary it really is for the entire human race, we still cheer each other on and celebrate each other's little accomplishments...even the babies'. And I pray the day never comes when I fail to recognize even the smallest little achievement in my children's lives, for it's those little things that make up life itself. And that is always, most definitely, worth remembering.

So here's to remembering my little Benjamin as he turns one. Remembering that he's already walking everywhere like a pro, even stopping to pick something up and going on, or standing up in the middle of the floor by himself and taking off; remembering that he still only has six teeth, which doesn't do much for him in the eating category; remembering that he still dances and moves his little body everytime he hears music; remembering that, when prompted, he'll blow kisses, give kisses, sign "touchdown" or "light" or "more" or "bye bye" or "eat"; remembering that he will start doing the hand motions to "The Wise Man's House" when he hears the song; remembering that he loves to make people laugh, and will do something over and over again to make it happen; remembering that he screaches anytime he's frustrated, impatient, annoyed or stuck; remembering that his version of peek-a-boo is to put one hand anywhere on his head (for instance, on his ear), wait for someone to say "Where's Ben?" and then he'll giggle with glee when he takes his hand off; remembering that he's already initiating playing "catch" with whoever's willing; remembering that he still likes to be held and cuddled and loved; and most of all, remembering that the fun is just beginning.

The last year with Ben has been wonderful, and I do wish it hadn't gone quite so fast. But on the other hand, the little guy's becoming such a sweet and fun little toddler, that I can't help but look forward to where he's going to lead us. And, yes, I really think he's going to lead us places. Like to the emergency room, for instance. I'm afraid we already have him pegged as our ornery and mischeivous little rugrat. We may be wrong, and we have the right to change our minds as the years go on, but for now, I'm content to believe that fun, fun times are ahead with this little guy, and we're quite looking forward to it.

Happy 1st birthday, Baby Ben! We love you.

ben: 11 months

Our little guy turned 11 months old 8 days ago, and it's taken me this long just to figure out exactly what to say. Even now I'm still not sure.

I always thought Sean's first year went by fast, but that doesn't even compare to how quickly Ben's has gone. It just doesn't seem possible that we're so quickly approaching his first birthday. It still seems months away, and yet here it is, right around the corner. And as much as I would like to deny it, I also can't help but embrace it and all the little milestones that come with it, milestones that I want to remember as long as possible. And so, baby Ben, here's a little snapshot of what you were like at one month before you turned one, in some of your last moments of babyhood:

• Taking your first steps! At 10 1/2 months?!
• First steps=first shoes (not that they're new or anything. We hung onto Sean's old footwear for a reason. And it just so happens you have the same Stride Rite XW foot that he does. Convenient.)
  
• Waving...a little delayed, usually, but waving nonetheless.
• Infatuated with balls--you're constantly crawling around with balls in your hands. And you're already trying out the bat-and-ball concept: you first tried it using a baseball-bat-shaped puzzle piece in one hand and swinging at a round toy in the other hand. Amazing!
• Sprouted tooth #6.
• Giving open-mouthed kisses. Sloppy, yes, but oh so sweet!
• Learned the signal for "touchdown!" Daddy's thrilled, to say the least. He's now 2/2 on that being the first "baby sign" our kids learn.
• Still climbing everything, except now you've progressed to climbing onto couches and into the little rocking chair.
• Finally take pleasure in reading books instead of just eating them. Although you seem to think that every book should be a touch-and-feel, because your little finger is constantly rubbing all over the pages looking for something interesting to caress.
• Actually beginning to say words! You'll say "mama" and "hi" (although it sounds more like "ha") when prompted, and without prompting you will make an elementary, but obvious, "vroom" sound when playing with a car. Oh, yes, and we love to ask you what a tiger says, just to hear your adorable baby "rhar!"
  
• Getting cuter and cuter, seriously. We talk about it all the time. The more your little personality shows, the cuter you get. Keep it coming, little guy. We love to see it.
  

my sons, the song leaders

This story line may be getting old, but it still cracks me up.

