Our Little Businessman

Ben was wearing this smock when Harold picked him up from school on Friday. He was originally wearing a cowboy smock over the shirt and tie smock, but he took it off to reveal his inner businessman. He's only a cowboy on the outside.

Push

So February is almost over and that is great news because it is my second least favorite month of the year after January. And this past January was a real doozy.

We were doing okay for most of the month, but then Ben somehow acquired an eye infection that didn't respond to an eye drop or to an oral antibiotic. So that landed us in WakeMed for 24 hours of IV antibiotics. It was a very stressful and exhausting time, only to be followed by an even more stressful and exhausting week when we came home.

The oral antibiotic they discharged us with was so strong that Ben's poor little GI system just couldn't handle it. So he was puking and pooping all over the place for nearly a week. He puked in his crib, in the car, on me, on Harold, on the floor, in the high chair, pretty much every possible location in our house. In addition to cleaning up the puke and doing more laundry than I've ever done in my life, I lived in constant fear that we would have to return to the hospital, which in some ways was actually worse than being in the hospital.

But fortunately the infection didn't return (knock on wood that it doesn't in the future) and Ben's belly very eventually returned to normal, though he was rocking quite the diaper rash for a while. Despite all of the puking/pooping episodes (and in case you're wondering I'm trying to use the words puke and poop as many times as I possibly can in this post), Ben was a trouper through all of it and was in good spirits most of the time, which is probably the only thing that saved my sanity.

Anyhow. February has been a much better month.

Ben's favorite new activity these days is pushing things around the house. These items include but are not limited to strollers, chairs, coolers, and a large plastic turtle that is meant to be ridden.

He especially loves pushing his stroller outside.

Sometimes with a little help....

...but mostly on his own.

He also enjoys putting his shoes in the refrigerator while trying to climb inside it.

Other current hobbies include taking Mortimer for walks...

...and very meticulously eating the inside portions of a slice of bread.

Who knows where this will lead.

Valentine Surprise

When Harold picked Ben up from school on Thursday afternoon, the teachers gave him a special gift that Ben had made for us at school.

I thought the bag itself was the craft part of the gift and that the teachers had put candy or something inside. So imagine my surprise when I found this:

...inside of which was the most beautiful, perfect Valentine's Day present ever.

I love, love, love it! I love pink and I love Ben and I love pink and Ben's handprint together. (I don't have a lot of opportunities to combine my love of pink with Ben. If he loves pink when he's older that will be awesome, but I won't force it on him now). I especially love how the handprint is smudged. They've told us several times that Ben doesn't seem to enjoy art projects. At least not ones that involve getting his hands or feet dirty. So I love that he put his own personal twist on this by wiggling his fingers so that it's not perfect. Which of course is exactly what makes it perfect.

I remember laughing at an email forward I received several years ago that made fun of those annoying parents who are so proud of their kids' crappy artwork. But I guess the joke's on me now, because I am totally in that annoying parent category. I am really going to flip out in a few years when he gives me something that he really made and wrote himself.

I know that I am going to be one of those Moms that won't ever be able to bear throwing anything away. I need to start figuring out a better storage system.

Blogiversary Extravaganza

Maybe extravaganza is a little strong, but I wanted to celebrate our one year blogiversary. I'm proud of myself for keeping this endeavor up and running for a year now. Of course, you are probably wondering what happened in the last month or so. Oh, last month. That is a post for another time.

In the mean time, check out Ben's subtle yet delightful foot stompin' good time.

What can I say. We lead small, quiet lives these days.

Double Happiness

Today was a happy day. Not only did we get a new President, and not just any new president but the absolute best possible president that we could ever dare to hope for, we also got a snow day! So instead of furtively watching the inauguration online at work I was able to spend most of the day in my pajamas watching all of the inauguration coverage.


And of course I got to play in the snow with Ben.

He wasn't sure what to make of the snow at first. He really didn't like it when he did a face plant and ended up with cold, wet snow all over his face (alas, I have no picture of that). But once he was dusted off he seemed to enjoy walking around in this weird wet substance that he'd never seen before.

