Playing at Dinnertime Tonight

Ben is very happy in this video.  Sorry for how loud I am!  Just ignore me.  :)

Year Two

Well, no more babies around here!  Just kidding, I still call them babies.  But technically, I believe that is incorrect.  For me, Ben's first birthday was great -- surprisingly little stress for me!  That day, we went to Baby Time at the library, got a sticker, and had everyone sing to us.  Ben hid his face in my shoulder.  We didn't really do a special dinner or anything since Ben will normally just eat what I make, but we did eat cupcakes -- which seemed to make the kids cranky, not crazy -- and presents.  Ben didn't need much since he always has all of his sister's toys to play with, but we did get him a new interactive book about animals, another They Might Be Giants album, and a big furry rocking dog named Patrick that we adopted from my friend Amy.

Then the next weekend, we used Ben's birthday as an occasion to have some of John's colleagues over.  It was a nice, low-key evening.  I think Ben was only slightly overwhelmed.  :)  He got to eat another cupcake, and the rest of us ate good food, chatted, and played cornhole.  The next morning, we went to a state park to have some professional photos taken.  That was CHAOS!  Ben was too psyched about being in a new environment to be still, and then he got anxious because I think he could tell that we were trying to control his behavior a lot.  BUT the photographer just posted our gallery and she actually managed to get some cute ones!  If you want to see them, go to bestshotphotos.net, click the "Clients" tab, and enter our password: jrlightle.  I think they'll be up for two weeks.  You'll see Ben's grandparents in some of the pictures, too; Ben had a great time playing and cuddling with them that weekend.  Here are some pictures, courtesy of Grammy Sue:

Ben's personality, as ever, is evolving quickly.  Here are some new quirks:

He only wants to eat things that he can eat himself.  Even if he normally likes a food, he'll get very upset if you don't let him hold it and put it in his own mouth.  We've had to start filling spoons, then putting them on his tray to pick up on his own.  Needless to say, it makes every mealtime a whole lot messier.  Here is a video of what happened when I just thought "screw it" and let him have at some yogurt:

He's kind of a little drama king recently!  If you try to tell him no, or if he's generally not getting what he wants, he throws a big, loud whining fit, collapses on the floor, and his face looks like you've seriously injured him.  It sounds annoying, but it's really hard not to laugh at least a little bit.  (I try not to do it out loud... I don't want to damage his psyche.)  It's always just so much drama about something pretty minor.  But I guess to a 12-month-old, small things aren't so small.

He's very sure about what he wants, and often what he wants is to go somewhere or grab something (and then put it in his mouth).  So he's a little hard to control these days.  I like to take him places where he can just GO and tire himself out, which he does pretty quickly.  One minute, there's nothing more important to him than getting where he's going, and then just 15 minutes or so later he's cuddled up in my arms because he's all worn out.  :)

He LOVES to be chased and tickled.  I think he's about a year ahead of Sophie in understanding what chasing even is.  Can't run yet, though, so it's super funny to see him walking as fast as he can, trying to get away.

He has a real need to conquer challenges.  When he finds something he can't do very well or that is a little scary, he does it over and over again until he's got it.  And he doesn't want help.  I love that about him.  Part of it is laziness because it can be exhausting to have to help your kid do every little thing, but mostly I'm just proud of him, and I love to see him learning that practice makes perfect!  Here is Ben on the wobbly bridge at the playground, which he crossed over and over until it wasn't hard anymore:

This past weekend we went to the pumpkin patch:

And the beach:

Next post will probably be after Halloween.  I think we may actually attempt trick-or-treating this year!

My Baby Boy Is Turning One

Ben was just born a couple of months ago.  Right?  It definitely has not been more than, like, 6 months...

It probably gets boring for you readers to see every post these days begin like that, but seriously!  I can still hear myself screaming in the bedroom while he was on his way out.  I'm really not sure how it's possible he's going to have a birthday this month.

And once again, I apologize for not keeping up with posting.  It's been alternately boring -- in that we've just stayed around the house most days to beat the heat -- and busy, since I've been working on various personal things in my free time, most recently my law school application materials.  I think I'm going next year!  That means I get one more year at home with my babies before they are off to spend their days at school.  I want to make it count.

