Dear Benjamin,

While you are asleep I thought I would take this time to write you and tell you how special I think you are. Tonight, when you were crying in your crib and I walked in and picked you up and you nestled your head on my shoulder, I felt so much love. In fact, I feel so much love for you that I think that isn't even the right word. Complete. My love for you is so overwhelming that I can no longer imagine my life without you in it. You will never know how much joy you bring. I love to watch you crawl around the room, and then smile as you spy me out of the corner of your eye, turn, and come moving as fast as you can toward your mama. I love that you always look at me whenever you laugh, just to make sure I'm laughing too. I knew you would be a happy baby. The other day when you woke up from your nap and you were crying, how quickly you were relieved when I came to get you! You looked me in the eyes, sighed, and then gave me the biggest giggle! Did you know your daddy rushes home from work, just so he can see you smile and hear you laugh?

I know these days won't last forever, so I try to cherish every moment. Someday you'll be older and have friends that come first in your life. You'll be embarrassed by me, or angry, or too busy. And I know I will be the only person to remember the beauty of these days. Today I picked you up and held you so tight, and I told you how my life is full of joy because of your presence. As I hugged your tiny body, I thought about how someday very soon I won't be able to bury my face in your sweet hair or kiss your little cheeks. Already you squirm out of my lap when I want to hold you. In just a short time you will only want my hugs when you're sick or hurt, and soon after that you will want to be left alone, and much too soon after that you'll be all grown up, and far away from this time together. But for now I want to stroke your face, and rub our noses together in Eskimo kisses, (they always make you giggle) and play patty-cake, and sing songs, and dance, and make funny faces, and just BE.  You and me and daddy.....just the three of us.

Benjamin, every single day with you in it is better than the day before. I love you, my precious little man.

Love,

Mama

A Day in the Life

What a beautiful day! The sun is shining and it's already 70 degrees with a Spring-like breeze. I woke up invigorated, opened the windows, and then vacuumed and dusted the whole house! Days like today remind me how much I enjoy living in Wilmington.  I know this weather is not a fluke and that Spring really is just around the corner for us. 

Mr. B. is taking a nap right now. I've been working with him on being able to drift off to sleep without me nursing him the whole time. I still read him a story and nurse him before naps, but before he goes to sleep I put him in his crib with his animals and a book. Then I turn on his white noise machine and a lullaby CD, say night night, and shut the door. The first couple of days were hard, and I would usually go back and get him out of his crib because I can't stand listening to him cry. But today (and yesterday) he just played and talked, and by the end of the 45 minute CD he was asleep. Ideally, I'd like him to take less time to fall asleep, but it's a start.  I'm so excited we've turned this corner, and I didn't have him "cry it out." I know that HE knows I'll come back and get him if he needs me. Because he's almost 10 months old, there's an element of trust there that I don't really think exists at 5 or 6 months. I've also been having Joel put him to bed at night, and that is working out really well. It's so freeing! 

This past week has been huge developmentally. Benjamin just pops up everywhere, and it's fun to see everything through his perspective. He is crawling and pulling himself up, and has figured out he can actually move from room to room. It's so funny to hear the "slap slap" of his little arms and legs as he makes his way down the hall. The whole world has opened up for him and he is happy to be here! Right now he loves to climb up the three steps from our den to the living room. At first it made me nervous, but he's a solid climber. Now we need to work on teaching him how to get down the steps. 

These are pictures from this week. It's funny to look at these and contrast them with pictures from just a month ago, when he was sitting most of the time.

He's crawling after Ladybird's ball, his new favorite toy. Yuck! Dog germs! I keep out on the porch now so he can't get it. By the way, why don't they make bright red squeak toys for babies?

Ladybird looking at Ben with her ball. She know she's not supposed to take anything from him, so she just gets depressed and has resigned herself to the fact that Mr. B. rules the roost.

This is blurry, but it's Ben and Ladybird. It's hard to keep them separated because they're both so fascinated with each other. Most of Ladybird's fascination stems from the fact that Benjamin frequently has food in his hand.

