Tooth Watch 2008

Ben's second tooth made its appearance this past weekend, with minimal fuss. 18 to go!

On Our Own

Ben and I are on our own this week, as we have been for nearly every week since the end of March. Harold has been working on a huge project outside of Wilmington that is finally nearing completion. It's been exhausting for both of us. As hard as it's been managing everything at home I think it's been even harder for Harold to be away from us on top of working long, grueling days. (Okay, maybe not harder, but definitely just as hard for him as it has been for me.)

Getting Ben and myself out the door each morning without any help was a huge challenge at first, but now we can usually manage it without any major issues. The evenings were also hard, but now that we have a pretty good routine in place they are over before I know it. We start with play time, followed by dinner at 6:45ish, and then we take a walk around the neighborhood. Bathtime comes next (although I confess that I am lazy and I don't always have the heart to give him a bath everyday even though it is a relatively easy experience since he enjoys it), followed by a book, a bottle, and then bedtime. Fortunately Ben usually falls asleep around 8:15 without too much fuss, so that gives me a couple of hours to do what needs doing and then a tiny bit of time to do as I please.

In a way it was probably good for me to have to manage all this on my own sooner rather than later. And it's good to know that I can manage it all on my own when I have to. But I certainly am glad that I don't have to do it all on my own all the time.

All the News Fit to Eat

Ben has developed a voracious appetite for news magazines.

He takes this job very seriously, ripping pages out with extreme precision and focus.

He occasionally pauses and attempts to eat the aforementioned pages, but so far I've managed to prevent their actual consumption.

He can only relax when he feels that he's completed the full scope of the job at hand.

Atlanta Recap

We survived our Atlanta trip. I kept my anxiety in check by calling to check in every 3-4 hours (what I considered to be a pretty reasonable timeframe). My Mom didn't even have to unplug the phone. We had a great time, even though I didn't quite make it to all my old hang outs. But I did sleep soundly, and I am already fondly recalling what it was like to sleep for those 9 uninterrupted hours each night.

I don't think Ben missed us at all. He was entertained at all hours of the day (and night as it turned out) by his Nana, Papa, Aunt Teresa, Sydney, Megan, and various other extended family members. He especially seemed to enjoy hanging out with Papa, as Papa took Ben on his first tractor ride.

Apparently Ben had a little trouble sleeping, as he would wake up in the middle of the night and freak out because he didn't know where he was (I guess he freaks out in the middle of the night at home because he does know where he is). So Teresa and the girls hung out with him from 2-3am each night until he went back to sleep.

The other reason he may have had trouble sleeping is that his first tooth arrived on the scene over the weekend. I think he may be in the process of sprouting another one, as he continues to drool voluminously and he is a little fussier and clingier than usual. But who knows, he may just find me boring after being around so many other people.

Regardless, it seems like teething is an interminable process. I know it will end some day, but I hope major, multi-day fussiness episodes do not accompany each tooth. Because that would be about 20 episodes too many (and yes, I actually had to look up how many baby teeth he will acquire).

It's just too bad that baby drool doesn't have anti-aging properties because my face and hands are covered in it every day.

Separation Anxiety

Two summers ago Harold and I saw Tom Waits at the Thomas Wolfe Auditorium in Asheville. It was far and away one of the best shows we've ever seen, so we swore we'd never pass up another chance to see him. Lucky for us he is playing the Fox in Atlanta on July 5, so we decided to make a weekend out of it. A weekend without Ben.

It was an easy decision to make at the time. I lived in Atlanta for 4 years and I take every chance I get to return for the occasional weekend. My parents and sister have been offering up their babysitting services since well before Ben was born and they are delighted that they finally get to have him for a whole weekend. So I know he will be in good hands. But now that the trip is upon us I'm starting to feel a little anxious. Harold has been away from Ben pretty frequently, as he's been working out of town quite a bit since March. But the longest I've ever been away from Ben is the 9 or so hours that I am at work each day. So two nights away from him is going to be quite a challenge.

Despite the anxiety, I am looking forward to a bit of a break. Harold and I haven't even been out to dinner together without Ben, so the prospect of a baby-free weekend in Atlanta is almost too much freedom to even contemplate. We have a number of fun activities lined up, a large number of which are going to focus on food. I hope to revisit all my favorite Candler Park/Little Five/East Atlanta spots: I need a black bean quesadilla from La Fonda, brown sugar vanilla ice cream from Jakes, Fellini's pizza, breakfast at the Flying Biscuit, a grilled cheese from the Righteous Room and a cider from the Gravity Pub. It's an ambitious agenda, but I hope to pull it off.

However the thing I am most looking forward to is sleep. Glorious, lengthy, uninterupted sleep.
But who am I kidding? Glorious, lengthy, uninterupted sleep is a thing of my past, at least for the next 25 years or so. I will likely wake up every couple of hours to check the clock to see if it's a reasonable time to call to check in. Hopefully I'll be able to resist making any 4am calls, but you never know.

A girl I work with recently returned from maternity leave and she mentioned how she has to pretend that she doesn't have a baby when she's at work. And it's true - that was really the only way I could make it through the day when I first went back to work (despite the regularly scheduled pumping reminders). So I may have to practice that to some extent this weekend, so that I can enjoy myself somewhat and not drive my family crazy by calling them every 1-2 hours. We'll see how it goes.

Half Birthday

Ben is 6 months old today! Since he is totally out of luck in the birthday department (December 30, so much for family planning), we are going to have to make a big deal about his half birthdays.

He celebrated his very first half birthday by eating all his carrots...

...playing a little music

... having a party in his crib (don't worry, he can't actually do this on his own yet)

...and by staying up until nearly 10pm, which is quite later than usual. I think it was the outfit that put him in such a festive mood (A monkey! On a bicycle! Too cute).

At his six month check up today the numbers confirmed what my lower back has been telling me for weeks: Ben is a member of the gigantosaurus variety of baby.

Height: 27 1/4" (I'm not convinced that this is accurate, as he was quite squirmy)

Weight: 20 pounds!!!

Head: 44 cm

His body has now outpaced his head, as he is in the 90th percentile for height and weight and only 55th for head circumference. His head got off to a very early start as you will recall, and it is now taking a break.

His personality is emerging more and more each day. It's such a delight to watch. Everywhere we go people remark on what a happy baby he is. He smiles and laughs for everyone.

His favorite thing to do is to reach for any and everything he can get his hands on. He is an indiscriminate grabber of remotes, cell phones, keys, necklaces, and eyeglasses (his favorite), amongst other things. He loves to pull my glasses off and have a good laugh at how silly I look without them. He then slobbers all over them with a very proud look on his face.

He's even picked up a few things from Mortimer in the tug of war department because when he has something he's not supposed to, like the straw he grabbed out of my drink today, it's quite an effort to get it away from him. He is also starting to get upset when not doing exactly what he wants to do (eating paper from a magazine, for example, or having to sit on his own because I sometimes tire of holding his fingers so that he can stand up and wiggle around). I'm sure these are just the beginning of many more battles to come as he learns to exert his independence more and more. I just wasn't expecting it to happen so soon!

America's Next Top Toddler

He's a long way from toddling, but I just couldn't resist that title once I thought of it.