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!

I Love You Through and Through

So now all the party and guest hoopla is over and life is back to normal, which is never dull, nor calm in our house.  I have often heard it said that having boys is great because there is much less drama.  Well.....not the case in our house.  Ben has all the drama of a girl and all the energy of a boy.  What a combo.  He often has a meltdown over something that seems quite simple or tame to us and  sometimes he has the hardest time recovering from it.  Although, being tired and teething does contribute to the fussiness and quick irritability, but that's okay, he has only been teething for the last year.  Oh wait, he is a year old.  Well, at least teething is short-lived, right? :)

One of our favorite books is called "I Love You Through and Through" and it has been a good reminder to me, when Ben is falling apart because I said no to tossing crackers, cheese, fruit AND his sippy cup over the side of his high chair (I know, legalistic mom here), and when we hit Cranky Hour in the evening, that "I love your mad side....I love your silly side....your happy side and your sad side".  He is my precious little boy and I love him through and through.

So here is the rest of the story:

"I love your topside and your bottomside"...
Ben is loving to stand and bounce and jive and has even gone hands free a few times, though only for a few seconds before he drops soundly onto his rump.  That is why God gives babies plump behinds, I am sure of it.

"I love your inside and outside"...
The latest stats are in: 31 inches (85%), 23 lb. 14oz. (67%), and head circumference is 45.5" (25%)....so we are back to being tall with a small head. :)  He really looks proportional though, and I think the sparse blonde hair helps with that.  He is also wearing size 18mo. clothing for everything and will soon be on to bigger and longer things in the near future!

"I love your happy side, your sad side, your silly side, your mad side"....
 Ben is a ham and a class clown (without the class, and we might need to be praying even now for his teachers....Lord help them).  He continues to love laughter and loves to cause laughter.  The latest antics are: intentionally bonking his head on the wall, pretending to eat our toes when we are barefoot, "dancing" (which is really just bobbing up and down with a big goofy grin on his face....hey, some men never get better than that!), playing chase, laughing at burps and, well, other body noises (yes, he is a boy), and turning himself in circles while sitting on the floor.  The other night we were at some friends' house for dinner and he was obviously showing off (because he never does this for just us): his hands were covered in food (red sauce) and he kept slapping his hands all over his head and rubbing them in his hair and all over his face.  By the time he was done it looked like he was a red-head instead of blonde!  Oh brother.

"I love your giggles and cries"....
He is such a bundle of delight when he is in a good mood, and such a whiny mess when he is not.  The giggles really are incredible, and one of our favorite giggle producers is playing chase.  He will sit by a chair in our family room and give us "the eye" to come chase him.  Then he quickly crawls behind the chair and waits for us to get him.  When we crawl after him and catch him he shrieks with delight and giggles up a storm when we tickle and kiss on him.  It isn't just him that wants to repeat it over and over. :)  And as far as the cries....John thinks he is in training to be a professional soccer player, because he will meltdown with a big dramatic wail, red face, and instant crocodile tears.  We just look at each other and say "Good GRIEF!!"

"I love you running and walking"....
We aren't to walking yet, but he is a cruising machine.  Yesterday he took his little shopping cart and walked it (all by himself!) from one end of the family room to the other, then I turned him around and he kept going.  He did it a few times and had this adorable look of pride on his face.  Hmmm, maybe I should give him the vacuum next time and knock out some chores while we are at it!

"I love you silent and talking"...
Yeah, he doesn't have one of those.  Except for when he is sleeping, though even then we sometimes hear him murmuring in his sleep (soon-to-be sleep talker and walker thanks to his momma), and occasionally waking up screaming from what I am guessing is a bad dream.  Makes me so sad to think of him dealing with that, because what does he have in his life that is bad to dream about? :(
But talking, yes THAT he does.  He babbles all the time with this adorable little language of his own.  I am still trying to find the translation book because I would love to know what he is saying!


"I love (Ben) through and through...yesterday, today and tomorrow too."

This is Ben"s new trick-we call it "Roller Speed Crawling"..soon to be an Olympic sport, I am sure.

