On the Move!

Ben is crawling, and of course he loves it... so I love it, too!  He likes to just explore the house, seeing what he finds, and chewing on whatever that may be.  My new nickname for him is "The Clean-Up Crew" since you can count on him to "clean up" all the Cheerios he dropped on the ground while he was eating them in his chair.  (I don't seem to be the kind of mom who is horrified when my kids eat things off the ground... for better or worse!)  Here is a video of Mr. Ben crawling a little bit:



Ben is still extremely good-natured.  It's just so easy to get him to smile!  Someday he won't be this way, so I'm just trying to revel in the pure baby love while I can.  I think now that he can crawl, he's learning that it's ok to be by yourself sometimes, but of course he still strongly prefers to be where the people are.  I looked back at some things I wrote from when Sophie was this age, and I noted that it seemed like she was eating ALL DAY.  It's the same with Ben.  He nurses about every 4 hours (including at night still, boo!), eats Cheerios throughout the day, drinks water a couple of times per day, and also eats 3 meals of fruits and vegetables.  What a life!  But he works hard, too.  In addition to crawling around during most of his waking life, he has been practicing pulling himself up, and unsurprisingly he's getting very good at that very quickly.  He is SUPER strong!

Other firsts: Ben now eats regular bananas, not mushed ones.  He has 8 teeth, so no problem.  We just have to watch out, because he likes to grab your hand holding the banana and pull it hard toward his mouth to take a giant bite!  Like I said... SUPER strong.  Also, all four of us went to church last Sunday and Ben ended up in the nursery after he was too excited to stay with us during the service (he was a sight to see during the hymns... singing and clapping with all the energy he could muster).  Sophie was there, too.  It was strange to leave either one of our kids in that kind of situation, let alone both of them.  But when we came back after the service, Ben was having a great time, just sitting on the floor with some other kids playing with Legos.

This morning we went to the beach.  It was just me with both kids, but I still managed to get some pictures:

Years from now, I hope I can still remember what has become the quintessential Ben as an infant: facing outward in his parents' arms, grinning from ear to ear, with arms and legs both flapping a mile a minute out of sheer excitement.