Benjamin is One!!

Benjamin officially turned one on January 22nd!  I can’t believe how quickly a year went by.  It has been amazing to watch him grow into a toddler with his own personality and opinions.  We went to the doctor yesterday and he was given a very clean bill of health.  He is 30” tall and weighs 20lbs 3oz – long and lanky as the doctor put.  She is estimating that he will be around 5’11”-6’ tall and thin.  We’ve never had a doctor give us a guess like that before so it will be interesting to see if she’s right.

As for likes and dislikes, Benjamin loves to eat and he’ll eat pretty much anything.  His favorites are pasta, pizza, bananas, pears, yogurt, grapes, and blueberries.  We really haven’t found any food that he dislikes.  He also does not have any signs of food allergies as of now.  He has eaten a small amount of eggs with no reaction, and while he was not supposed to have nuts yet, they are staple in our house.  And he is often quicker than us and so has found peanuts that were dropped by Julia and put them in his mouth.  But again, no reaction so hopefully he’ll be allergy-free.

He is still an incredibly happy boy.  He smiles at everyone and is very friendly and social, especially with women!  He is pretty laid-back but he is definitely developing opinions about what he wants.  He does a good job of getting his wants and needs across by pointing, grunting, squealing, and using a few words.  His vocabulary right now consists of mama, dada, baba (bottle or blanket), cup, grape, down, and again (as in “tickle me again!”). 

Sleeping is probably Benjamin’s weakest point.  He could use more of it!  He goes to bed around 6:30-7:00 and wakes up around 5.  But he is only taking 1 nap a day right now and by late afternoon he is done.  Being tired doesn’t stop him though, he goes and goes and goes, all day long. 

On the playing front, he is very exploratory and loves interacting with toys.  Anything that lights up or makes noise delights him.  He will also spend a long time looking and studying objects to try and figure out how they work.  He is persistent in trying to do things, usually keeping at a task until he’s accomplished what he’s set out to do.  He’s very perceptive and can (and will sometimes) follow one step directions like “bring me the block” or “put that in the trash.”  Tickling, peek-a-boo, and This Little Piggy are his favorite games.  He also loves hide-and-seek and there have been a couple of times that he has disappeared and had me running around trying to find him only to discover that he was hiding in our front hall closet!

Like Julia, Benj is super active.  He is a climber and always trying to get on top of things.  It’s obvious that he adores his big sister and wants to do everything that she does.  I’m sure it won’t be long before he is riding a trike and chasing her all around!

While the last year has definitely had it challenges as we adjusted to being a family of four, we feel so incredibly blessed to have been given Benjamin, our second miracle child!  His smile lights up our world and brightens every day.  We love you Benja-baby!

Steel Trap

We were driving to grocery store yesterday when Julia and I had this conversation:

Me: So to get to the grocery store, we have to go by the movie theater and dance class.

Julia: Is there anything good at the movie theater?

Me: No, not right now; there are lots of adult movies but no kid movies.

Julia: what about at Christmas time?

Me: maybe there will be at Christmas time.  Why? Do you want to go to the movies?

Julia: No… maybe at Christmas time.

(silence for a little bit)

Julia: Last time we went to the movies we saw a scary one.

Me: No, it wasn’t really scary it was the Muppet Movie.  I thought you liked it.

Julia: yeah.  But last time when we went to the movies I lost a pom-pom.

Me: Really? I don’t remember that. (Thinking to myself – how can you possibly remember that? it was a year and a half ago!)

Julia (in an indignant tone): You don’t remember??? 

Me: No

Julia: I lost a pom-pom.  It was a blue one.

Me: okay (thinking to myself – that’s specific, maybe she really does remember?)

Julia: Yes, we were with Gramma Les and Grandpa Rick and I lost a blue pom-pom.

Me: speechless

Lesson of the day for me: Julia does not forget anything.  And she obviously has every last pom-pom catalogued!

Heartbreaker

This picture makes me nervous for when he’s a teenager…

Sheer Joy

Julia received a plasma car for Christmas this year.  For those who don’t know, this is a ride-on car that is powered through steering and movement.  Julia has gotten the hang of it quickly and can speed around the house, taking sharp corners and even doing spin-outs when she wants to stop.  Of course, all Benj wants is to be able to ride it too.  He climbs on it when Julia isn’t around and can kind of get it going with his feet but he’s not quite tall enough and doesn’t have quite enough coordination.  So he’s mostly been hanging onto the back, running to keep up as he is “pulled” around by Julia. Until today.  Today, I had the brilliant idea to put Benj on it in front of Julia.  And the result was sheer joy…. at least on Benjamin’s part!

Did I hear some gobbling?

Andrew and I looked out the front window yesterday morning to this scene:

There was a parade of turkeys making their way from our backyard out into the neighborhood.  Andrew counted at least 45!

Maybe we can source our own Thanksgiving dinner next year!

I’m going to the zoo, zoo, zoo

We had some beautiful weather yesterday afternoon.  It was almost 60 degrees and mostly sunny.  After Benj’s nap and lunchtime we needed to make a quick trip to the grocery store and upon leaving, it was just too nice to just go home.  I considered a trip to the playground but everything was still soaking wet and muddy from the rain we’ve had the last few days.  Then I thought about the beach, but the idea of trying to keep Benjamin from swimming did not seem like fun to me!  Then I remembered our membership to the zoo.  Perfect.  And it was a great outing.  There was almost no one there, we got there right as they were out training the elephants, and quite a few animals were out in the sun enjoying the warmth. 

