We're back from our New Year's Eve visit with Jen, Jay, Ryan and Zach. The babies are just too cute together.

They watched some Baby Mozart...
...
...shared some Puffs and milk.....
...read a story...
...
...and had some deep conversation.

In a year or so, I think they're gonna BEG their mommies to bring them to each other's houses to play. ;)

I have been on hold with Sears for 20 minutes now trying to find out what happened to my rebate check for the dishwasher. The recording comes on every freakin' minute and a half to tell me all operators are busy. Blah blah blah...

So while I'm stuck here, I'll blog...

What are you doing for New Year's Eve? I know a lot of you are in the same position as us and have a small child. So are you staying up until midnight... going anywhere? We were just going to stay home and maybe order a pizza or something, but my friend Jencalled and invited us over for a "We Have Small Children So We Can't Lose That Much Sleep" New Year's Eve get-together. Genius! Hee hee... we're going over in the late afternoon and coming home around Ben's and Ryan's bedtimes. ;) It's an event that will undoubtedly get my 2005 photo collection off to an abundant start.

Let's see... what else. OH! I went out with my friends Lynne and Erin last night. Before I left I made Tom some Hamburger Helper and made up the baby's bedtime bottle... I felt so responsible mommy-wifey like. Leaving the house at 7:00 was REALLY weird. I haven't done that in ages. It was dark and it felt like I should be getting ready for bed. I'm pathetic, I know.

Anyway, so we met up for dinner and HOLY cow I had no idea there were so many people out at night. Families, children, babies! Everywhere! I even had to stalk someone to find a place to park! I had NO idea there was so much going on after 7p.m. HA!

We had a yummy dinner and caught up on the last three and a half years. No one has really changed. I've been warned not to post any pictures here, so I can't share... but a good time was had by all.

I didn't think about Ben through most of dinner... but when I got in my car to leave, I couldn't get home quickly enough. Of course I didn't miss a single red light on the way. Everything at home was quiet. Ben got a bath and went to bed for dada with no problem and was sound asleep with froggy and binky when I checked on him.

I REALLY need to go out more often... ;)

I took Benjamin to get his first pair of shoes yesterday afternoon! :) Little dude's feet measure extra wide, which might explain why he took to walking so quickly! Hehehe...





Here a short little video of Ben walking in his new shoes!

The shoes have caused a few extra falls and bruises... I think they feel a little strange to him. But he's slowly getting the feel for them. Does this mean I officially have a toddler? ::: cry ::: Where'd the baby go?

Stole this from Krystyna's blog, though I think I sent it to her LAST year, so technically, I guess I stole it from myself, and probably someone else before that. Hee. Please steal it and share your answers! :)


1. What did you do in 2004 that you'd never done before?
Where do I start? ;) Experienced months 7-9(10) of pregnancy, gave birth, experienced months 0-9 of my first child's life. 2004 also marks the first time since I was 16 that I have been unemployed.

2. Did you keep your new years' resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I never get around to making any resolutions

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
oo! oo! Yeah, that'd be me... also (counting) three friends and cousin. Baby boom year!

4. Did anyone close to you die?
I am thankful to be able to say no.

5. What countries did you visit?
Newmommyland... where everyone has infants and no one sleeps

7. What date from 2004 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
March 24 (duh!), at 7a.m. I waddled through the doors of St. Joseph Medical Center and 16 long hours later, got to meet my little Benjamin.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Well, besides pushing the proverbial watermelon through a buttonhole, I am proud of the fact that Benjamin hasn't sustained any major injuries yet. You'd be impressed with this if you saw the way he throws himself headfirst at furniture.

9. What was your biggest failure?
My baby has a binky. ;)

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Does the six-weeks recovery from the watermelon/buttonhole incident count? If not, then not really, just a cold.

11. What was the best thing you bought?
My Nikon Coolpix digital camera which has taken over 1,500 pictures and counting of my little watermelon

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
My husband has been so wonderful... taking care of the baby and me... and functioning on so little sleep for so long.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
No comment

14. Where did most of your money go?
Mortgage, baby clothes and savings

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
When my doctor told me it was time to GET BEN OUT, eating my first meal after I had him

16. What song will always remind you of 2004?
The Things We've Handed Down (the song I used in Ben's first slide show)

17. Compared to this time last year, are you happier or sadder?
A trillion, million, baZILLION times happier.

18. Thinner or fatter?
Thinner, thank goodness

19. Richer or poorer?
Briefly a little poorer after I left my job, then a little richer thanks to Tom's raise... I guess we broke even on that deal.

20. What do you wish you'd done more of?
Sleeping, spending time with friends

21. What do you wish you'd done less of?
Playing on the computer... I'd get SO much more done if I did less of that. ;)

22. How will you be spending Christmas?
Next year, probably similar to this year, except Ben will know what presents are, which will be interesting. I also hope to be spending next Christmas gestating a sibling for Ben! We'll see if I actually have the nerve to go through with that. ;)

23. Did you fall in love in 2004?
With my beautiful baby boy and with my husband in a whole new way... watching him be a daddy has been AMAZING

24. Any one night stands?
I stand a lot at night, by the crib.

25. What was your favorite TV program?
Amazing Race, Gilmore Girls

26. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
Yes, definitely. Not sharing though.

27. What was the best book you read?
Operating Instructions - Anne Lamott

28. What was your greatest musical discovery?
Baby Mozart, also rediscovering the music from Sesame Street

29. What did you want and get?
A healthy baby

30. What did you want and not get?
New bedroom furniture

31. What was your favorite film of this year?
The Incredibles

32. What did you do on your birthday?
Whined that I was still pregnant

33. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Infinite money and time to fix up the house the way I want it to eventually look

34. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2004?
Stay at Home Mommywear... jeans, t-shirt, tennis shoes

35. What kept you sane?
My other mommy friends and my own mommy who always have the answers

36. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
Eh... ?

37. What political issue stirred you the most?
Eh...?

38. Who did you miss?
I missed some of my coworkers after I quit my job... but I still get to see them once in awhile.

39. Who was the best new person you met?
My very own new little baby person! :)

40. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2004:
Johnsons and Johnsons is right... having a baby really does change EVERYTHING.

41. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.
Strangely enough, not the song I mentioned earlier in this survey... and there is probably something better, but I heard this one on the radio the other day driving home and it just reminded me of life right now... :)

"Have a little love on a little honeymoon
You got a little dish and you got a little spoon
Little bitty house and a little bitty yard
Little Bitty dog and a little bitty car

Well it's alright to be little bitty
Little hometown or a big ol' city
Might as well share, might as well smile
life goes on for a little bitty while

A little bitty baby and a little bitty gown
It'll grow up in a littly bitty town
Big yellow bus and little bitty books
It all started with a littly bitty look..."

You'll never guess what I'm doing tonight! I'm going out with two friends from high school.... at 7:30!!! I don't think I've been out (like just leaving the house)that late since before Ben was born. Yup. Dada is taking over bath and bedtime duty and I'm going out to dinner. I'm so excited! I'm even more excited because I'm pretty sure the last time I saw either one of these people I'm going to dinner with was at my wedding over 3-1/2 years ago!

As for the "More Toys!" part of the subject line... Just when I thought I had all the Christmas stuff organized and homes for all the new toys, MORE came through the door last night. I had forgotten to take into account Christmas Phase 4, which Tom and I didn't attend because it was going on while we were at Christmas Phase 3. Well, Christmas Phase 4 arrived in the form of a HUGE red gift bag last night and I had to find a place for the Leapfrog Learning Hoops, the Leapfrog Alphabet Ball thingy and a scuba Mickey Mouse. Actually, it's all great. Ben got the hang of the Learning Hoops right away and he sits in front of it and dunks the little basketballs for the longest time...

...that is, except for right now, when he just seems to want to bust out of the baby gate and come after my laptop. What up with that?

Just a couple little test videos I made with my new toy. (I had more up originally, but I decided it was just too many all at once)

Here's a little clip I call, "The Scream". He does this randomly and often. Aaaa!

Ben will do ANYthing for a shoe (or a Cheerio)...

Continuing with my baby experimentation, I gave Benjamin a scrambled egg this morning. As you can see from the picture, he was a little skeptical at first. I think he liked the few bites he had of it, but I gave it to him after he ate his usual breakfast, so he wasn't very hungry. We'll try again tomorrow. ;) This finger food stuff is so confusing. (for mommy AND Ben!)

In other news, I have been getting gratuitous baby footage with my Christmas gift that I will eventually put into a neat little wmv package to share with you. Any requests? (Kind of like that blog three-picture game that goes around... but with video!) ;) That could be fun!

We just got back from Benjamin's 9-month appointment with the pediatrician.
AH! Those visits wear me out. He starts screaming the minute I take his clothes off. So they are not much fun, plus it's hard to hear the doctor over the screaming.

The information I was able to gather was that he is 18 pounds, 14 ounces and 27-3/4 inches. (25th and 50th percentiles respectively) Tom made a comment about him being small and Dr. Aguto laughed and pointed at Tom, making a sort of "you're pretty small too" guesture and then at me and did the same thing. Hee hee... okay, so he comes by his size honestly. But on the way out, Tom said, "Now that was just mean." Heh. ;)

He got his last Hepatitis B shot today and a Pneumonicocal something or other shot that they had run out of last time we were there. He also had his little finger pricked to check for anemia. (He's not anemic, in case you were wondering)

The doctor asked me if Ben was crawling. I laughed a little and said, "Um... yes, and he can walk too." He said, "He's not supposed to be doing that! Not until one year!" (Imagine a very heavy Filipino accent here) Then he put screaming Ben on the floor and darned if the kid didn't walk all the way across the room to get to me. (he rarely walks that far yet) The doctor was shocked and impressed with my (short) little biped!

This made me feel better when he asked if Ben said any words yet. Hee.

Ben is healthy and growing well... all looks good and we don't have to go back until March! Wahooey! :)

Okay, I'd love to vent about some bad gifts I saw get passed around over the last few days. But, well, everyone and their brother who knows me reads my blog. And those who don't, get filled in by people who do. SO... I need to experience the ranting vicariously.

First, some background on my position here. I have always been in favor of less gifting and more spending time together. I think this especially applies when neither party in the exchange particularly knows what to get for the other and/or they don't care about it and don't put anything thought into the gift anyway. This results in a whole lotta CRAP getting passed around. Crap people don't need. Crap that's obviously CRAP... just crap crap crap. I HATE that. If you are going to just go out and buy the first thing you see, give an obvious regift,or give something that is SO inappropriate it's just insulting... etc... don't bother. Ya know? I don't need more crap and you don't want to spend the money anyway. So let's all just bake cookies for each other and call it Christmas...

What I want to know from you all (since I can't rant any of MY specifics)... is this:

What crap/thoughtless/regift gift(s) did you receive and from whom? I'm not talking about the gift card you got from your coworker. Those gifts aren't really intended to have much thought behind them. I'm talking bad gifts from family, friends... people who should really know better. (or should at least get you a freakin' gift card if they don't)

Talk amongst yourselves, comment, rant... go to town. :)

I'll be cleaning up Christmas for weeks. I can't wait to take the tree down. It sheds needles all over the place now when you even tiptoe into the room. Most of the toy boxes and all the twistie ties and plastic thingymajiggys that came with them are sitting by the back door waiting for the trashmen on Wednesday. Getting rid of those will help a LOT. I feel sorry for the trashmen though.

For whatever reason, boy decided not to sleep well last night. He woke up crying at 1a.m. I'm figuring on seeing another tooth in a day or so because he doesn't usually wake up just crying like that. :: sigh :: Should I reset the sleep streak counter or just pick up where I left off? Would that be cheating? ;)

Benjamin's first Christmas went off without a hitch. We were given the gift of naptimes and happy baby times that all fell neatly into place. This was a surprise to all of us, because we had several destinations and a LOT to do. We celebrated in three stages this year.

Christmas Eve began with us celebrating Benjamin's nine-month birthday by trying to take his picture on the official monthday chair. This went about as well as can be expected especially since said nine-month old has the attention span of a gnat and pretty much the same energy level.


Then we headed off to church with Tom's family.
Note, I am strangely lacking in Christmas Eve pictures. Probably because I spent most of the evening chasing my gnat-like offspring.

Church was especially nice this year. We went to the early service and there was a little children's pagaent. Benjamin was wonderful and quiet through the whole thing while he sat on his Nan's lap and ate Cheerios. He was enamored with the stained glass windows, the music and most of all, the candles at the end of the service.