Playing the piano

Here he is at the fireplace. He's definitely not supposed to be there, and I took this picture quickly before moving him. So far I think I've said "no" and redirected his attention from here a total of 50 times, with no result. Unfortunately it's just the right height for a climbing baby. He doesn't get mad or cry when you take him away from things, but just calmly turns right around and tries again. I have to admire his focus, since I lack that in my own life!

Tired Babies

Benjamin is asleep right now, after about 3 hours of resistance. Usually he goes down for a nap with no problem at all, but sometimes he just gets in these moods, and he will NOT take no for an answer. There is every indication that he is tired and miserable, but attention must be paid! I don't know if it's a baby thing or a personality thing. Probably a little of both. Joel and I can both be pretty stubborn (Joel more than me, right honey? :)

Today he pulled himself up in his crib, and was crying--tears and a snotty nose and looking like his whole world was ending. I guess when I leave the room it does feel that way to him. So I stayed and held him, and we rocked and sang and whenever he would drift off I would wait until he was absolutely still, and then place him gently in his crib. And he would just pop up on all fours and scramble up the side of the crib, and wail for me not to leave him. So we would start over. I left at times, and at times it seemed as though he was just about to go to sleep. He would be talking to himself happily and sounding sooooo sleepy, but then the realization would set in and he just. couldn't. do it. Finally after a couple hours of alternating rocking and singing and leaving, I walked in and he was sitting in the corner of his crib, crying quietly and holding a blanket to his face, and I said "you win." 

I took him into the kitchen, and of course he was too tired to play properly. He was clumsy and fell over trying to pull himself up, and everything was grounds for a tantrum. I just cooked his food and calmly stepped over him for a few minutes, and then finally picked him up and took him back to his room. And whaddya know? He was passed out in about 30 seconds. 

Is this why moms always look so frazzled?

This post is going to be a little disjointed, because that's how I feel. Now that Ben is 9 months, we've entered into a new phase of parenting. I remember when he was just a few months old thinking that it would be really hard once I had to start setting limits and making rules. I always thought I would be a really strict mom. I would always see people with their bratty kids at the grocery store or Target, and think that's not gonna be me! Now, I don't really need to worry about that yet, but I'm starting to realize it's a lot easier to talk about setting limits than to actually do it. 

Like all babies, Ben really likes to get into EVERYTHING. Some of it is ok, and some of it isn't, but how do you decide that? I mean, he really likes to rip up paper. So recently I've found myself letting him rip up random catalogs that I don't care about, but deterring him when he tries it with magazines or books. Of course that's probably not correct. Because he doesn't know the difference between those he needs to know he can't rip up anything, or else I just need to move them all out of the way. This is what I mean. I'm afraid I'm just going to be one of those moms that calmly looks on while their child destroys things. How did I get this way? How do you decide what battles to fight? I'm tired all the time, and that contributes to me just shrugging my shoulders and letting it go. He's also started biting all the time. He bites Joel and I on our necks or shoulders, or he crawls to my leg and chomps on it. I know it's just teething, but am I supposed to say, oh he's just teething, or am I supposed to say "no" and then redirect his attention?

 My brain feels so scattered. I leave Ben in the living room to play while I get laundry from the bedroom or something, and when I come back he's crying because he fell, or he's messing with something he shouldn't. But if I stay and play with him all the time, I feel guilty about not getting things done around the house. I can't take him with me everywhere! Maybe I should, though. Is that the secret? It gets old constantly re-directing his attention from the fireplace, or books, or the tv, or electrical cords, or the hot oven. Every time I break from what I'm doing to take care of him, I lose track of everything. My days just usually end up flying by in a haze of wondering around aimlessly and starting a million projects I can't finish. I miss my ADD medication, but I can't take it because I'm still nursing. I haven't felt this bad since elementary school. I remember going into my sixth grade classroom thinking "I WILL pay attention today. I WILL NOT look out the window. I'll try REALLY REALLY hard and listen to everything the teacher says." And I would try. I would clench my teeth and stare straight ahead. And then an hour would go by and I would suddenly wake up and realize I hadn't heard anything. And I would be so frustrated and feel like crying, and think, "why am I so dumb?" The past couple of weeks have been just like that. I get to the end of the day and think, "what happened? what is the matter with me?" I realize I sound really selfish and whiny as I write this. I don't know....I guess this is the part of parenting you can't learn from a book. Sometimes I miss the days where all I had to think about was eating and sleeping and changing diapers. 