 

What are friends for, but to lick each other's furniture?

hanging out with friends from our Life Group

This is one of Ben's new favorite games.  He will stand at this drawer (which has all of his cups and bowls and bottles and stuff) and will pick up each sippy cup top and bottle top and taste it, then either hand me every item in the drawer as he methodically empties it, or just toss it all over the floor.

"Want some, Mom?"

5, 4, 3, 2.....ONE!

We have a one year old!  The countdown of the last year blew past us and all of a sudden we have a little boy, not a baby, in our home.  What a bundle of energy and noise he is, and what a delightfully exhausting job it is to be his parents! :)

The birthday bash was a huge success and though I told myself I would keep it simple and not do much since it was just the first birthday......yeah, I ended up doing a little...I had to, to make it fun and festive!  Would you expect anything less of me?


We started birthday celebration off right, with presents the day before and a special visit from Auntie Laurie (my best friend) and Ben's first set of Mega Blocks.

love the look of concentration....we may have an engineer in the making here

Ben was actually afraid of the balloons at first, but once he learned that you can throw them, whack them, bounce them, lick them, thwap them and chase them....well, they got REALLY fun!

Ben's best present of all was a visit from Gran (John's mom).  He filled up on snuggles and hugs and giggles and playtime with Gran and it was so special to have her there for the actual party.  She and Laurie and my mom helped tremendously to pull it all off and make it a wonderful celebration.

Birthday morning he got to open a few presents from Gran.  This was a little shopping cart with some plastic food.  His foodie mom was thrilled. :)

he's in training to take over the weekly grocery shopping

Look at those pearly whites!  He now has 8 teeth (two of which showed up and we didn't even know about them until they were in and announcing their presence!  A far cry from the work we all went through to get the first four!

A little decor for the party.  I actually had this sentimental moment while decorating after he had gone to bed.  I was remembering all the birthdays that I had as a little girl, waking up to a decorated house and presents and how special that felt.  And now I get to do that for Ben.  I was looking at the family room thinking of all the birthday celebrations it will see over the years as our family grows.  Ahh, a girl could get misty over all this, but not me of course. :)

AHHHHI LOVE PRESENTS!!

She's at it again!  Ok, I have secretly been wanting one of these awesome cupcake pans for YEARS, and then Linda bought me one for Ben's birthday!  Score!  A present for ME for Ben's birthday! 

As if the cake wasn't already amazing, I decided to add M&M's to it.  Seriously good.

My One Year Old tablescape...it's just so much fun!

I love my new kitchen--perfect for entertaining and buffet style get-togethers.  We enjoyed pulled pork sandwiches, a yummy jicama slaw, watermelon, tea, pasta salad and of course CAKE!

Ben loves to be the center of attention, so this part didn't phase him a bit.  In fact, before the cake time we had laid out a blanket in the center of the group and Ben kept trying to make sure the attention was still focused on him.  "I AM the birthday boy, after all!"

The first taste, and......

....his first reaction was a giggle.  I love my boy--that is how it should be--good food (especially sugary food) should just bring on a spontaneous giggle.

After about 3 bites of the cake and frosting Ben decided he was done and wanted his watermelon rind again.  Guess I shouldn't complain that he likes fruit more than dessert.  It won't last for long I am sure.

Ben loves to share now....his toys, and his food.  He will hand it to you and want you to take a bite or just eat the whole thing.  We are trying to encourage the whole sharing thing and saying "thank you" but are challenged a bit when the offering is soaked in a thick layer of slobber. 

This little face brought on the nickname "Mr. McTongueGrin"

Ben is so very talented at being messy!

Ben's most favorite present: a microwave.  He LOVES our microwave and lunges for it whenever he gets close to it.  He loves opening and closing the door, slapping the sides, pushing buttons and seeing the digital lights.  We found a play microwave that beeps and when you push start the turntable actually turns and the light goes on--very realistic and very adorable!

Jack and Ben playing nicely....for now. :)

All in all, a success!