After that we went to Tom's grandparent's house for some gifting and eating. Ben's first order of business here was to grab a handful of carrot sticks and celery sticks from the vegetable tray. I can't really blame him. He was hungry and they were sitting right there on a table that was just his height. He then proceeded to run around like a two-foot tornado and wreak havok on everyone's gifts except his own.

Like I said, pictures are lacking because I was busy mostly trying to keep him from breaking things, hit his head or crawl into the fireplace. I think his Aunt Krystyna may have taken some though so maybe she'll take the hint here and send them to me.
::wink wink nudge nudge::

We left there at 8p.m. which was a little experiment on our part because Ben's bedtime is traditionally 7p.m. He did wonderfully though and came right home and settled back into his routine, sleeping through the night for the 8th night in a row.

Christmas morning, we had to wake him up around 7:15 to go over to Tom's parents' house for presents. Waking Ben up is not something I have much experience with. He was agreeable though, until we tried to shove him into his snowsuit, which I imagine is akin to trying to stuff a sausage. Neither he nor I enjoyed the experience.

At Nan and Pap's house, we took the traditional coming down the stairs picture, which I'll add when I get a copy of it. Then it was straight into present opening...




...and more of Benjamin's attempts to get himself a taste of/and or destroy a Christmas tree.


There were also numerous photo ops with the grandparents.





Mommy even got to relax a little and spend some time with the boy on his first Christmas.



All in all, Ben gave Christmas morning and his fuzzy first Christmas jammies a thumbs up.


Oh and Tom wanted me to mention that his glue gun gift to his mother was a big hit. (I believe he also added, "So HAHAHA!" How mature. ;) It really was a hit, actually. I witnessed her delight firsthand. I guess he won that one! We gave everyone their regular gifts (stuff they asked for), plus THESE fancy t-shirts to commemorate our big trip in March and to make us all even bigger dorks than we already are.



After a long nap for Ben at home, we then headed off to my parents' house for a Christmas parTAY!

More photo ops with grandparents:


Then we set Ben up at the front door to watch for all the other people to arrive!


More toys...


More photo ops...




And lots and lots of eating...



And if you clicked on that last link, you got a hint of what I got for Christmas from Tom this year... :) (although I am still trying to master the editing/transfer process... as you can tell because it's all skippy.) I'll make something better and more interesting soon though! :) I promise!

All in all, Christmas was GREAT! We couldn't have asked for Ben to have been more cooporative! Now that it's over though, I need some advice from ya'll...

WHERE AM I SUPPOSED TO PUT ALL THESE TOYS?!?!?!







Those pics are just one small portion of the toy collection. A bunch of other big toys were banished to the basement to make the living room seem a little less daycareesque.

Anyone reading this who gives our baby gifts ... read this and read it carefully.
We love everything you gave our son. It's wonderful how you all thought of him at Christmas time and picked out all those fun things for him to play with. Thank you all so much! We now own every Peekablock and Peekablock accessory Fisher Price makes and lots of other new things that make noise and light up. Joy!

We honestly and truly have NO MORE ROOM AT OUR HOUSE for toys. So... in three months when we are celebrating Benjamin's first birthday the rule is NO TOYS. I'm begging you. As the person who has to trip over them all day every day and pick up all the pieces and find homes for all of them. PLEASE do not get my child any toys for a LONG LONG time.

This concludes my public service announcement.

Favorite gifts? Tom's favorite seems to be the Tempurpedic pillow my parents got him, he also likes his Star Wars DVD's from his parents. (obviously since he's been watching them all day)

My favorites are probably my digital video camera (yay!) and the 6 weeks of mommy and me swimming lessons that my parents got for Benjamin and me. Benjamin is torn between his singing Elmo from his Aunt Debbie, his Peekablocks Hippo from Grandmom and Poppy and his Leapfrog Learning Table that his Nan and Pap gave him. (all very cool toys, fellow mommies!)

I hope you all had a happy Christmas with your families, friends and little ones! :)

Never in a million years would I have believed you if you told me I'd have to wake Ben UP for his first Christmas. It's 7:15 and the boy is STILL sleeping soundly... visions of sugar plums and yada yada yada.

We're going to have to get him up soon because we have to head over to his grandparents' house to open presents!

If I don't get the chance to blog later, I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas! :)

Okay, these are pretty much impossible now. Check out the month 10 album for some of the outtakes.

Benjamin is nine months old today! It's official, he's been out as long as he was in. And if I had to wager a guess I'm pretty sure he likes it better out here. More room for being the wild little dude that he is. This month's big achievement is of course, becoming a biped. He walked almost all the way across the kitchen last night!

Official pics will be up later, when he wakes up from his nap. :)

Happy nine months baby boy!

My husband is wonderful... but he's a really crappy gift giver. He does really well with finding gifts for me actually, I will give him that. But when it comes to his family... ugh, it's just embarassing, especially now that my name is attached to his gifts. In years past, I have done most of the shopping for both families, but this year, I just didn't have the time to put into coming up with good gifts and I was getting stressed out, so I told him he was completely in charge of his family.

Do you want to know what he got his mother? The woman who carried him for 9 months, gave birth to his huge head with no epidural and put up with him in her house for 24 years? Do you know what he got her?

A glue gun.

He got her a GLUE GUN. It is the fanciest glue gun they sell at the craft store, but still... I mean, nothing quite says, "I put ZERO thought into this gift" like a glue gun. True, it was on her list, but I mean... if I had been in charge, I would have supplemented with a nice little basket of goodies from the craft store. (I mean, since you're there ANYway). But Tom said no.

He thinks I am too generous with my gifts. And I probably am, but it's how I show people I care. I'm not one of those huggy people... I don't gush emotional stuff randomly... I give gifts.
I did go behind his back and supplemented all of his gifts with a little silly something, just so the little packages don't look so pathetic all by themselves.

The glue gun was pretty bad... but the other gifts are not so great either. He's getting his dad some Chai tea and a bottle of San Buka. (????) His brother Taylor is getting a Lord of the Rings DVD (which he wanted badly, so it's probably the best of the gifts), and his brother Marc... well, I better not write it here because his fiance reads my blog and she might spoil the oh so EXCITING tool-related surprise. (Krystyna, apologize to Marc for me in advance).

Anyone else married to a bad gifter? What do you do?

The last thing I needed was for TiVo to discover a new show for me to become addicted to. But last night it found Nanny 911. The premise of the show is this group of nannies from around the world choose a family where the kids are totally out of control for whatever reason and then they come in and whip (oops, not literally) them all back into shape. This week's family has SEVEN girls all under the age of eight.

