Family Photos

It's been a long time since the last post and I don't have any good excuses, except for that whole work/life balance thing (which only seems to be getting harder).

In April we had some family photos taken, and for once in my life I was pleased with the results.
We had the pictures taken at Mordecai in downtown Raleigh, which is where Harold and I were married three years ago.

Then...

... and now.
Ben was feeling a little under the weather, but we still got some great photos.

Seriously, how cute is he?

Mother's Day

Ben and Harold surprised me by sending flowers to my office on the Thursday before Mother's Day. Thanks to daycare, Ben also made me another awesome gift...

...a lovely apron that will no doubt get lots of use given the hours I regularly spend laboring over the stove.

What I like about this photo is that if you had to guess the year, you might guess 1956 given the apron, the skirt, the glasses, and the little boy in overalls.

We may look a little retro, but in fact Ben and I are timeless.

Happy belated Mother's Day to all!

In the words of Thackeray "Mother is the name for God in the lips and hearts of little children."

Back

Ben has discovered an exciting new talent.

Now that he's figured out how to walk backwards he does it all the time (and for much greater distances than I captured on this video), sometimes while saying "Back, back, back." This is very impressive.

In other news, Ben's school had a little Easter party last Thursday. He and his classmates enjoyed some extra special snacks at a rather fancy tablesetting.

The snacks were followed by an egg hunt. Apparently Ben spent the majority of his time walking backwards around the playground, but in the spirit of the season he did pause to collect a few eggs.

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.