So what's been new with Ben for the past month or so?  For starters, here is a good video of him walking, for those who haven't seen it yet:



He is a champion walker now.  And he skipped that whole phase where you have to walk around with them, hunched over and holding their hands.  He decided he wasn't going to wait for me to help him out.  We've ventured out on some walks around our neighborhood, but it can be difficult because Ben needs a lot of corralling to keep him out of the street, or wherever else he has decided he really wants to go that is not forward on the sidewalk with the rest of us.

 Ben's personality is in full bloom now.  He likes:

• BOOKS!  Just like his sister before him, he'll spend big chunks of time each day just paging through all of our kids books.  The more familiar he is with them, the more he likes them.  He especially likes the kind that are interactive somehow, such as peekaboo books.
• Taking off on his own two feet to explore new places.
• To run around in circles with Sophie to music, either from Pandora or just one of us playing the piano.
• The outdoors.  He understands the word "outside" and will often go to the door when I say it.
• His mama.  He still thinks of me as the one who fixes his thirst, his hunger, his hurts, and his frights.  Every now and then he likes to come over and give me a hug, just to make sure.  And he hugs with his whole body.
• Cereal, juice, yogurt, applesauce, bananas, Italian food (e.g. with tomato sauce or pesto), quesadillas, peanut butter and jelly, Chinese dumplings, potatoes, nuggets, shrimp, ground beef.  He'll eat more than what I've listed, but those are the things you can pretty much count on him to eat anytime you offer them.  And he'll try anything.
• Eating his food by himself.
• Playing peekaboo.
• Little dogs.  There is a dachshund in our neighborhood, and Ben went right up to him and pet him and laughed when the dog licked him in the face.
• Water.  Anytime, anywhere.
• Kitchen ware, especially relocating it to other parts of the house.
• His stuffed orca whale, who keeps him company in the car.
• Drumsticks.

He doesn't like:

• Loud voices.
• Teeth coming in: he has 13 now and counting, including all four of his first molars.
• Having a new diaper put on.
• Closed doors, especially with me on the other side.

He does A LOT of babbling -- enough that I actually feel like we've had conversations -- but no words yet.  He definitely understands a good amount of what we say, though.  Like I said, he knows the word "outside."  Also "banana," "books," "orca," "come here," and of course his own name (either Baby Ben or Mr. Ben).

He's finished with breastmilk.  Now it's just regular or soy milk, diluted juice, and water to drink.

Next update will probably be after his birthday festivities.  We'll be doing a family celebration, a party with John's colleagues, and a new photo session.

One more picture

I found this one and had to post it:

Walkin' Like A Man

We finally got back from our journey to Ohio last week, and we're full of updates and pictures.

Big news item: Ben is almost a walker!  We've seen him take upwards of ten steps on his own, and he practices more and more every day.  The only reason I say he's only "almost" a walker is that it's definitely not his primary mode of transportation yet.  But that will probably change over the next couple of weeks.  Here is a video of some steps, although it's not one of his more impressive attempts:

We had a great time in Ohio.  Ben spent most of his time charming everyone he met.  Here are some photos of him being adorable:

Our trip wasn't without its challenges.  For the first week, Ben seemed very fussy, and I later noticed that he had a tooth broken through in the back of his mouth.  The second week, while we were at the lake house, Ben got a pretty high fever that lasted for about 24 hours.  It turned into a cold that made him pretty congested and phlegmy for almost two weeks.  Then, on the night before we were going to head back to Florida, Ben swallowed a big chunk of watermelon that got caught somewhere it wasn't supposed to and started gagging up lots of mucus.  He could still breathe, but we decided we had to call 911.  A policeman and some paramedics came to the house and were about to take us to the hospital in the ambulance, when all of a sudden Ben threw up right outside the vehicle and at least one big chunk of watermelon came out.  He immediately looked and sounded better, and started smiling at everyone.  Fortunately, we didn't have to spend our last evening in Ohio in the hospital!  Here are some pics of Ben charming the paramedics after he was feeling better:

Other developments:

Ben is eating lots of big people food.  He likes just about everything, and wants a lot of it!  Right now, he asks for about a third of an adult's portion for dinner, if not more.  But we try to be careful after the ambulance incident, so I spend a lot of mealtime cutting things up into tiny pieces.