HOLY CRAP.

I want a daughter or two, but not seven of them. I also wouldn't want seven boys. (although her sons are apparently extremely well behaved) In fact, I wouldn't want seven of anything! Seven cats, seven dogs, seven hamsters... whatever. I don't need seven!

I'm sitting here trying to muster the energy to change the poopy diaper of my ONE child. I woke up with what I'm pretty sure is the beginnings of a cold. I'm not so much worried about it, except that I really don't want to pass it on to Benjamin and ruin his sleep streak! Tom is going to save me a trip out into the pouring rain by picking me up some Cold-Eez on his way home from work. He has to stop at Target anyway because his brother's Lord of the Rings DVD isn't going to make it here in time. (Thank you, Amazon... they promised, that even though it wasn't released until the 15th that it would still ship in time... surprise! It hasn't)

(poopy diaper break)

That was the most pitiful poopy diaper I have ever seen. A lot of stink for not a lot of content.
All better now though. Light is green, trap is clean! (that's a dada saying) ;)

It's raining and gross outside so I'll probably be posting a lot today. Come visit me! :)

I made a new cake this afternoon... this time with only one cup of butter. It's amazing how when you use one cup and not three cups that the cake batter actually FITS in the pan. Heh.

To make this cake, I had to first create makeshift blockades to keep Ben in the kitchen with me. Blocked the doorway with chairs, blocked the trashcan with a heavy toy. This also served to keep him away from the electrical outlet that powers the dustbuster and the three candles I have in the window right now. Then I had to give in and let him ransack the newly babyproofed kitchen while I mixed up the cake. Boy did he have himself some serious crazy baby fun. Opened and emptied all drawers within reach. Moved around all the refrigerator magnets. Hid under the table and did some daredevil, sock feet, hardwood floor walking.

Cake is now in the oven. Whew. It took me an extra half hour to clean up the Ben mess in the kitchen.

If anyone wants the three cups of butter cake, let me know. I'll ship it to you. But keep in mind it weighs about 48 pounds, so the shipping charges might be pricey. ;)

I'm sure my other mommy friends have noticed this too. Babies are routine little creatures.... but their routines often don't last more than a week. It's weird though how, usually only about a day after something like a nap or a feeding moves to a different time, it quickly gets adopted as part of the schedule. Benjamin has had about thirty different combinations of naptimes/feedings/happy awake times etc since the stork dropped him off on our doorstep.

Dada and I are really careful to follow the schedule as best we can, so we don't end up with that crazed, overtired, eye-rubbing, wailing little Rosemary's baby that shows up once in awhile. If the schedule changes, it's the baby's doing.

This week, with this whole sleeping throught the night thing going on, he wakes up for the day at 6:15 instead of 5:15 and then goes down for his first nap around 9:30. It's only been four days and I already had the thought this morning, "Oh it's 9:30 and he's asleep... right on schedule!"

Speaking of crazy baby hijinx, (was I even speaking of that to begin with? Oh well... ) Benjamin got linked on one of my favorite baby websites again. Apparently Ben and BabyShmear, if they ever got together, would be a gruesome twosome. Thanks BabyShmear's dada for the mention! ;)

I made this cake for Christmas day... it's yummy and it's one I have made a hundred times before. This time though, I misread the recipe (probably due to a baby tugging at my leg while I was gathering ingredients) and put in THREE cups of butter instead of the ONE cup that it calls for.

Oopsie.

So my question is, other than instantaneously blocking the arteries of anyone who eats a slice, do you think it will change the taste at all? It looks okay, smells okay and the little bits I tasted that fell off while it was baking taste okay.

?

It's in the freezer now, but I'm wondering if I shouldn't just make another one.
I kept thinking while I was mixing it up, "GEE that's a lot of butter."

Found this on Erin's (other Erin) blog this morning. I love it...

"Each second we live is a new and unique moment of the
universe, a moment that will never be again. And what
do we teach our children? We teach them that two and
two make four, and that Paris is the capital of France.
When will we also teach them what they are?

We should say to each of them: Do you know what you are?
You are a marvel. You are unique. In all the years that
have passed, there has never been another child like you.
Your legs, your arms, your clever fingers, the way you move.

You may become a Shakespeare, a Michelangelo, a Beethoven.
You have the capacity for anything. Yes, you are a marvel.
And when you grow up, can you then harm another who is,
like you, a marvel?

You must work, we must all work, to make the world worthy
of its children." --Pablo Casals

These were a gift from Ben's "Aunt" Amy... she's Jewish but strangely sort of into Christmas. (I should get her to sing "Mary's Boy Child" for you some time)


Benjamin slept AGAIN last night. I just can't get over this whole sleep thing. It's AMAZING. I didn't have any idea just HOW great this would be.

He is being so ridiculously cute this morning. Seriously, it should be illegal to be this cute. He's just wandering around the living room, happy as can be, in his slightly too big Mickey jammies talking to himself. He really sounds like he knows what he is saying! He just walked up to the still frozen in the "M" Elmo, gave him a big kiss on the nose, babbled at him for a minute as if to say, "Aren't you supposed to DO something?" and then went along his merry way.

AH! I LOVE this kid!

Elmo's batteries died mid-song. He got stuck on the "M." It's sort of sad.

Benjamin is walking a little more every day! It's definitely his first choice for mode of transportation lately. He only resorts to crawling when he is headed toward something the he really wants and falls on his face in the process of trying to get there. His record right now is 12 steps at time without falling. He showed off his new talent to his Nan and Pap yesterday, which reminds me of the other thing he's getting better at...

..he will stay with BOTH sets of grandparents without freaking out. We haven't tried anyone else yet, but this is progress. Tom and have gone out alone together three weekends in a row now! It's such a relief to be able to go out and not feel guilty because Ben screaming when we leave. He has a great time when he stays with his grandparents and they all seem to have fun with him so everybody wins! And I've even stopped thinking about him every minute we're gone now. I can be out about two or three hours before I start experiencing baby withdrawal. So I guess I'm making progress too... ;)

The boy slept from 7:30p.m. - 6:45a.m.

So this is what uninterrupted sleep feels like!

My mom dug up some more baby pictures of me the other day. You know, just in case I ever try to deny that Ben is mine, they have pictures like these to whip out.


