And just like that... (2nd edition)

Ben decided to assert his independence on Independence Day by climbing out of his crib on Wednesday night. Not once...multiple times. Then on Thursday morning, I heard him calling for me and a moment later, I heard his door handle jiggle. Thursday's nap was also a battle to keep him in his crib. So...

We took the side rail off and now he's sleeping in his crib-converted-to-toddler/daybed. He's doing okay so far. He definitely likes to experiment with getting in and out before he goes to bed, but generally we can't complain.

I busted out our "baby crack machine" last night. I turned it on and the music playing over and over and over and over and over and over and over.... lulled him to sleep. Same with nap time today.

So I guess that's it.

No more breast feeding, no more crib. The next thing...no more diapers! Wouldn't that be grand?

Ben: 17 months

A long awaited Ben update!!!
Benny is 17 months old now. Already! He's saying a bunch of words like:
ball (bah)
toys (/t/)
car (gah)
bubbles (buhbuh)
light (ight)
bowl (bo)
deer (dee)
on
up
please (signs it)
eat/drink (signs it by pointing to his cheek)
ick (/ccckkk/)
done (signs it by waving his hand)
hi
hello
bye bye
dada
mama

He's constantly in the fridge looking for snacks. He takes after his brother in that aspect.

Ben is Colin's little buddy. They get along pretty well. Of course there's a squabble here and there, but for the most part they play very well together. Oh...except for when Ben doesn't get his way and bites Colin. Yep, Ben is a biter if he's having a bad day.

He has proven to be a water baby. He loves taking a bath and lying on his belly in the tub, getting bubbles all over himself and kicking and rolling around. I'm excited to take him swimming this summer to see how he likes the water this year. Last year he was pretty chill in his floating chair. I'm sure this summer will be much different!

Ben's sleeping through the night pretty well now that his 2 month long ear infection is over. It's such a nice change. He's a great (but flexible) sleeper. I can lay him down in his bed at nap time and after he fusses for about 15 seconds, he'll go right to sleep. He still nurses at night for about 10 minutes and then he gets a book and takes it to Kevin and they rock and read.

He gets a lot of compliments when we're out and about how cute he is. Must be his little man walk or his squishy cheeks and belly or his little smile. I'm not sure what it is, but we'll take it!

He got a haircut this month. No more mop top. I loved his curls but his hair was getting a little out of control so I cut it.

This month was also punctuated with the fact that he almost impaled his eyeball with a low-sitting branch on a bush. It's so scary to think it could have been much, much worse.

He still hasn't gained much weight. He's still 32 lbs and some change. He's gotten a bit taller and his belly doesn't hang over his pants anymore. He's toning up with all of the moving he does :) He does like to be chased, with his hands behind his back protecting his sides from being tickled.

Ben LOVES art. He loves to color and loves to play with Play-Doh.

I love (most) ages we've gone through, but Ben's age is so fun because he's so busy, he's learning words, and learning how to be more independent. We shall see what this month brings. It'll be fun, I'm sure!

Ben: 14 months

Happy monthday Benny!

Ben is getting to be more like a little boy now. His personality shines through more and more every day. Here's what he's up to these days:

Words:
Ben can sign: "more" and "milk," and we've caught glimpses of "all done." Actually, the "milk" and "more" signs he uses universally when he wants something. We're working on "help" now.

Ben can say: "Mama," "Hiiiii," often says "baba" (brother?) when talking about Colin, "da" (there/this/that), and "uh oh." He mimics a few other sounds like for "woof"...he says "f" and for "buzz" he says "sss."

Other smart tricks:
Sometimes when I ask him where his belly is, he lifts his shirt up. When I ask him where his nose is, he puts his hand to his nose and blows (sometimes when he does this, he blows snot all over his hand and then wipes it all over his face, which is disgusting). When I ask him where his hands are, he claps them.

Favorite things:
His blankie that Auntie Stephie made him
Opening the refrigerator and taking something out of the door (usually salad dressing).
Playing/lying on Colin's bed
Reading books (Ten Little Ladybugs is a favorite)
Playing outside, even though he falls down quite frequently in his winter gear.
Playing with cleaning objects--brooms, vacuums, mops, shovels. Adult-sized, please. No small versions allowed.
Food! Anything, really. He ate 2 clementines yesterday. He still likes meat a lot, but he also likes veggies and fruit. He wants to eat fresh pears, apples, and carrots so badly but they're usually too hard for him so he gets upset when I tell him he can't have them.
Being chased around the basement with the corn popper toy
Climbing on top of things
Tackling other people
Coloring
Dumping multiple puzzles all over the floor at a time (ugh)
Throwing balls

Things I love:
When we're cleaning up toys, Ben helps too! He'll even put his clothes down the laundry chute.