Ben takes one nap now, from 1pm to 4pm.  I think he's probably still a little young to have that schedule, but he's been doing really well with it and it makes it so much easier for me when the kids' naps can overlap.  I hope it keeps working.

For two out of the last three nights, Ben has slept 12 hours straight!  Hooray!

Ben loves to go to places where he can see other kids.  He's so social, but he doesn't get much love from his sister at home and sometimes a strange kid will actually engage with him when we're out, which he loves.  On the downside, he thinks it's ok to climb on everybody, so I'm constantly pulling him off of people.  When he's a real walker, I don't think that'll be as much of an issue.

Break's Over

My explanation for the month-long break, among other things that have fallen by the wayside around here lately, is that the kids are now on different nap schedules.  I put Ben down at noon, and he sleeps until about 2:30 or 3pm; then Sophie goes down.  At times I felt like I was using nap time for "me time" a lot, but I'm realizing that there was actually a lot I was getting done in terms of cleaning, blog updating, etc that's much harder to get done when there's a kid around, even if it's only one.  Anyway, there's my excuse.

The biggest change in Ben's life over the past month is that he has definitely entered the "I-love-Mommy" phase.  He really, really wants to be around me, crawl on me, pull my hair, chew on me, and have me hold him.  I seem to remember this is a 9-18 months thing... fortunately, he doesn't seem reticent to be around others, the way Sophie was; it's just that if he knows I'm there, he just seems to have to come over and try to make himself physically part of me!  Perhaps it's exacerbated or starting early because he's hungry all the time and associates me with food.  He LOVES adult food... can't get enough.  He'll eat Cheerios, but unlike Sophie, he gets tired of them.  Somehow he knows whether he's eating the same thing we are, so I've been trying to grind up at least our dinners in the food mill to get them to baby food consistency.  So he has gotten some interesting purees, such as mango curry with rice, wild rice with lamb and cherries, spaghetti and meatballs, fried rice, and chicken parmesan and pasta.  He has loved every one, and each time it seems like I haven't ground up enough for him.  He makes it VERY clear when he wants more food: he flaps his arms with locked elbows and bangs on his food tray.  Sometimes he also claps for more food.  And of course his face really says it all, too.  Since he has 8 fully-established teeth, there are also a lot of foods that I don't have to grind up as long as I can cut them into very small, chewable pieces.  Last night, he ate 1/4 of a hamburger patty.  And here he is on Fathers' Day eating some baked beans and cornbread with his dad:

At night, Ben has gotten very, very accustomed to his bedtime routine, which unfortunately involves me nursing him.  I'm not sure if there can be any substitute for that yet.  I'm not sure how much longer I can last though... with all those teeth, it can definitely be treacherous for me.  And I don't happen to have any sentimental feelings about nursing, so I'm pretty much counting the weeks until I can wean him.  Some good news is that, once again, we seem to be on a trend of fewer night wakings.  We haven't had any zeroes, but there has only been one during each of the past few nights.  That one may be at 11:15pm, or it may be at 6am.  So nothing regular yet.  I'm trying to be patient as long as I can!

Ben is a pro at crawling, but he definitely seems to have a preference for being upright.  If he can get somewhere by climbing up something and holding on to it while he takes steps, he chooses that.  It seems like he spends most of his waking time climbing whatever is available!  I wonder how long before he walks?  This is another milestone I'm anxious for him to meet... there are lots of activities that Sophie and I do -- like playing outside in the yard or going to the park -- that will be made much easier when Ben can walk.  As it is, I have to hold him the whole time so he doesn't eat things on the ground, and he's so heavy that I really can't hold him for very long.  He has about zero interest in being forced to just sit somewhere (unless perhaps there's food involved), so the bumbo seat and the like aren't getting too much use lately.

We had a great visit from Grandma Corinne and Papa Steve a few weeks ago.  The kids loved them.  Here is a cute picture of Ben with his grandma:

This week we'll leave to spend about a month in Ohio, so I probably won't do blog updates until we get back.  I hope to return with plenty of pictures, and hopefully some good news on at least the nighttime front!

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.