Chin Kisses

Bathtime with Ben

Ben's First Concert

Okay, so maybe it's not actually his very first concert. Grandma Griffith and I took him to the halloween concert in the Woodlands last fall - but he was really little, and cried and slept through most of it. So I don't count that one.

Saturday, Benjamin and I went downtown to Jones Hall to watch Daddy play a family concert with the Houston Symphony!! It was so much fun - and Ben was such a trooper!! We left late, had trouble parking, so arrived just in time. Mark got us a great ticket in the right box. It was an hour long concert - aimed towards kids, and it was really neat to watch Ben taking it all in. He watched the orchestra play, part of the concert involved dancers in brightly colored costumes which really caught his eye, and there were two young boys climbing around on the seats around us, so that was highly entertaining for him too. He got a little fussy a few times, but with the help of a sippy cup of water, and standing up in the aisle to give him a little change of pace, we were able to watch the whole concert!!

He definitely has some of his parents' genes in music preferences - the more percussion, the better! He definitely preferred the strong, percussive movements over the more melodic/reflective ones.

After the concert, Mark, Ben and I went backstage to show Ben off to the musicians. They oh'd and ah'd over him despite his outrageously slobbery face and runny nose. We then walked to Nestle Toll House Cafe for lunch (surprisingly, the sandwiches were good, the cookies only okay). Even though he was way overdue for a nap, he happily ate some cheerios, a crust of bread, and quite enthusiastically tried to drink from my cup of ice water.

We definitely had a fun afternoon. I'm marking my calendar to attend the rest of the season's family concerts!

Ben in our concert seat (don't worry I pulled his socks back on before he lost them).






On stage with Daddy after the concert.

"Da Da"

We have a talker!! Benjamin's first word is "Da da." We could hear him starting to say it as he was in his crib falling asleep before his afternoon nap today (in fact, we had his door shut, and we were both standing next to it trying to listen as he was practicing) - and then tonight we went out for dinner (Mexican), and he really let loose with his "Da da's."

It was so cool, and we were just both so excited. It's funny, because you know all these milestones are a big deal to parents, but until it's your kid uttering his first word, I don't think you can grasp just how big a deal it was. I felt so moved, and so proud, and so excited that this is the beginning of his communication. It was also just so neat to see his mouth moving to form a new sound, and watch how his jaw and lips moved together to form the sound. So different from the throaty "guh's" and long held "Ahhh's"

And now that he can respond with a legible answer, there are so many conversations we can now have.

"Benjamin, who do you want to change all your poopy diapers?"

I was singing "There's a hole in my bucket" on our way home from dinner. For those of you who don't know it goes like this:
There's a hole in my bucket, dear Liza, dear Liza, there's a hole in my bucket, dear Liza, a hole.
Well fix it, dear Henry....
Well, how should I fix it, dear Liza...

And right on cue Benjamin chimed in "Da da." He's right. If there were a hole in my bucket, that's probably how I would fix it. Get Da da to do it.

That's our big news of the day! We couldn't be more excited!!

A busy month!

January has been a busy month for us. A really fun month (especially once we got through the sleep training!), and a busy one. This month I stuck to my resolution to not work more than 1/2 time (which is my agreement at work), and Mark had some time off, so we got to spend lots of time working on projects around the house. And Ben hit a few milestones!

As you'll remember through earlier blog updates, the year started off with some intensive sleep training. That was not fun. But, the month got increasingly more fun as we continued on.

We'll start this entry with Ben in his "B'Jolly" Christmas outfit. We actually didn't open this gift until Christmas, so we only got to wear it a few times - and didn't get a picture until mid-January - but isn't he cute?!

Check out the line of drool on this kid in the picture below! You can see the shine of the drool line all the way down his front. He's teething. The first to make its appearance is a lower left front tooth. It's tough to see because it's barely broken through, and he won't generally let me pull his lip down to look at it. But, you can feel it when he bites your finger, and I tried to give him some water/juice from a glass this afternoon (all the sippy cups were in the dishwasher), and I could hear it clink against the cup.