Tonight in church while we were singing I Keep Falling in Love With Him, Sean was belting out the phrase "over and over again" quite literally over and over again. Meanwhile, Ben was sitting with a friend of mine at the other end of the pew with his arms outstretched, waving them in the air like he was conducting an orchestra. The combination was too much. I admit it, I laughed. Out loud.

what's not to love?

Since I haven't posted any in a while, and just downloaded them from my camera today, here are photos of the boys from our trip to Texas last month:



P. S. Look below for new pics of Ben. I can't get enough of that little face and those feet.

ben at ten is...

Yes, his little nose is runny and raw and bleeding. But isn't he sweet?

• Climbing everything--stairs (all by himself), step stools, boxes, tables, dishwasher door...
• Clapping! All you have to do is say, "Clap, Ben!" and he starts smacking his little hands together.
• Almost walking--he'll walk along only holding one hand, he'll stand for seconds at a time without using anything for support--he's all set to go, now we're just waiting for him to do it.
• Finally eating fairly well. Up until this month he hasn't been too interested in solids, but now he'll eat them fairly regularly. And he's finally figured out how to chew, so choking on finger foods isn't a problem any longer. But that also means that he now considers any little morsel on the floor to be finger food, i.e. cat food, paper, styrofoam, etc.
  
• Mr. Temper--we're already dealing with stubbornness to the extreme, impatience, severe head-rearing and back-arching. I think we're in for some fun times ahead. He's definintely his own little person, and he knows it.
• Sporting 5 teeth now. He got three up top in just one week, and we're still waiting for #6 to come through. They make him look so old.
• Dancing. Almost any time he hears music, he starts rocking back and forth and/or shaking his head. And if he's the one who started the music playing, he'll press the button to get it going again when the song ends.
  
• Grunting. It's his main form of communicating. Just a quick little, "Ugh!"
  
• Adorable--he's grins and giggles galore, and so so sweet. I'm wishing I could slow time down and enjoy this baby stage of his a little while longer. A few more months is all I have left, and I'm not nearly ready enough for it to end.
  

hurricane benjamin: 9 months

Ben acquired the nickname "Hurricane Benjamin" this month, due to his being a whirlwind of activity that leaves chaos and destruction in his wake. We can honestly barely keep up with the little guy, and partly because of that he has discovered and accomplished plenty in the last month. Here's what he's been up to:

• Crawling from room to room. Pretty much as soon as he learned to crawl, he realized that he could now quickly and easily get anywhere he wanted, and he started doing just that.
• Pulling toilet paper off the roll. After several days of going into the bathroom and finding a mound of toilet paper on the floor, or walking into the hall and seeing a trail of it coming out of the bathroom, we finally wisened up and started keeping the door closed at all times.
• Pulling up and standing up in the bathtub. I still don't know how he hasn't gotten hurt in there yet. It's not the most stable place to stand, obviously, but he keeps going after all the tempting things around him despite the falls that inevitably come.
• Playing with electrical cords. The only ones he really has access to are the ones under my desk, and he seems to instinctively know when I forget to close my office door.
• Playing with cat food. Let's just say that there is cat food continually strewn about our kitchen floor. Yes, he plays with it. No, I don't always clean it up. The end.
• Climbing the stairs. Oh, yes, and unfortunately he started doing this when neither Chris nor I were there with him. We discovered it by the "thunk" that followed. And I'm sad to say that I forgot that he had done it once, I failed to put the gate up, and he did it again. But I think he still loves me.
• Rolling under the gate at the top of the stairs. Granted, he didn't go all the way under, and it was quite by accident that he almost did anyways, but it still left my heart in the pit of my stomach for a few minutes. He's only done it once, so far.
• Pulling my cookbooks off the shelf. He thinks this is really fun, for some reason.
  
