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!