Yeah. It looks like I'm stuck with him. ;)

So Tom saw the pictures sitting on the dining room table and laughed. Then he said, "Gee, it must be nice to be able to see yourself in your kid."

Poor guy. I keep telling him that's why we need more than one. Gotta see what other combinations are hanging out in our gene pool!

So, after last night, I feel even stupider. Yes. Stupider. (poor grammar fully intended).

I executed my plan -- Ben's door cracked, monitor on super-low, not getting up to binky him, pick him up or feed him unless he cries and stands up in the crib. He went to bed at 7p.m. He stayed there until 4:45. SLEEPING. Throughout the night, I heard him make his little moaning noises around the times I would normally get up to perform one of the previously mentioned activities, but I ignored it and ... well, what do you know?! He never really woke up. He would do his moaning thing, presumably roll around for awhile and then go back to sleeping like the proverbial baby.

Quiet, you!

I already feel like a big dummy. He's probably been doing this for months now. (except for when teeth are coming in, then I KNOW he definitely wakes up-- the screaming and wide open eyes are a dead giveaway)We've just been getting in the way. I feel like SUCH a dumb dumb dumb dumb mommy. I can see why people say their second baby is so much easier.

So the next step is, as Jen so wisely suggested, to ditch the monitor. I will definitely hear him cry, even with his door closed, because his bedroom is only about 15 feet away from ours.

Tom and I both feel SO awake this morning. I couldn't even go back to sleep after I fed Ben at 5. So I got up and made us chocolate chip pancakes. (you know I'm awake if I'm COOKING) Ben had some bites with butter but not chocolate chips and he REALLY liked them. He'll will probably demand pancakes for breakfast from now on!

OH... the boy also taste-tested some YoBaby yogurt yesterday and LOVED it. So far, no adverse effects, so I think we'll be adding it to the menu on a regular basis. Babies are so fun... blank slates as far as everything, including food, is concerned. It's hysterical to watch them taste something new and look at you as if to say, "I KNEW you've been holding out me, lady! I KNEW it!!!!"

Okay, that's all for now. Let's sum up:
* 10 hours of sleep
* Chocolate chip pancakes
* Messing with my child's tastebuds

This is turning out to be a pretty good day! ;)AND... get this... he just went BACK to sleep! I'm going to to go do Balky's dance of joy and then crawl back into bed!

Benjamin's godmother will be out of town for Christmas, so we had our Christmas a little early. Here is the boy checking out some of his loot with godmother Debbie looking on.

The dancing Elmo is a big hit. He keeps giving it kisses. Also among the gifts were a Thomas The Tank Engine train, and toy that sticks to the refrigerator as well as a whole BAGful of other things to amuse Ben and annoy his parents. ;)

Aunt Debbie tends to go a tad overboard with gifts (you should have seen her pile at the baby shower), so we decided to surprise the heck out of her and give her a trip to Disneyworld. We have enough points from our vacation club membership to take two trips in 2005 -- so for the second one, we're taking her with us! I can't think of very many people who will enjoy the most magical place on earth as much as she will. (except for maybe my friend Amy, who is as Disney crazed as we are... but we only have enough points for one extra hotel room)

It's just about to time start our fun and exciting bath/bedtime routine... it's actually one of my favorite times of the day. No matter how tired or upset Benjamin is, he perks right up when he realizes it's bathtime. :) So I'm off... of course, I'll probably be back around 2a.m. C'est la vie these days.

How was your Saturday?

So I think I made a breakthrough last night. Of course, blogging about said breakthrough will most likely negate said breakthrough and set us back three months in our quest for a full night's sleep. But hey, I have an audience to please. ;)

After getting up with our non-sleeper at 2:30a.m., I delivered a 4-ounce bottle, which was promptly consumed within five minutes. Okay, yeah, he's hungry, I get it.

But after that came the moaning. I was pretty awake, so much so that I almost got up to record it so you all could hear what we have to listen to every night. You see, most of the time, Ben does NOT cry in the middle of the night (unless he's sick, teething or really hungry and pissed off). Instead he rolls around and moans. Imagine the most cliche ghost sound you can and that's pretty accurate. Up until now, I've always gotten up with the moaning to binky the kid because I was afraid he'd wake himself completely up. (he's LOUD, dude!)Plus, frankly, it's really hard for ME to sleep through.

So last night, I was awake enough and fed up enough that I just decided to let him "moan it out." It lasted about a half hour. "uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh" "uhmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm" "Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh" I just laid there and listened. And then... silence. HA! He started up again at 4:15a.m. and I let it go then too and he ended up sleeping until 5:15a.m. I'm still just as tired as ever because I was awake for probably two and a half hours there.

BUT. I have a plan.

Tonight I'm going to shut his door most of the way and turn the monitor back on REALLY REALLY low. That way, I can hear him if he starts really crying AND I won't be able to hear the moaning. (which I really do need to get recorded, because when you're not in a 2a.m. stupor, is pretty funny to listen to) ;)

because it's the same old bloggity crap, different bloggity day. But instead I'll write you a poem...


Benjamin's not sleeping,
His mommy is so tired,
The house is a big old mess
because the baby is wired.

I really miss the nights
When I got to sleep straight through
Even when I was pregnant
Sleep was better too.

He's napping now thank goodness
And do I fix the house?
No, I open up my laptop
and click click the little mouse.

:: yawn ::

Well, perhaps the reason our good sleep streak has been interrupted lately has to do with the fact that Ben is working on one, maybe two more teeth. Tom gave him Tylenol last night and he slept pretty well, so maybe our current round of sleepless nights won't last very long.

Jen complained on the phone to me today that I haven't blogged much lately. Apparently my posts are lacking their usual long and rambly style or something. Argh. I dunno. I haven't had much to say. I've just been so tired lately and blogger hasn't been cooporating either. Has anyone else noticed how SLOW it is these days?

Ben has been a fussypants lately and seems to be changing his napping schedule again. Some of it is probably due to the teething... but whatever it is, it's wearing me out. He's so cute though, between the fussy moments. He understands so much of what we say these days! I don't even have to wave anymore to get him to wave hi and bye bye... I just say "Ben! Say bye bye (or hi) to (insert name here)!" And he starts waving... too cute. He also knows all kinds of other words but won't try to say them, of course. He has this one book that has a picture of a queen in it (for the letter Q) and if you say, "Go get the queen Ben!" he'll bring you the book. He is also a pro at turning off the lights when you lift him up to the light switch and say, "Light off!" OH and he is working on learning how to do a fishface. He's becoming quite the little imitator.