• Teething. After a miserable two weeks of little sleep for pretty much the whole household, he finally got two teeth to show for it. So far this is the one thing he does slowly.
• Emptying every box or basket of all of its contents. It's almost cartoonish, really, the rate at which toys and objects go flying when he's clearing them out. I don't know who or what he's trying to beat, but I'm sure he's the winner.
• Gagging. This isn't exactly an accomplishment, I realize, but it's certainly what he's been up to anytime he's given something solid to gnaw on. Cheerios, biter biscuits, zwieback toast--they all choke him up, so we decided to hold off for a little bit longer. He really just seems content to drink mom's milk and eat a little bit of baby food everyday. That will soon change, I'm sure, once he figures out the chewing thing.
• Smiling. Still a sweet, happy baby that's so much fun to have around.
• Cuddling. Everybody who holds him comments on how snuggly he is. Some people grab him just for the hugs.
• Growing. He hasn't grown into another clothing size yet, but he just looks like an older baby now. And it seemed to happen so suddenly, it took me by surprise. You can definitely tell he'll be a toddling one-year-old in a few more months, a fact that makes me very, very sad.
  

boys will be boys

I find it ironic that the day after I start reading James Dobson's Bringing Up Boys, this is the kind of day I experienced yesterday:

It began with Ben having a blow-out diaper, the likes of which I haven't seen since before he started solids two months ago. The mess went up his back and under his left armpit. Not exactly what I wanted to deal with at 6:45 in the morning. (And, yes, I realize this doesn't really have anything to do with him being a boy, but once you see how the rest of the day went, you'll understand.)

Then by 7:30 Sean had managed to drop his cup of applesauce on the carpet in the dining room while eating breakfast. Did you know that a cup of applesauce, when dropped on the floor at one end of a 6-foot table, can leave a splatter trail that goes the length of that entire table, all the way to underneath the chair at the other end? Seriously, Sean and I could have conducted a physics experiment on the trajectory of applesauce.

Throughout the morning Ben managed to 1) pull the vent out of the floor in the dining room and then stick his entire arm, all the way up to his shoulder, down the hole; 2) take out an outlet cover from an electrical outlet (a lot of good that one did); 3) crawl over to the landing at the top of the stairs, get on his belly and inch his way forward until he nosedived down the one step onto the landing, then continue scooting until he was all the way on the landing and could crawl around in circles to his heart's content (fortunately, I had actually remembered to put the gate up at the top of the stairs, so at least the landing was as far as he could go); 4) try to pull himself up onto the vacuum cleaner, but ended up knocking it over instead (I still don't know how he didn't whack himself with the thing); and 5) pull a box filled with packing peanuts off of the bench in the living room.

And Sean topped off the morning/early afternoon by refusing to swallow his last bite of lunch. So a 45-minute battle of the wills ensued, which delayed both his and Ben's naps by 30 minutes to an hour. Fortunately, both boys ended up napping well, the evening was much more mellow, and the day ended much sweeter than it began.

I may have boys, and I may (and do) love them dearly, but I'm not made to handle multiple days in a row like that. Here's hoping I never have to.

UPDATE: I forgot to add that this was the day that Ben also discovered the cat food. And when Sean saw that Ben had discovered the cat food, he quickly made his way over there to show Ben how to pick up pieces of cat food and drop it one by one into the water bowl. Fortunately, I caught them at it before there was too much food in the water, but this doesn't bode well for the tag-teaming they'll soon be doing, I'm sure.

ben: 8 months

I've been trying to take 8-month pictures of Ben the last few days, and out of all the ones I've managed to get, this one is probably my favorite. Perhaps because I was able to catch him in a rare moment of relative stillness and inactivity. Don't get me wrong, this picture is still an accurate portrayal of the little guy right now with his ability to be easily amused and enthralled with something as simple as a plastic lid, but believe me when I say the amusement is short lived. Two seconds before and after this shot he was diving across the wagon, straining over his seat belt and reaching for Sean's sippy cup. And that, I have to say, is a much more common depiction of our little Benjamin at 8 months old. So with that said, here's what he's accomplished in the last month:

• now officially crawling--I don't think Sean yet realizes exactly what this will mean to his playtime
• already mastered pulling up on the furniture and is starting to cruise--again, I don't think Sean yet realizes the impact this will have on his world
  