The foot of this outfit apparently is fun to chew.

The first weekend of January, Aunt Sarah (Ben's aunt, that is - my sister) came to visit! We spent a long weekend with her before she left on a cruise out of Galveston, and then saw her again for a few hours before her flight out the next weekend.

Here are some of my favorite Aunt Sarah/Benjamino pics:

So, did we treat aunt Sarah to a leisurely visit?! No way!! We put her to work! Over the course of three days, we turned our former breakfast nook into "Benjamin's Corner." The space is small to begin with, and then it was just way too cramped with the addition of a high chair, so it was time to make the move. To make this move, we took apart one of the Xylophones (we have two), to make space for Mark's desk, which we moved out of the office (our formal dining room) and into the studio. With only one desk remaining in this space, we were able to move our kitchen table and high chair into it. Still cramped, but not quite as bad - and it was a better space to be cramped, since it wasn't a main traffic way in and out of the house, to the kitchen, and to the washer dryer. The transformation was pretty cool!

Here we are ready to start work! Even though it was a small space, it was a rather laborious process. We had to prep the wood paneling for paint - which included cleaning it, deglossing it, priming it, and two coats of paint!

The before picture:

And after:

The canvas is a Christmas gift from Aunt Sarah & Grandparents:

Ben seems to like his new space. It has a good view to watch all the activities in the kitchen.

Soon our dining room began to feel rather cramped again. So we moved the furniture around in our living room to make space for our computer desk. Then we bought an actual dining room set (table, sideboard and china cabinet) from Ikea. Ikea's generally cheap to begin with, and we bought it during their blue moon sale (saved some money, but it was a VERY crowded, slow experience). It's not our usual style - a little modern, and in general, I don't think Ikea quality is that great. BUT, we got a lot of furniture for the money, which will allow us to stash our growing kitchen supplies (to keep up with Mark's culinary pursuits, as well as Benjamin's stuff). Eventually, Mark wants to build a dining room set - so hopefully this will last the 10 or so years until he does?! The main reason we bought the set was the table is designed fantastically. It's got a couple of leaves so that it can expand to set 8 people comfortably - and the legs are positioned so no one is straddling a table leg.

Before:

After:

THE ADVENTURES OF BEN

So Ben's pace of learning new tricks has increased a lot during this stage of his development. It's crazy to think that he'll soon be crawling, and that before long our baby will no longer be a baby - but a toddler! He is really SO much fun now!

Ben's eating much more solid foods now - but over the last week or so has decided he doesn't like baby food - finger foods are much more fun! Unfortunately, there's a limited variety of what he can eat that is finger foodable - and it requires more work to prepare.

As a result of these solids, he's also faced his first bout of constipation. Poor Ben. Fortunately, with the help of generous portions of baby prunes, we were able to get things running smoothly again:

This month, Ben also got to enjoy his first jog! We've been using the jogging stroller for a few months for walks, but this was his first time to pick up the pace! Notice his frog hat - made by his Aunt Tita.

Notice two very happy boys in this picture! Mark's happy because Ben's sleeping better. Ben's happy because his Daddy is letting him play with the cell phone - the best toy in the world!

Little Ben is getting close to crawling. When propped on his hands and knees, he can hold the pose for a few moments:

Before falling to his belly:

And finally, the newest milestone is that Benjamin pulls himself up!! He's only done it so far in the bassinet we use for a play pen - it has low walls which makes it easier. I haven't got a picture of him pulled up on his feet - he doesn't do it too often - but he does often pull himself up on his knees:

Here he is peering over the edge. We were playing hide and seek, where he would have to pull himself up to find me. Looks pretty pleased with himself!