Julia’s favorite animals were the giraffes.  This is appropriate because there is a baby giraffe who we’ve been watching grow up over the past year and her name is also Julia.  I also noticed that Julia started asking more questions about the animals and their habitats and their eating habits.  She also shared with me that she loves bamboo.  She was very excited to see it and when I asked her why she liked it she said it was because she loves the leaves.

Benjamin had a great time watching the elephants.  I was holding him so he could see better and he was practically trying to throw himself out of my arms and into the exhibit.  We also had a great view of the snow leopard which we haven’t seen too much of in the past. 

I enjoyed doing something different and getting my afternoon walk somewhere other than our neighborhood!

New Shoes!

We had a big family outing this past weekend to… the shoe store!  Benjamin is now a true walker.  He resorts to crawling only when he falls down in the middle of the floor and has absolutely nothing to help balance him as he stands up.  So he needed a pair of shoes for walking around outside and in places where I was completely comfortable with just his soft-soled shoes. 

Julia also needed shoes because sometime in the past few weeks her feet have grown from a size 8 to a size 10!  Honestly, when I look at her new shoes I can’t believe they belong to my daughter; they just look so big. She can’t possibly be that grown-up already!

The trip to the show store was actually pretty uneventful.  There were a few entertaining moments when we tried Benj’s new shoes on.  He was almost high-stepping around the store as he got used to the new feeling.  It didn’t take him long to adjust though and by the time we made it to Macy’s a few minutes later he was comfortable enough in them to lead me on a high-speed chase through the housewares department.  At the same time, Julia didn’t want to leave my side and kept a close grasp on my hand.  So some bystanders got a few laughs as I tried to keep up with Benj, dragging Julia and trying not to trip over her as I repeatedly extracted Benjamin from encounters with non-toddler friendly objects, like blenders, coffee pots, and you know, fine china.  Somehow, even though I kept returning him to the bedding section, he was drawn like a magnet to appliances and dinnerware.  I’m definitely going to need a little time to adjust to this new phase and I think we’ll be sticking with our Ergo or to stores that have carriages with seatbelts for awhile.

Friday Fun

Just for a smile I thought I would share a video of Benjamin’s current contribution to our dinner time conversation.  He does make us all laugh!

Benjamin at dinner–11 months

Snow Bunnies

It’s a little warmer here this week, mid-40s or so and the snow is beginning to melt but we’ve had lots of fun over the past few days.  As promised here are a couple more pictures of our snow lovers.

Benjamin’s Decorations

For most of the Christmas season we have had a baby gate around our Christmas tree to protect it from Benjamin.  But on Christmas Eve the gate came down and as Benjamin actually wasn’t paying too much attention to the tree anymore it stayed down.  A few days ago Benjamin pushed his box of blocks over to it, got into the box, and then proceeded to decorate the tree.  The result:

Next year he’ll be a pro!

Brrrr….

New Years Day was a chilly one… there was snow on the ground, ice on the roads, and penguins on the beach!

Snow!!!

We received a few snowflakes on Christmas Eve – just enough to say that we had a white Christmas!  But then we had our first real snowstorm right before New Years.  We woke up to this view outside our window:

It wasn’t quite right for snowman making but it was great for sledding!  We have a little hill on the side of our house and it proved to be a perfect first sledding slope! 

It has stayed cold here so there’s been more fun in the last few days, especially after we made a trip to Benny’s to upgrade our sleds!  So more pictures to come!

Christmas!!

So I’ve finally had a few minutes to sit down at the computer and look at the pictures from Christmas and the last week or so.  We have not been doing all that much; Andrew has mostly been off work and we’ve just been hanging out enjoying family time, playing with new toys and getting out in the snow!  We had a great Christmas.  Julia got everything she asked for – Christmas pom-poms and a ball pump – plus a plasma car that Santa thought she would have fun with.  And she has!  She rides it around the house all day, a lot of the time with Benj chasing after her.

It’s actually a lot of fun and even grown-ups can ride it!  I tried it out and so did Andrew and Uncle Jeff when he came to visit over New Years.

Benjamin’s big gift from Santa was a little slide for him to climb on and he quickly figured out not only how much fun it was to slide on but also how conveniently it could be pushed around the room and then used to access things that were previously out of reach.  Within an hour or so of playing with it he had pushed it over to the train table and climbed up on top!

And here’s a video of him in action with the slide.

Other highlights of the day for Benjamin were receiving his ride-on dog from Grandpa Rick and Grandma Les (he was immediately in love with it),

using his hammer to pound balls into the toy that Uncle Jon and Aunt Shannon gave him (this toy wins for capturing the longest continuing attention span! and for hardest to capture on film because he was so excited and his arms never stopped moving!),

and being turned into a present himself by Grandma Laurie!

Another highlight of the day was for Andrew.  Julia received her first real Legos project – a Lightning McQueen car (from the movie Cars).  It was just a small kit as we’re trying to put off having piles of Legos a little while longer since Benj still loves to put anything and everything into his mouth.  But anyway, Andrew and Julia put it together almost immediately and it got Andrew very excited to think about all the Lego building they’ll be doing in the future!

For me the highlight was just enjoying the day with my family.  Seeing Julia get so excited about the holiday and about little things (literally!) like pom-poms, and having fun playing with everyone, aunts, cousins, grandparents… Seeing how much joy Benjamin’s smile brings to everyone and how he can make someone laugh with a single look…  Seeing Andrew feeling right at home among all the Rhode Islanders and feeling right at home myself.  Our new house is starting to gather memories and I’m looking forward to years and years more!