In other news, Ben started a new daycare last week and so far it is going well. Now that Ben is older it's a little easier to leave him. I've also started to think of daycare as "school" and that helps. Plus he really seems to enjoy being around other kids, even if they are snot-ridden and germ-infested. (He acquired his first cold of 2009 after only 3 days of school last week, so I am perhaps a little negatively biased towards the other children in his class at this point. )

We also had his one year check up last week and he is doing great on all counts. He weighs almost 25 pounds and is 29.75 inches. So he is a little above average in weight and a little below average in height. I don't know where he gets that from.

One of the most amazing things right now is how we are increasingly able to communicate with him. He does his own personal sign for more whenever he wants more food or if he wants me to read a book again. It's kind of like a clap versus the standard ASL sign. Harold also taught him to wave his hand in front of his nose whenever he has a poopy diaper, which is pretty funny. In addition to the signs, he also just seems to understand the things we say to him. When I ask him if he's ready for a bath, he heads down the hall to his bedroom to get ready. When we ask him what a duck says, he says "quack, quack" though of course it sounds more like an actual duck squawking than a person saying "quack, quack" with proper enunciation. But he says the same thing every time we ask him so that counts in my book. And today, miracle of miracles, I asked him if he was ready for a nap and he walked into his room on his own. I followed him and put him in his crib with a book. I then walked out of the room without even a peep from him! This is a major napping improvement.

Ben will also say something that sounds like "Hi Da-da" when he sees Harold, though he has neglected to express a similar greeting to his Mama. At this point I'm not holding it against him, but I may reevaluate that in a couple of months.

Ben's Birthday Bash

So this is a very belated post about Ben's first birthday party. It was a blast, but I was so busy chasing Ben around that I didn't take very many photos of the big day.

We had a house full of kids, parents, and toys. Ben received some really awesome birthday presents. In fact, we had to get some of them out of the box immediately to satisfy the kiddie demand.

When I was growing up my Mom always made me really elaborate birthday cakes, so I decided that for Ben's first birthday I would try to do the same for him. Alas, the results were not quite as good as what my Mom can do. Ben's first birthday cake will hereafter be known as The Funky Dinosaur. (Now I just need to make up a dance to go with that title...)

Ben enjoyed eating the icing off the top of the cake, but he wasn't too excited about the cake itself. Like his Mom, he prefers chocolate (or perhaps it's just that he prefers yellow cakes baked by others).

Before I knew it the party was over and not only had I taken hardly any photos of his one and only first birthday party, I had also managed to forget to put out the baby-specific food items (puffs, cheerios, etc) and forgotten to give most of the guests their party favors before they left. I guess I can't keep chalking my forgetfulness up to having recently given birth now that Ben has reached the one year mark. My apologies to our guests. Hopefully your babies did not starve at the party. Your party favor, a cd from a local kids band called The Sandbox , will be arriving in your mailbox shortly.

But apart from those minor snafus, we had a great time. Especially Ben - I don't think he sat down for more than 5 minutes during the whole party. He slept very well that night!

We are so grateful for all our wonderful friends and family who made the party so much fun. I'm already thinking about next year!

Happy 1st Birthday!

Ben turned one today!

To celebrate, we went to lunch at Red Robin. We once mistakenly went to Red Robin pre-baby and we found it to be a pretty miserable experience. However, post-baby we have somewhat reluctantly embraced the family-friendly chain restaurant lifestyle. Lots of people love Red Robin, so we decided to give it a shot. We found that for the most part it pretty much still sucks. Ben's expression sums up our feelings on this most recent experience.

It's not that anything was particularly horrible, it just wasn't really great either. The best part is that you can get free balloons. In honor of the special occasion, we ordered something for Ben off the kid's menu for the very first time. He didn't really eat it, but it felt like a very big kid thing to do.

After lunch, we went to our favorite local hangout, the Museum of Life and Science in Durham. Ben loves the baby play area.

It was an absolutely gorgeous day so we spent quite a bit of time on the outdoor trail. Ben was especially fond of the sheep (who baa'ed for us!) and the lemurs.

After the museum and a nap, we continued our celebration with a cupcake and candle for the birthday boy.

It's hard to believe Ben is a a year old, and what a year it has been. From complete and total exhaustion and parenting cluelessness to slightly less exhaustion and cluelessness. We are still figuring everything out as we go along, but it has been a lot of fun. Ben has changed so much in these past 12 months. Sometimes it's nice to go back and look at his newborn pictures as those days already seem so far away.

Happy 1st birthday Ben!