And lastly, a picture from today. Let the messes begin! Benjamin was refusing his mid-morning nap, so I got him up to play. I put him in front of a broken keyboard on the floor (it has been dedicated as one of his toys). He managed to migrate himself around to the basket of toys on the floor and help himself. They were all neatly put away before he began flinging them. Notice the red box in the background - that includes one of the toys that was flung! It's awesome that he can entertain himself for longer periods of time now, but once he's moving, we're going to have some major messes to clean up!

So that's our month of January. Let's see what next month has in store!

Sleep Update

I want to give a brief update on sleeping, and then hope to post soon after about what else we've been up to...Besides sleep training, that is. :)

I wouldn't say sleep training is now a non-issue, but I would say that our life doesn't revolve around worrying or working on Benjamin's sleep. It was a really tough two weeks, and then things seemed to really start getting better. He's still not sleeping through the night - he gets up two-three times. But, he is now always in his bed (except for nursing, but we return in him to his bed before either he or I fall back asleep) - and that is a HUGE improvement! Mostly, because Mark was able to rejoin me - and I can also use as many blankets and pillows as I want! It's interesting, because he was going for a long first snooze when he first started sleeping alone - sleeping from 7 pm to 2 or 3 am. He's back to getting up every 3-4 hours, though. He'll usually get up around 11 PM, 3 AM and 5 AM. Fortunately, he'll go back to bed after the 5 am, and for me, he was sleeping until 6-6:30. This morning, I had to dial-in to a conference call at 7:30, and he slept for Mark until 7:40. We're not really going to do anything about this just now for a few reasons. One is that I'm trying to get away with not pumping when I go to work - which is about 4-5 hours per day. Ben's eating 2-3 meals of solids per day now, so I think he can get along that long without milk. But if I give up his night nursing sessions, I'm afraid I'll need to be better about giving him bottles when I'm gone. I hate pumping. I hate it. And, it seems since we're in the early stages of weaning, I'm not making much surplus milk. It seems like it's harder to pump a decent serving, although he seems to be getting as much as he wants. Secondly, after he nurses at night, Mark can usually put him back in his crib awake, and he'll settle himself back to sleep. Mark doesn't mind bringing him to me and returning him to his crib a few times during the night, and I just have to wake up enough to latch him on and let Mark know when he's finished. So, we'd both prefer this inconvenience to another bought of sleep training. It's so nice to just live right now!

So, that's it with the sleep training. After perusing many books on the issue - I've found that there is no perfect solution. We went through bouts of trying to pick him up/put him down lots so that it wouldn't be a "stressful" experience for him. And we both let him cry it out a few times - although I think the longest I let him go was 10 minutes - when we were just too thoroughly frustrated.

Through all this sleep training, I feel like I know Benjamin and his sleep needs/habits much better. I feel like I know his "window" better for when the right time to put him down. I can better differentiate between his settling-himself-down whining and his I'm getting frustrated and need help settling down. He's gotten to be a good-enough sleeper, that when he has serious problems betting to sleep, I can tell it's not just his normal I-don't-sleep issues, and that something else is going on (constipation, hunger, etc).

I feel like we're enjoying this phase of his life MUCH more, now that we routinely get about 3 hours of nap time out of him in a day (usually spread between three naps, two short and a 1.5 hour nap). It makes me a little sad that we didn't do this earlier, but there really is no way we could have. Mark and I were both too focused on work and stressed out to have gotten through those two intense weeks. And I don't think I could have done it alone - it was hard enough even when we were trading naptimes/bedtimes!

So, that's hopefully our last sleep update (meaning he'll be a good sleeper from now on)... I'll update next on some of the other things we've been doing, and Benjamin's new "tricks"!

Sweet dreams!!

Sleep Training Day 10 (We'll keep him)

If you've been reading my blog over the last couple of weeks, you'll understand what a beautiful sight this is. It appears our boy has finally figured out how to sleep, unassisted. His naps are getting progressively longer with increasingly little intervention needed. He's sleeping in his own crib at night (although, we do still have to get up several times to help him back to sleep and/or nurse him). We might just keep this child after all.