• still only has two bottom teeth, but the top two can't be far behind since the gums are white
• wearing 18 month clothes (a whole size in one month? I don't know if I'm going to be able to keep up with this kid! Mom, I think I understand now why Jeremy seemed to always have highwaters.)
• learned to push himself into a sitting position from laying down
• sleeping worse than he ever has because of all of his newfound mobility skills--he manages to sit up, pull up, roll over, whatever in his sleep, then wakes up crying like he can't figure out what in the world he's doing in that position
• also clingier than ever, again probably due to his newfound mobility (I've read that babies tend to become clingier right before they accomplish a milestone that makes them more independent...and little Ben is accomplishing about three at once, so he's really out of whack)
• still more interested in eating books than reading them
• loving more and more to play with toys (especially Sean's), but seems to have a special fascination with balls (this could be a very good thing for Sean)
• loves to cuddle while being held--everybody who holds him comments on how sweet it feels to have his little head snuggled against their shoulder
• will still go to anybody without a fuss, but definitely likes mommy best of all
• finds Sean highly amusing
• makes a goofy sound/movement combination which consists of 1) opening his mouth, 2) resting his chin on his chest, 3) raising his head up while saying "nnnn-DUH!" He can do this over and over again before moving on to something else. I have no idea what in the world he could possibly be thinking/doing/imitating, but it's entertaining to watch and hear.
• still just as sweet and loveable as ever
  

for daddy, while he's away

For Daddy's sake, a record of our week without him:

SATURDAY
- Sean went to sleep (without crying) without me having to lay down beside him; I was rocking Ben in the rocking chair in the same room.

SUNDAY
- Due to road construction and an accident on the bridge, it took an hour and a half to get from the restaurant in New Albany to Mamaw's house in Louisville. Not a big deal, ordinarily, except that Sean decided halfway there to have his first bout ever of constipation, so the last thirty minutes of the ride Elaine and I got to listen to him moaning and groaning and turning red in the face, all the while straining out, "Diaper change!" and "Big diaper!" and "Hurts!" I'm sorry, but how do you not laugh at that? Fortunately, within ten minutes of getting to the house and him walking around, he did, indeed, manage to fill his diaper quite well. And I have to admit, I could see how it might hurt. Ouch.
- Sean went to sleep (without crying) without me having to lay down beside him; I was, once again, rocking Ben in the rocking chair.
- Ben made his first "real" crawling motion by actually moving a knee forward before falling onto his belly.

MONDAY
- Made it all the way from Louisville to St. Louis with only one hour of crying fits from Ben. The rest of the trip was golden.
- Ben managed to pull himself up onto his feet quite easily using the coffee table (maybe I should have pushed him back down? I don't want him walking yet!).
- After being home for several minutes, Sean was in the middle of playing upstairs in the living room when all of a sudden he looked up and yelled out, "Daddy, where are you?" Just about broke my heart. He did it a few more times later in the evening.
- Ben was asleep and in bed by 7:15 and Sean was in bed and asleep by 7:45. Sean went to sleep (without crying) after only a few minutes of me laying down beside him and then having to get up to go take care of Ben.

TUESDAY
- My first morning of single-parenthood and I did, in fact, manage to take a shower. And I still had happy (and alive and well) children afterwards!
- We spent three and a half glorious hours at the park doing nothing but playing (Sean did), talking (I did) and eating (we all did) with Lori and Jonah. I had a blast, and if the color of the bathwater tonight was any indication, I can pretty safely say that Sean had a blast too. That kid was d-i-r-t-y.
- Ben had peas for the first time, and only a few funny faces accompanied it.
- Ben was asleep and in bed by 7:15. Sean once again went to sleep without me laying down right beside him; he just wanted me to leave the door open. Four nights in a row--looks like he might finally be losing that need. Sorry, Chris. I know that's something that you wish you could be around for, but I have to admit that it sure has made single parenting this week much easier.

