Moment By Moment

Somehow a month has gone by.  It felt like a blur and I feel a little dizzy from the speed of its passing.  This adventure we are on kicked up speed a bit: my parents are moving into our condo, my sister and nephew moved in with us for a short time and...oh yeah, we have a wild and crazy 13 month old. 
No dull moments around here, no sir.  But we have plenty of sticky, messy, whiny, screechy, giggly, chattering, banging, bouncing moments, and I would love to share:

The biggest moment of late has been walking moments!  Ben started with a few one to two steps at a time between people or objects (though never to be repeated because they never do things twice when you want them to!).  Then just in the last few days he has stretched it to 4 or 5 steps, and tonight he got so excited about walking from the couch to me that he kept doing it over and over.....of course then in his excitement he just started getting silly and throwing himself around just to be crazy and, well, BOY.

We have had lots of screechy, whiny moments which usually are attached to training/discipline moments....funny how that happens.  Just in case there was the false conception that our son is perfect, I will tell you that we are working on not hitting mommy in the face when he doesn't get what he wants, not throwing the food over the side of the high chair when Daddy says "no", and not throwing royal meltdown fits when he can't play with something he wants.  Yes, our son is an average, normal, right on track little boy with a will and a temper to boot.  Those moments hit close to my heart when I step back and look at how he is acting and realize that I do the very same thing to my Father, and oh the grace He gives over and over and over again.  It gives me more energy to forgive and correct with love when I realize how I have been forgiven.

Giggly laughing moments fortunately punctuate the rough ones so that we are able to get through the day with some joy.  And boy oh boy does our boy have joy!  He loves to laugh and smile with his toothy grin that spreads all across his face and I swear makes his ears stick out even more! :)  He loves to play with us: peekaboo, chase, catch/throw with his ball, wrestling--only now HE initiates a lot of it.  One of my favorites is his version of what we do with him.  He will come up behind me when I am sitting on the ground and peek around my shoulder to "surprise" me, and then giggle and hide behind my back and walk around to the other side to do it again.  I of course act startled and say "Who is that?  Who can it be?" (with lots of drama added) and he just giggles and laughs at my reactions. 
He also talks....ALL THE TIME.  He will open a book and "read" it, in his own little language, to himself.  He will hold toys and talk to them, chatter away as he cruises around, jabber on as we walk around or when he is eating.  We think we have deduced that it is an Asian dialect of some remote village somewhere, though when John speaks fake Chinese to him he seems to be confused.  Hmmm, need to look for a translation book.

And we have lots of little cousin moments.  Today they apparently had a devious plan to derail our day and conspire together to not take naps or fall asleep like normal.  Hopefully their "teamwork" works more to our advantage soon. :)  Their mommas sure do have fun seeing them interact and "play" together, though.  What a joy it is to share their smiles and the fun of mothering together. 

Here is the last month or so, in pictures and video:

Ben loves to have us read him books.  It just happened, all of a sudden and now he LOVES it.  He will find a book, hold it out and say "Eh, eh, eh!" and then when you read it he grabs his little feet in front of him and smiles this toothy grin.

Jenny and I doing what we love most: meal planning and finding new recipes to try!  We have been working through a cookbook of homemade bread recipes and WOW are they good!  Our favorite so far is Apple Strudel Bread, and yes, if you live close you can come over and have some! :)

The Highchair Lineup - one time we actually caught them holding hands!

darling Wes!

Messy Ben!

Ben waking up from a nap--with his "feathers" as we call his wispy bedhead look

Yay, reading!  We ALL love books!

This is how Wes sleeps.  He starts out all wrapped up in his swaddleme and then always gets his hands free and sleeps in this position.  Absolutely adorable!

Ben playing with his friends at our play group

love the profile!

there's that toothy grin I love!

"What do you have?  Milk? Water?  Yeah, this is good stuff!"

 

I love my jumperoo!

Ben got this little Thomas the Train laptop game from his cousins and he was in love at first sight.  Just what he always loves: a computer with buttons!!

And now, for the videos....

 

Ben is quite the talker these days.  Here is a snippet of his conversation with...well, who knows.

Ben started out being quite nervous around Nala, Jenny's dog.  But now he is quite playful and gives Nala a run for her money!  

My favorite video: Ben playing with John-"scaring" him.  We do this with him and try to startle him and he loves it.  Well now he figured out he can do it with us.  So cute!