How's that for a nice, rambly post? Gotta go throw together some Hamburger Helper for dinner. Yummers. :)

Does anyone know how long you're supposed to use the Exersaucer? Ours is borrowed and I'm torn because I'd like to get it the heck out of the house (it's HUGE and with Christmas toys getting ready to come in, we need all the space we can get) but it's so useful for keeping our little tornado contained for brief periods of time. You know, for little things you need to do like taking showers, peeing and removing baked goods/dinner from the hot oven. That kinda stuff. ;)

Again, it's borrowed, so I don't have the directions and have NO clue what the age/weight limit is on the thing. Anyone? anyone?

I clipped this comic from the paper last December.

This would be me. My poor husband has had to find new and more ingenious places to hide my presents every year because well... My name is Erin and I am a peeker. I'm not just a peeker. I am a seeker. I will look high and low. Last year, I even crawled up into the attic. (which isn't really an attic, it's more of a hole in the ceiling in one of the closets)

Sadly, this year, I have not had the time to be my usual surprise spoiling self. I'm a little disappointed in myself! I do have a vague idea of what Tom might have in mind this year, only because he, like both of his brothers, is not all that careful about trying to figure out what people might want for Christmas. But truly, I might actually be a little surprised this year because I have other things on my mind. Like how my kid still won't sleep.

You'll notice I buried that deep within this post. I'm so frustrated about it. And it's starting to get embarassing because everyone from my neighbors to random women on the street will ask me "So, is he sleeping through the night yet?" And I have to answer... "Well, no, not exactly." Yes, my almost nine-month-old taunts us with the occasional good night of sleep and then a few nights later, it's back to his 'hey mom, let's pretend you just brought me home from the hospital' style of sleeping. :: sigh :: I've given up on filling out the "sleeps through the night" line in the baby book. I'll have to scan it and show it to you. It's been crossed out and rewritten at least 12 times. And all those women who ask and then hear my answer then look at me like I'm the dumbest mommy on earth and then offer a boatload of advice on what I must be doing wrong and what I should and should not be doing.

I love my baby. He's great and he's fun and he's smart and cute. But, I'm not going to beat around the bush, he really really REALLY sucks at sleeping. And I just don't know what to do anymore.

Back to my Christmas presents. Oh right, I know nothing. I haven't even gone hunting to see if they're hidden around the house anywhere. Although I can be reasonably sure of two things: 1) Tom has NOT started shopping for me yet. He's SUCH a Christmas procrastinator.
and 2) He will probably resort to hiding them off-site from now on, especially since he's not home all day to supervise my snooping self.

Hee.

I've had some strange tummy trouble this past week plus I've been REALLY tired. (more than usual) It just dawned on me this morning, when I got a nice little reminder of what morning sickness was like, that despite the supposed 99.9% efficacy of the pill, there was a minute chance that... well... yeah... I don't even want to say the words.

I asked Tom to bring home one of those multipacks of prego tests. After he picked himself back up off the floor of his office and found the phone again, he agreed.

I took one tonight and thank GOD (not swearing, I was actually thanking the Divine there) it was negative.

Gawwwsh though.

Got me thinking about what that would be like. Of course I'd deal and everything would be fine. If RBelle can do it, so can I. But for a moment, it made me a little sad that Ben might not ever remember being my only baby for just a little while -- or that I wouldn't get to spend as much one-on-one time with him as I want to over the next year or two. That's a privilege that's really only bestowed upon first-borns. (or siblings who are a decade apart like my brother and me).

Anyway, I had those thoughts while I was kneeling on the floor with my face in the toilet and my little boy was babbling for me to come play in the kitchen. I had one of those flash-forwards of 40 weeks of me saying, "Mommy will be there when she's done throwing up..."Oh wait, mommy will be right back. Watch Barney while I go puke some more!" "Mommy can't play with you today, all she can do it lay on the couch and feel sorry for herself. (as I tended to do while pregnant)

Eegads.

No, I'm not ready for that just yet. So any surprise pill malfunctions notwithstanding, Benjamin will remain our only baby for awhile yet.

Just wanted to get your attention with my snappy title. ;)

Benjamin REALLY likes Barney. So we keep it on tap with TiVo. This morning I'm watching one of the TiVoed episodes with him for the millionth time. My tummy doesn't feel so great right now, so I'm hoping he'll just entertain himself for awhile. Blah... Once again, I'm seeing the drawback of a job with no sick day option.

Thankfully, he also likes Sesame Street which we also keep on tap and which I find much more tolerable than Barney. Although, strangely enough, the songs from Barney are growing on me...

an 8-foot inflatable Pooh in your front yard. Several of my neighbors have these big inflatable Christmas decorations and I have to say, I just don't get the appeal of the airblown decor. I also don't think, if you are putting decorations out, that you should mix the Santa Pooh, 8-foot Frosty, Santa Mickey, Santa Dog, etc... with your plastic light-up nativity. That just seems wrong. Santa Pooh at the manger? Tacky tacky. Either go all religious or not at all... anyone else have any thoughts on this? ;) There are more posts coming on the topic because I plan on taking some pictures this weekend of a few front lawns of the offenders I have in mind.

Here's a good reason (one of many) not to volunteer to be on one of those Discovery Health Channel birthing shows. I'm watching right now and the anesthesiologist must be all nervous about the cameras because as he's inserting the foot-long needle into the woman's back, he's hands are shaking like CRAZY. I wouldn't want Dr. Shaky anywhere NEAR my spine, thank you very much!

He's been trying to get to the fridge for weeks... he finally succeeded while I was putting away groceries...



...and then had himself a little tantrum when I closed the door and wouldn't let him back in.

I was perusing the blog Got Twins a little while ago. It took me a few minutes, (mostly because I'm half asleep today) but I finally realized it is written by a stay-at-home-daddy and boy is he FUNNY. Check out the SpoonCam. I laughed my butt off. Seriously, it's laying on the floor next to me. The narrative cracked me up! "Add some peaches there.... for a little flavor..." hee hee...and the airplane noises... LOLOL! Let it also be noted that these babies eat half as much oatmeal and fruit COMBINED as my little piggy does on any given morning. Sheesh.

