Life in Motion

Life is a riot of activity and sound right now, as our little 11 month old has become addicted to....MOTION!  He never seems to stop moving...crawling, pulling up, climbing over and on things, wiggling, reaching, exploring.  Yep, Mom is tired.  

Once Ben figured out how to organize his arms and legs and master the crawling thing, he has perfected his skill and is quite fast and purposeful in his movements.  He follows me around wherever I am-which sometimes causes him frustration, like when I am cooking in the kitchen and moving back and forth from cupboards to the sink to the stove.  As soon as he gets going in my direction, he has to start all over again because I have moved!  
With this new freedom, he has developed a little independence, and Mommy shouts Hallelujah!!!  I put him down to his delight now, instead of his dismay, and he explores and finds toys and will crawl from room to room sometimes independent of me to find new things to discover.  He still likes to be close and make sure I am nearby, and there is still PLENTY of snuggling, but I think we are both enjoying the new freedom. :)  Though with exploration comes a lot of "no" and "don't touch" as, alas, my son has a strong craving for cords, plugs and anything that reeks of electronics.  We have found some acceptable things to play with, his favorites being things that aren't designed to be toys....like the wall vent (makes great sounds when you run your hands up and down it)....measuring cups (makes great sounds when you bang them together)....a squirt bottle (makes great sounds when you squeeze it)....can you tell we enjoy things that make sounds?  But Ben still makes the best sounds: spitting, spluttering, whispers, his new gibberish language, and the best belly laugh you have ever heard.  One of my favorite times are when we play "chase" and he will crawl after me, chasing me around the island in our kitchen or the ottoman in our family room.  He squeals with delight when he realizes he is getting close to catching me and with pounding hands and knees he speeds up to gain on me.  

A couple days ago John and I stood there with our mouths hanging open as he climbed up our flight of stairs (with me close behind) all by himself!  We couldn't believe it!  He slowly but successfully scaled each step and had the biggest grin on his face once he reached the top. (Though the eruptions of praise and excitement from us probably had something to do with it too.)  I know it won't be long before he isn't on his hands and knees anymore on those stairs.  He loves to pull up on things, even difficult things like the glass door to our backyard, and will stand with often only one hand holding on.  Every once in awhile I see him take a few sideways steps while holding on, trying to "cruise" his way to a coveted object.  He will be an unstoppable force once he is walking and running!

I love watching the look of pleasure on his face when he realizes he can do something or learns something new.  He is definitely showing a bit of the engineer brain that his father has bestowed upon him.  Often I catch him holding an object and staring at it with intense concentration, his brow furrowed, his lips pursed or even tongue at the edge of his lips, turning the object over, examining it parts and trying to figure out how it works or what it does.  The other day I was using my immersion blender in one hand while holding him in the other (yes, I have learned how to do many tasks one-handed, and some even successfully!).  I saw him look at the plug in the socket, follow the cord to the tool, and then watch it whisk in the bowl.  You could almost see him thinking and puzzling over how the thing worked!  I wonder in the future how many of my things I will find "deconstructed" in the name of "trying to figure out how it works, Mom!"  Good thing I am married to a guy who knows how to fix stuff!

I think the only other thing that we do as much as move in our house, is sing.  Ben LOVES singing.  A grumpy whiny mood turns to smiles with a few lines of "This little light of mine...." or "Rise and shine and give God the glory, glory....".  I have used this singing as a strategic tool as of late.  Ben has sported a little bit of picky-ness in his eating habits and sometimes doesn't want to finish his bowl of sweet potatoes or beans or whatever I have mushed up for him.  So I discovered that if I sing to him, something magical happens and he will eat whatever I put on a spoon.  Peas, lentils, spinach....doesn't matter how much he hated it before or how many times he screwed up his mouth and buried it in the side of his high chair, if I break into song, he happily opens his mouth with a smile.  You know, life may be uncertain, we don't know what will happen with our government, the Middle East or even tomorrow, but I know with 100% certainty, that singing will make my son eat anything!  Some may call this manipulation, but I say--whatever works, do it!  
Overall, Ben has decided that the mush in his little bowls or the bits on his tray are no longer worthy of his palate, and now he wants whatever is on our plates.  He can be happily mashing handfuls of things into his mouth and then as soon as we fill our plates with something, he begins the "eh-eh-eh-eh" routine with wiggling hands and feet (the "I want" sign, a la Ben) and is completely done with whatever is in front of him.  This happened the other night.  He had yogurt and watermelon, two of his most favorite foods, but we started eating a new Indian dish I had tried and he wanted no more of his food.  So, I let him have a bite.  Did I mention that it was Indian food?  Garlic, onions, ginger, turmeric, garam masala, curry--very intense flavors.  He LOVED it and that's all he wanted for the rest of his dinner.  We just shake our heads and laugh sometimes....a lot of times. :)

Father's Day with Daddy and Grandpa (Ben's shirt says "I dig my Dad", with a bulldozer on it)

Something about camo dino jammies hugging a squidgy little body....can't get enough of it!! :)

We put this little outfit on him, with high-top Converse tennies and he looked so big and grown-up!