WEDNESDAY
- Nothing like waking up to a chipper baby at 5:45 in the morning. And why am I still awake at this hour, come to think of it?
- I am now completely convinced that other than a few interesting facts about obscure South American animals, Sean can learn nothing of value from watching Diego. He certainly won't be learning any extraordinary adjectives. "Windy wind," "rocky rock path" and "muddy mud"? Somebody's got to be able to do better than that.
- Ben had two major accomplishments today: 1) he pulled up onto his feet again using the coffee table, and then he actually started cruising a little bit; and 2) he managed to do a "2-step" crawl on his knees before he went down to his belly. So I guess you can say he's crawling now!
- I think Sean has gotten cuter and sweeter this week. Almost every time I do something for him, he says, "Tane tu, Bobby." Almost every time I ask him to do something, he says, "OH-TAY, Bobby!" And almost every time we've been playing together and I've done something like hit a baseball, he claps his hands together and says, "Dud dob, Bobby!"
- The hardest part of the week so far happened tonight while I was fixing supper (any surprise? That's always the hardest part of the day.). Both boys were fussing and/or crying anyways, and in the middle of it I managed to trip over and step on Sean, and then he managed to burn his hand a little bit on a pot lid while I was holding him. He's never even tried to touch anything on the stove before, so I don't know what possessed him to do it then.
- Other than the above episode, the boys have been so good that I'm convinced that Chris has been praying *really hard* for me this week. And if that's the case, I am beyond grateful.
- Mark it down: FIVE nights in a row now for Sean laying down on his own. Amazing.

THURSDAY
- The theme for today was "fussy baby." Ben's not feeling well, apparently. He was a little feverish yesterday, but it wasn't any big deal. Today, he was hot, had a temp of about 100, wouldn't nap unless I was either holding him or laying down with him, wasn't interested in food (he gagged and threw up after one bite of peas--yuck) and wanted to be held pretty much all day long. I'm hoping it's teething and it will soon be over.
- When I was helping Sean say his prayer tonight, we were going through everybody that he was thankful for, and I mentioned Daddy. He got a sad little look on his face and turned to me and said mournfully, "Daddy yost." I had to assure him that, no, Daddy was not lost, he's just gone for a few days. The kid's going to break my heart before the week's over.
- I'm pretty much giving up on my plans for a super-clean house before Mom & Dad get here tomorrow. Between a clingy baby today and errands and volleyball tomorrow, I'm pretty much out of time to get the house completely in shape. I think they'll understand. But hey, I'm caught up on laundry. That's easy to do when you have one less adult in the house (not that I prefer it that way, honestly!).
- Night #6 for Sean. Chris, maybe you should've gone out of town for a few days a long time ago.

FRIDAY
- I was awakened at 2 or 2:30 by a hotbox posing as a baby. Ben's temp had spiked to over 100, but the little guy was happy as a lark and ready to play. I gave him Tylenol, stripped him down his diaper, and waited out his perkiness. It took a few hours, but he finally went to sleep, his fever broke, and he was doing better by morning. Not 100%, but better.
- I managed to get a few hours of one-on-one mother-son time with Sean. Margot came over and watched Ben while Sean and I ran some errands and went to lunch. It wasn't anything amazing, but I think Sean enjoyed having Mommy all to himself for a while, something he hasn't had at all the last few days with Ben not feeling well. I know I enjoyed it. We even made a lunch date out of it.
- All afternoon, Sean couldn't wait to go to volleyball tonight and play on the "baby playground." According to Lindsay, he ended up rolling in the sand, playing with the sand, rolling in the grass. Needless to say, the bathwater was once again quite disgusting.
- The highlight of volleyball for Sean, though, had to be when Marshall let him sit on his motorcycle...and then started it. Sean's eyes were as big as saucers and he was wearing his super serious "this is so much fun it's beyond cool" face. I think Marshall's his hero. We definitely at least know who to blame if he ends up buying a motorcycle later in life.
- And the highlight for mommy was coming home and seeing Mimi and Poppy in the driveway. The week's been pleasant, the boys have been fantastic, but I'm ready for an extra pair of arms to hold a baby and play with a toddler. Now just one more day and Daddy comes home.