When it's his bedtime, I tell him to give Daddy and big brother hugs, and he gives them the sweetest, most genuine hugs.

When I pick him up from daycare, he runs to me, arms open, says "Hiiiii" with the biggest smile, wraps his arms around my legs and squeezes them with his hands a couple of times.

Other hapbenings:
Ben still nurses, but it's usually only before/after nap/bedtime. He goes down for a nap without me or a bottle just fine, though. In fact, he hasn't had a bottle since before Christmas. I packed them away. I'm done pumping at work, too. So now I'm just taking his cues on when he wants to be done with nursing. I have a feeling he'll drop the "wake up" morning nursing session soon, because he's okay not nursing when he wakes up from his nap.

He has 8 teeth and he's working on his molars. His gums are so swollen, and you can see a white bump under his gums in at least 2 places where future molars will be. Poor guy. Hopefully they'll poke through soon.

He's usually tired at about 7:15, so he nurses and goes to sleep. Right now he's waking up once a night for a quick application of orajel. Sometimes he wakes up a little later and I nurse him for a few minutes (because I feel bad about his poor teeth) and he goes back to sleep. We wake him up for the day at 6:30. On weekends he sleeps until 7:00.

Ben can climb up and down stairs too!

Kevin asked me today when Colin started talking. I told him that 18 months is usually the month that words start coming from every direction. It's unbelievable that we're only 4 months away from that!

Oh Benny, how I love watching you become a little boy every day.

About sleep and other topics

I'm home all by myself in peace and quiet today. I've been fighting allergies and/or a cold (not sure which) for going on 3 weeks now. I should have taken a day off a long time ago, but here I am. I feel better today than I did all last week. Better late than never. I've got comfy clothes on, a Caribou Hot Apple Blast by my side, TV, and a few projects I'd like to get started on. And a nap. There will be napping.

If the boys weren't such early birds I could get more sleep! Ben nurses at about 7:20 and is passed out and in bed by 7:45 every night. He wakes up, pretty reliably, at 5:00 on the dot every morning. He's finally sleeping through the night. I decided once he turned 10 months that I needed to be done nursing him in the middle of the night when he woke up. I loved that quiet time with him in the dark, but it was more for selfish reasons that I allowed it. A good sleeping habit is more important than midnight nursing (good Lord, have we learned that!). We had about a week of really rough nights. We timed it pretty poorly and sleep training ended up coinciding with teething. After a few nights of Ibuprofen and after his teeth cut through, something clicked and he's been sleeping much better since. Sometimes after I nurse him when he wakes up in the morning he falls back asleep and lets me snuggle him up.

Now if we could pass that sleep through the night dust to Colin that would be great. I don't think he'll ever sleep all night consistently. He has blanket issues. He's pretty helpless in the middle of the night and needs help covering himself up at some point almost every night. And now he's switched his preference in HOW to cover him up. He use to want to be snug as a bug in a rug, but now he wants it "smooth like the bike path." ::sigh:: 3 year olds. As soon as he hears that someone in the house is awake, he's awake too. He doesn't want to miss anything.

*************
Not about sleep...

I worked on Colin's Halloween costume yesterday and finished it. He's going on a "field trip" to the child development class at the high school, and they were supposed to wear their costume so I had to rush and finish it. I haven't seen him wear it yet, so I hope it's cute. I can't tell you what it is yet. Ben's going to be adorable too.

We have officially paid off our first credit card and now our snowball is rolling and growing very quickly! Our second credit card should be paid off in December! This feels SO good. I also just enrolled two new kids for piano lessons and there are quite a few more interested. The money from all of these new students is going straight to the credit cards.

I have an iPhone now. Kevin gave me his hand-me-down. That is part of the reason for the lack of pictures and the lack of updates. It will be nice to have it for piano lessons--scheduling, recording, etc.

10 months old on 10/10!