Ben was introduced to dirt the other day.  It was love at first sight, a relationship that I am sure will continue long into the future.

He was trying to help me weed.....might need to work on distinguishing which ones actually need pulling.

In this video Ben had just snorted when he laughed, which of course made John and I crack up.  So then we would pinch his nose and he would snort again, giving us all a case of the giggles.

And here is our crawling boy, scaling the mountain of stairs....

Ben has a little friend named Jack who is the son of some friends of ours in our small group at church.  The other night they were playing together and the adults were having so much fun (probably too much at their expense!) watching them interact.  Ben is going to need to learn how to defend himself, especially if he hopes to survive siblings in the future!

This is a new thing Ben started that we call head banging.  Not sure what he is really doing but it is cute!

Sunny Days

We may not have many sunny days in Seattle, especially this last spring which has felt more like October, but most of our days are pretty sunny just because Ben is our little sunshine.  He just keeps getting more and more fun as he grows, with his giggles and laughs, the games he plays with us, and all the snuggles.  Pretty hard to be down and dreary when you have a sweet little blond head snuggling against you!

Ben is now 10 months old and seems to learn new things every day.  He is finally catching up in his gross motor skills and is officially a crawler!!  Hip Hip Hooray!  He isn't fast enough yet that I am diving to stop him from getting to things, but he is definitely mobile.  He started with rocking back and forth on his hands and knees, then did a little army crawling (which actually looks more like a grounded swimmer doing the butterfly stroke) and now does a cautious but purposeful honest to goodness crawl!  He continually amazes us with other movements he can do also.  He can now move from his back to sitting up, in one motion (I think he has better ab muscles than I do!), from sitting to crawling, and is trying to pull himself up on things (mommy's leg, ottomans, mommy's knee, furniture, mommy's arm.....or anyone else's lap he wants to be on).  Now that he crawls and moves around so much easier, he has more independent play time....though he still loves to be around people and playing with people the most.  

Along with his favorite "blowing raspberries", Ben now likes to clap!  He just figured this out yesterday and will clap with open hands, instead of just hitting his fists together!  He continues to love to "sing" and makes noises all the time, whether "talking" to himself or us, or just seeing what kind of noises he can come up with on the fly.  

Snuggling has always been something that Ben enjoys, but usually for brief moments, and on his time table.  Recently snuggling has become a regular activity, especially before or after naps, with long stretches of him lying against my chest, or snuggling into my neck or against my shoulder.  Sometimes he will just lie there, with eyes open, looking around but perfectly content, and then he will lift up his head to catch my eye, and give me a big grin as if he were saying "isn't this just the best?!" and then lay his head back down for another round.  Yes, Ben, this is the best. :)

We have dubbed this box "Ben's office" because he loves to sit in it while I am cooking and drop things over the side, then put them back in, play with the things in the box and talk to me.  It is the box that I get my organic produce in every couple of weeks, and this week I got something quite large and organic in it! :)

Ben still loves his baby carrots, but has challenged himself of late to hold it with no hands.  Kind of makes it look like he is smoking a cigar.

My boy loves his fruit.  Whether it is apples, watermelon, lemons (yes, lemons) or oranges, he loves to suck, gnaw, chew on them until they surrender to a mushy pulp.  He just gets so much joy from food....wonder where he got that from....

Last night we decided to have a picnic dinner on the family room floor.  Ben got the treat of getting to wear and eat his food.  Watermelon was one of the main courses, and he (and the mat and Mommy) were covered in it, but he sure had some fun!

little bites of watermelon lined up on his legs....who says you can't play with your food?

Ben and I have been a part of this program called Roots of Empathy this year.  Once a month Ben and I go to a kindergarten classroom and participate with a teacher and her kids to teach lessons about how babies grow and develop, emotions, how to take care of babies, family issues, etc.  The program brings up some great conversation with the kids and they just love seeing "their Baby Ben" every week and what new things he is doing.  These pictures and video are of our last and final visit when he crawled for the kids for the first time. 

Here are some crawling videos....the first is his very first time to do a full on real crawl. I was videoing, hoping to catch an army crawl and he busts out with the real thing!

Ben tends to get frustrated when things are difficult, so this video shows a little of the dramatic side in our son.....

This last video shows the progress he has made in just the last week of practicing his crawling.  He has so much more purpose and desire to try...of course Mommy's phone is good motivation!

 And finally, my favorite thing in the world: watching my wonderful husband play with our son and hearing Ben's precious giggles!