P.S. I somehow failed to make mention of this when it happened earlier this week. Sean found a container of play-doh in the basket of toys in the kitchen and wanted to play with it one afternoon. So I get him set up at the table and he starts playing away while I go about my business in the kitchen. A little while later I walk over towards him and notice that he's been rolling the play-doh into little balls and throwing these little yellow pellets all over the floor. I think he would have rolled up that entire container of play-doh if I hadn't caught him. Goofy boy.

ben: 7 months

I'm having a hard time reconciling my feeling of time passing with what the calendar is telling me. It really is hard for me to believe that Ben is already into the second half of his first year. I'm constantly reminding myself to enjoy the moment, the here-and-now of the everyday, because I've learned in the last two years of parenting that those here-and-now moments change all too quickly. I may bemoan the fact that Ben won't nap for more than an hour most of the time right now, but I know that all I have to do is blink and those times will be behind me forever, and I'll be wishing them back again if only for a few more cuddles and kisses in the rocking chair. So here's what we've been noticing and loving and enjoying about our "lit'l, lit'l guy" (as his daddy likes to call him) in the last month. This is our Ben at 7 months:

• almost crawling (gets on hands and knees and rocks back and forth)
• gets around by rolling, reaching, scooting and squirming--the kid moves all the time!
• pulling up onto his knees using furniture and people for support
• two bottom teeth!
• almost always has his tongue sticking out (we're still not sure why)
• likes to make people laugh by shaking his head back and forth
• lunges from person to person to go "visiting"
• wearing 12 month clothes
• likes everybody, but loves his mommy
• finally likes riding in the car (This has actually been the case for a few months now, but I've been especially thankful for it this month, for some reason. We can now drive everywhere in peace!)
• now gets a "big boy" bath with no bath pad to lay or sit on
• likes playing with his brother
  

ben: 6 months

[I've had this written down on paper for over a month now, and I've been waiting to post it until I downloaded pictures from my camera. That hasn't happened, and I now have a post for Ben's 7th month that I want to put up, so I'll just have to add all the pictures later. It will happen. No need to put my blogging on hold for that, I guess.]

Here is our little Ben at 6 months:

• eating his first solids (bananas, rice cereal, and pears) and loved them
• sitting up straight as a board for 3 weeks now
• rolled from tummy to back for the first time while in his crib one morning
• already trying to crawl (leans way over and gets onto his knees before falling onto his belly)
• sputtering!
• lots of cute grins
• chubby, squeezable arms and legs
• weighs 21 lbs. 13 oz.
• 28 3/4 " tall (same length as Sean at 9 months!)
  

the better to eat you with

It appears that Ben's days of finger and face nibbling are coming to an end. Chris discovered in Bible study last night that Ben has two bottom teeth (which, I might add, he did not have yesterday morning). I was hoping he would hold out for a few more months. A baby with teeth always looks less like a baby to me, and Ben's progressing so quickly in every other area that I was hoping he would at least take his time in that one. But, alas, that's not meant to be!

I'm so thankful to have kids who are not just healthy, but that literally thrive developmentally. But sometimes Chris and I can't help but wish that they at least looked and acted like babies for a little bit longer. When I think that in less than six months Ben will be walking and eating exactly what we eat and maybe even talking, I can't help but wish that time would go in slow motion for a little bit. The baby stage goes way too fast.

sheer sweetness

Why I love being a parent (sincerely): I'm nursing Ben for his first middle-of-the-night feeding. Sean wakes up because his covers are off of him. I go in and cover him back up. I go back to rocking Ben. I sneeze. I hear a quiet, sleepy little voice from across the hallway say, "Bess you, Bobby." It doesn't get much better than that.

baby lovin'

Ben has this thing with faces. Male, female, smooth, rough--doesn't matter, he loves to touch them. And he really loves to gnaw on smooth-skinned chins and jawbones. Until he gets that first tooth, I'm taking in all the baby nibbles he can dish out.

poppy (& mimi) love

The boys and I took a (much needed) trip out to my mom and dad's a few weeks ago, and much fun was had by all. With adults outnumbering the kids for once, I actually got rest for three days straight; Ben slept better than he ever has at home (not that he's bad at home, he's just never gone for 8 hours here yet like he did there); and Sean played and walked his little heart out. And he hasn't forgotten the fun yet, either. Every night now since we've been back, when he prays and tells God what he's thankful for he always includes Mimi at least once and Poppy at least two or three times. I just wish they could be here to hear it themselves. So sweet.