First Snow

Yep. He's definitely more of a beach type of guy.

The one moment of calm

Owen wonders why Ben is acting so crazy

Skeptical

Sick of the whooooole thing!

More 9 month photos

We're having another long day. I think Mr. B. is teething, so nap time is not going too well. He's EXHAUSTED but has only slept for about 30 minutes today so far. Of course, he just wants to be held all day, and I want to get some work done. If I put him down he has a fit, and if I pick him up he fusses. Because he's sleepy!! Why am I the only one who realizes that? *sigh*

As promised, here are some more pictures from this month. I cheated because the last two are from this morning. They were too cute not to post!

Benjamin and mama in the back yard

Trying to figure out how to sit down without falling!

Playing at Owen's house. He was SUPER excited about this toy, and would "dance" every time it played music.

This morning on our walk. How precious is this? He was looking at Joel. Daddy has become Benjamin's best friend.

Helping me unload the dishwasher

9 months

Whew! I just finally put Benjamin down for a nap. He started one this morning, but woke up too early due to his loud mama. I'm paying for my mistake, believe me! 

Hmmmm....what has Mr. B. learned this month? The past 2 weeks have been pretty big. When we visited home, Ben had started pulling himself up and cruising a little bit, but now there's no stopping him! He pulls himself up on everything and has had a few spills. One caused a little blood, and another left a smallish goose egg. (And yes, we watch him.) At this point, all we can do is try to remove dangerous items and all obstacles, and then get out of the way. We received some wonderful new toys for Christmas, but unfortunately Ben is not as interested in them as I would like. I think his thoughts go something like this:

 "These toys are nice. Blocks. Hmmm...baby doll....more bl...WHAT!!!!! Someone left a REMOTE CONTROL right here on this TABLE!!!!! Let me see if I can get to it....hmmmm.....WHAT THE!!!!! Did you know that if you MOVE this BOX and scoot under this BENCH, and then MOVE this OTHER box, and then MOVE some more stuff, there are CORDS!!!!! Just RIGHT HERE out in the OPEN!!!! My toys are AWESOME!!!!!"

So,  you get an idea of what our lives are like right now. No actual crawling yet, but Ben will crawl about 4-5 steps and then drop down to his tummy and army crawl. He's getting pretty fast at it, and will drag himself across a room in a flash. Today I saw him stick one of his arms inside his shirt sleeve for some reason, and then drag himself across the kitchen floor with the other arm like he was in a war movie. It was very dramatic. The other day I left him in our little den for about 5 minutes, TOPS, and I heard him making these frantic noises. He always says, "ee-ah, ee-ah" when he's pretty excited about something. He started to get louder so I ran across the house and had to laugh when I saw him. We have a television antenna we aren't using, but had left on top of the tv table. Benjamin had somehow dragged this huge object ( bigger than him) across the room with him, and then tried to pull himself up on the laundry basket. When I got there he was sprawled on the floor holding onto the antenna with a pile of clothes and the clothes basket on top of him. Another comical thing about Ben being able to pull himself up is that can't quite figure out how to put himself down. Most of the time he just falls, and that takes care of it. But sometime I'll glance over and he's holding onto something and looking at me with panic as his legs s-l-o-w-l-y start to spread apart into the splits. I guess he'll figure it out at some point. 

Below are a few pictures from this month. Blogger only lets me post 5 pictures at a time, but I have more I'll post tomorrow.

Ben and his best friend Owen. Don't they look mischievous?

Benjamin had such a great time playing our piano the other night. 

The oven is Mr. B.'s favorite object to pull himself up on. He gets the added bonus of seeing his reflection in the window!

I took this a few weeks ago. He had discovered the swiffer and was doing a little dance. Now it's one his obsessions.

This is his other favorite place in the house. I've since put his measuring cups and other "toys" in the bottom drawer. He usually goes straight for this spot whenever he's in the kitchen.