Happy Golden Monthday, Ben!

(picture up soon)

Benny is a busy boy! He's learning things left and right, which is so fun to witness, even the second time around.

Ben can sign "more" while he's eating (and "more" and "more" and "more".....). He might also be signing milk. The sign for it is squeezing your hand like you're milking a cow. When I say milk and if he wants some, he waves his hand up and down. He eats pretty much everything except peanut butter. Sandy gave him strawberries this week, which I secretly raised an eyebrow to, but he didn't seem to have a reaction towards them. We're loving the Baby Lead Weaning Method, and so does he. He loves to feed himself, and goes to town on things like chicken, hamburger, broccoli, sweet potato fries, green beans, waffles/pancakes, scrambled eggs, etc. etc. etc. He even likes green peppers!

His repetitive babble is becoming more meaningful. I swear he said "ni ni da da" (night night Dadda) the other night. He also says "dadadada," "mamamama" and "non non non," which may mean either milk or night time because I feel like he only says it when we're sitting in the chair getting ready to rock and nurse.

Ben has mastered cruising around furniture. How he's walking either on his knees or feet pushing objects or toys around. He can even stand on his own for a few seconds. I'd love it if he'd hold off on the walking for another month :)

His first top tooth cut through today. He's been doing okay with teething, even though his gums are so swollen and sore looking. His teething necklace seems to do a pretty good job of keeping him in a good mood. Aside from being a little more clingy at times, he's tolerating it well.

We're working on getting Ben to sleep through the night. I haven't nursed him in the middle of the night for a week now. Oh, except for last night when he had already been awake for an hour and a half and his teeth were bothering him, he had already been re-medicated with ibuprofen and got a swipe of Orajel. What he really needed was good old fashioned Mama comfort. It was poor timing to do start the crying-it-out right now, but we didn't know his teeth were on the move when we started. Hopefully when they're through he'll start sleeping all night long.

I better start thinking about his 1st birthday! Holy smokes, I can't believe it's just around the corner.

Please keep him safe

Ben knows how to roll onto his belly, which is all great fun until it's night time and we find him on his belly, his face either lying on top of his hands or smooshed into the mattress.

The only thing we can do is check on him and turn him over if need be before going to bed ourselves. And then there's a little prayer said before dozing off.

Soon there will come a time when he can roll back over onto his back. Until then, I can only trust that God will keep him safe.

Life Lately

I'm utterly exhausted.

We had Ben's baptism last weekend. It was good. I need to post pictures of it, but by the time I'm sitting on the couch, I have a baby on my lap along with my laptop. Like right now Ben's sleeping and my arms are reaching over him to type.

Work has been crazy. The kids are absolutely off the wall. Spring sprung early this year, so the unruly behaviors we usually see in May have already started in March and we still have more than 2 months to go. Ugh. Add to that high school drama with co-workers who whine and don't put on their big girl panties and do their job (that's all I'll say about that!), and it makes for some stress.

Colin has been sick the last few days and might have Whooping Cough. He's up to date on his vaccines, but one of the girls at daycare was just diagnosed with it. She went to the doctor on Tuesday and JUST got diagnosed with it today, four days later. She's been at daycare all along. And then Colin decides to put his mouth on the toys that the little baby also puts in her mouth, and germs are spread. I took Colin in for a Whooping Cough test to see if he has it, and got antibiotics as a precautionary. We won't know if it's positive until Tuesday. Last night, I "medicated" him all I could. I gave him honey cough syrup, wrestled him down and shot saline up his nose, rubbed Vicks BabyRub on his feet and chest, and plugged a Vicks vapor plug-in thing into the outlet in his room. He slept a lot better last night than he did the night before, so we'll do the same thing again tonight and hope it works. Now I can only hope that Ben doesn't get it. He has gotten one DTaP vaccination and is 100% breastfed, so I'm hoping that helps. It's hard to keep Colin away from him though.

Ben has slept through the night 3 nights in a row. I probably just jinxed it by writing it, but that's okay. I nurse him around 8:30 or so, and after he has a full belly, Kevin walks around with him and he dozes off and sleeps until we have to wake him up at 6:30. It's heavenly!

I'm going to win a half billion dollars later tonight, so if you don't hear from me for awhile, just assume I'm getting all my financial ducks in a row. I'll be back. Don't worry :)