A note to the blog's author, if he finds his way here: I LOVE the twins' names! Esme and Maslin... they're so different and interesting! :)

Go ahead over to his site. Go on. You may as well, because I don't have anything interesting to say today. Ben is sleeping. Tom is waiting for his brother to get here so they can watch the silly football game and I'm leaving them all in a little while to go shopping all afternoon.

Tom and I dropped the kiddo off with his grandparents this afternoon and set out to finish (Tom's) Christmas shopping. I amused myself by taking pictures. Enjoy. ;)

... and since the last Christmas card finally arrived at its destination all the way across the Atlantic... I can now share this and not spoil it for any of the recipients. ;)

I took these last weekend when we put our tree up and Leslie's post from yesterday reminded me I should share them. It's amazing to watch these little people see everything for the first time! My favorite one is the last one... where's he's touching the tree so gently...

The first time Benjamin saw the tree lit up...


Daddy, look! Do you see it?


Can I touch it?


Oooooo...

Recently, when Ben feels he is not getting the appropriate amount of attention (appropriate amount being 100%), he musters up the most umm... 'interesting' little sound. I probably shouldn't laugh at him when he does it. But it's really freakin' funny... especially if you can see it. I'll have to try and get a picture to go along with this.


**Caution*** You MAY want to lower your volume.

Up until about a week ago, everything was mama mama mama. Now mama has taken a backseat to the new syllable of the week... da.

"Ben, where's the kitty cat?"
"Dada"
"Ben, are you hungry?"
"Dada"
"Do you want to read your book?"
"Dada"
"Benjamin, who am I?"
"Dada."

Fooey. I should have enjoyed mama while it lasted. ;)

Here, have yourself some "dada."

Wasn't Penicillin discovered by accident? Didn't some guy leave some petri dishes out by mistake or something like that? My scientest friends will know. Oh, by the way, I forgot that I have two mad scientists reading my blog. Christina, meet Claire. Claire, meet Christina. As far as I understand, you both do crazy experiments with microscopic things that have long names. ;)

So anyway, the point of my post is that, despite all of my careful attention to the variables (light, humidity, napping blah blah blah), I have a feeling the reason behind our current sleep success streak was a total fluke. You see, three days ago, when I was straightening Benjamin's room and he was doing laps around me, I threw the baby monitor in his hamper and buried it with clothes so he couldn't grab it off the windowsill and hit himself in the head. I discovered this a little while ago while I was emptying the hamper.

Heh. Are you seeing where I'm going with this?

So maybe, just MAYBE, he still is waking up, but we just haven't been hearing him and jumping right up to help out. Maybe, just MAYbe he has been able to put himself back to sleep all this time and we didn't even know it.

I left the baby monitor in the hamper for now. ;)

I'll be returning the lab rats, the petri dishes, the test tubes and the industrial strength centrifuge to the mad scientist supply store today because...

Eureka! He sleeps for 9 hours! (7:30 - 4:30)sucks down a bottle in about three nanoseconds (timed it using my mad scientist stopwatch) and then goes back to sleep from 4:45 - 6:15.

::knocking on every piece of wood in sight::

Yesterday we repeated the long early afternoon nap, eliminated the long LATE afternoon nap again, kept the vent open and the nightlight off (forgot to mention that was the other variable I messed with the night before). I don't care which thing it is that did the trick, but something is working! Heck, if I had stood on my head and sung Jingle Bells the first night, I would have repeated it yesterday.

I did take a small risk and ditch the humidifier because it's really REALLY loud.

I will say that sleeping that many hours in a row is very very VERY weird. I feel refreshed. I know what day it is. The birds are singing, the sun is shining. Strangely enough though, I missed checking my email and my blog at 2a.m. :\

I was just reading this featured blog blurb. It's actually about one of my favorite blogs, Busy Mom. Don't get me wrong, Busy Mom IS a great blog, Busy Mom is witty, smart and a great writer. But I get so annoyed when people hold that blog up and then dismiss pretty much all other mommy blogs as one big snoozefest. Several points I want to make on this topic:

1) Just because the subject of a specific blog doesn't interest you, does not mean it is completely worthless and boring. Okay, to YOU maybe it is. But these mommy blogs offer a circle of support for a certain audience. The readers are other people in the same season of life... to THESE people who are going through life with a baby right now too, maybe, just MAYbe my tales of diaper changing and baby's sleep misadventures ARE interesting, helpful or at least amusing. An audience of even just one makes a blog legitimate in my book.

2) Some of us didn't set out to have blogs with a huge readership. I don't aspire to be the next Busy Mom, Dooce or Zoot. Frankly, this blog was originally started SOLELY as a way to entertain family and close friends and keep them updated about my pregnancy. Along the way, I have picked up a small following -- more a circle of friends, really. I like that I can post questions like, "What is your kid eating these days? Mine likes Cheerios." and get ten responses and tons of advice. It's way more helpful than any baby book I could read.

So stop the mommy-blog trashing. How about all those journalist wanna-bes? You know, those people who think they should be writing for the New York Times or something but instead all they have is their own blogspot site? Those are DEFINITELY more boring than reading about my kid's poop habits, no? C'mon. Now, if you'll excuse me, the baby's diaper stinks, I need to go investigate. Has anyone else experimented with different food groups and poop color? Fascinating stuff. Really.

I pulled up a picture of Tom on the computer a little while ago, pointed to it and said, "Benjamin, see dada?" He waved to the screen and said "dada!" "dada!" So sweet. I even emailed dada at work to tell him about.

Benjamin's sleeping is slowly improving, it's just not always consistent. So I've been experimenting with some of the variables that may or may not affect how well he sleeps at night. I'm obviously not very good at this whole scientific method business and probably need some help from Christina, the evil genius mad scientist up at MIT. He slept great last night (the kind of sleep where I had to get up and check if he was breathing or not) But the problem is, I tinkered with more than one variable. So now I don't know which, if any, made the difference. Drat drat and double drat.

Variable #1: Room Temperature - I noticed his vent was closed yesterday, so I opened it and it made his room MUCH warmer... maybe he's just been cold? (which might explain why he falls right to sleep when we stick him in our cozy, warm bed.

Variable #2: Daytime napping total - Yesterday, he just took the one nap from around noon - 1:30 and was up the rest of the day.

Variable #3: Humidity - The air in our house gets REALLY dry with the heat on, so I ran a humidifier in his room for a few hours last night.

So which was it? I have no idea, but be assured that the experimenting will continue here at BGLabs, Inc.

Benjamin took his first steps! I put him down just inside the gate and he walked to get the dancing monkey on one of his toys! Three steps! Then I put him down in different places and he walked four more times before he got annoyed with me and stopped playing. I got some of it on video, but it's not digital, so I'll have to try again later with the video feature on my Coolpix. He is SO proud of himself. Everytime he takes a step forward he grins from ear to ear. :)

** update ** Here's some video. It's very small and only about 15 seconds long. (done the cheater way by filming the tv) ;)

Here's the same video in Quicktime, slightly better quality, larger file.

I'm telling you, Picture People pictures DO NOT SCAN right. It's weird. Tom and I were wearing green shirts and they look all brown. Nevertheless, here is the one and only picture I bought today.

Is it ridiculously anal that I'm thinking about buying a new copy of the baby book I have for Benjamin so I can recopy it and make it neater?

My poor subsequent children are going to get SO jipped.

I've taken some pictures of a few of our Christmas ornaments. Give yourself one point for each one you have too. ;)

Baby's 1st Christmas (2004)


1977 Baby's First Christmas (Mommy AND Daddy!)


First Christmas together (2001)


Parents to Be (2003)


Just Married! (2001)


More later. Let me know how you scored! ;)

This afternoon, we went back to Picture People to get some family pictures taken. We did NOT have the same pleasant experience as last time. At first when we got there, things were great, Ben was laughing and charming all the people who were waiting, then we went into little studio and our photographer was HORRIBLE. I told her when we first went in that he's really easy -- that he'd laugh his head off for the little duster thingy they usually wave at the babies, or if she fake sneezed at him. She totally ignored me and just made these doofy noises at him that elicited the most pathetic partial Ben-smiles I've ever seen. She barely even TRIED. He melted down after three poses. I think we may have gotten one decent picture out of the whole session. Hopefully one of the ones of the three of us turned out okay... we'll see. I have to go back in a little while and see how they turned out. Oh well, on the bright side, it means I won't spend as much money this time. :

Stay tuned for Ben's reaction to the pretty, lit-up tree. He was already in bed when we decorated it, so no pictures of those big baby eyes looking at the lights and grabby little hands attacking the tree until tomorrow. :(

This morning we went to the tree farm with Benjamin's Nan and Pap to chop down our Christmas tree. Here are some pics! :) The rest are here.
Mommy and Benjamin and a tree.

Tree touching, all the rage among the under 2 set.

Tree topper Ben

Family (mommy in the middle of faking a sneeze to make Benjamin smile)

... The Flingers did not have an easy night with little LB. But they sure know how to turn a bad night into entertainment for the masses. ;) While Tom, Benjamin and I are off getting our Christmas tree, (and thus collecting some pictures for another entry) I implore you to visit Frisbee Flingers and watch today's video. Make sure your bladder is empty.

I thought this deserved its own post, since I save and print some of these posts out for the baby book.

Benjamin's been cruising like a pro for awhile now. And with our new surround gate thingy, which we reconfigured so it sort of goes around the living room on one side, he's on his feet more and more. He does laps around the room with it, which is very cute. He's getting more and more confident and a couple times in the last few days has let go and had this look on his face like, "Okay, I'm gonna do it..." No official first steps yet, but last night, he did sidestep after he let go before he resorted to crawling, so I think we might be getting closer! It's exciting, but it hasn't helped with the bruising situation. He has a newly acquired black and blue beauty on his forehead from who knows where... and a scratch on his nose. (?) All this just in time for a family picture to be taken on Sunday. That's my boy! ;)

Benjamin waves hi! He's been doing it for a week or so, but it took us awhile to figure it out what it was he was doing. We thought he was just being weird or trying to fly or something. ;) Gosh we parents can be dense. I noticed it a few days ago but Tom didn't believe me until last night when Ben waved at himself in the bathroom mirror after I said, "Say hi to the baby!"

His "wave" involves a frantic up and down motion with his entire arm and Tom was holding out to see some wrist action, I think. But after last night, even HE had to admit it was definitely a wave. Today we've said "hi" to the kitty cats, the baby, his stuffed bear and doggie and the refrigerator. (yeah, he waved to the fridge... uh... hrm...)

If anyone here doesn't read Karen's blog, better known as Chookooloonks, on a regular basis, you really need to go see her video of little Alex playing with the bumble ball. I laughed and laughed and LAUGHED. And Benjamin is now getting a bumble ball for Christmas, if I can find one at Target tomorrow. ;)

This afternoon, I had to drop something off at Tom's parents' house so Ben got to see his Nan for awhile. Then we headed over to visit my mom for an hour or so. We've been treking ALL over town. Aside from a 20 minute snooze in the car on the way to Nan's house, Ben didn't go down for any sort of nap until 3'ish. He's still sleeping though, so this has worked out nicely. I got all my Christmas cards addressed and stamped, balanced my checkbook (er... made sure the balance online was sorta right) and now I think I'm going to watch me some Oprah. Wahooey! Any ideas for dinner tonight? Because I sure don't have any. Actually, I'm more lacking in motivation than in ingredients. :: sigh :: Chinese anyone? ;)
~*~

The power has been out here all afternoon thanks to some freak zillion mile an hour winds. Seriously, I think I just saw a cow fly by my window.

Anyway, I had been playing with the boy in the living room and only noticed the power was out because he laid down for his nap and I tried to plug in my laptop into to two different outlets. It kept telling me the the battery was still dead and needed to be plugged in. Once I figured out what was going on, I thought to myself, "Self... this is nice! Let's just go downstairs and get the ELECTRIC heater and settle in with a book and nice cup of tea."

Um. Yeah. I got as far as putting the mug of water in the microwave.

But wait, it gets better. I realized my stupidity and then promptly thought to myself:
"Okay self, you are dumb. Let's just get the quilt and get comfy on the sofa here and watch some trashy daytime tv."

Boy oh boy. I can't believe I am allowed out in public alone.

I gave Ben a waffle this morning. He really really REALLY liked it. He liked grabbing it, he liked mushing it in his hands, he liked biting it, and he LOVED eating it.

This whole solid foods thing is scary. He eats Cheerios and Puffs, pieces of banana, biter biscuits and zweiback toast... all under my very watchful eye. He has never really choked (gagged on a Cheerio here and there, but nothing major) but I'm just WAITING for it to happen. How do you make the transition from mush to finger food without taking years off of your life worrying about them choking?

Anyone? Anyone?