Wow. I seriously don't know where to begin with what's happening in the world of our precious Ben. He is six months old and is such a sweetheart!!! He is 29in tall (98th%) and 17lbs (45th%) - almost identical to his percentiles at birth.
Ben is now sitting up, babbling more, rolling onto his tummy to sleep, rolling over and over again to get across the floor to follow a ball, trying to pull himself into a sitting position, associating words and objects like Mommy, Daddy, and doggie.
Ben has an adorable laugh that melts our hearts. He loves peek a boo, and the other day I was popping out from behind the kitchen counter to entertain him.
We just got him a highchair, and he is sitting up in that no problem. He also sits in the seat of shopping carts now, and goes directly into his stroller instead of being in the carseat.
We have taken Ben in the pool several times, and he loves it. He is a very chill waterbaby. He just hangs out in his float and looks around. For most of his life, he has just quietly observed the water, but we just taught him he could splash, so he's getting into that now.
The past month has brought a lot of new changes in Ben's eating as well. He's eating rice cereal, avocado, banana, sweet potatoes, peas, squash, plums, carrots, green beans, pears and blueberries.
Ben is on an AWESOME schedule, and we are so grateful for this. He has been sleeping ~12 hours through the night for a couple months now, but we just recently dropped the "dreamfeed", so now he truly is sleeping all that time, instead of me getting him up to nurse before I go to bed. Lately we have really gotten into a dependable routine ... wake ~7am, nurse & breakfast (cereal & fruit), nap ~9am, 11am nurse & lunch (fruit & veggie), ~1pm nap, ~3:30pm nurse, ~5pm dinner (cereal, fruit & veggie), ~6:30pm nurse & bed.
Ben, you are such a beautiful spirit, and we are incredibly proud of the ways you are growing and changing. You learn new things every day, and your innocent curiosity reminds us to appreciate the little things in life. We love you higher than the sky and deeper than the sea. It is an honor to be your parents. You are our little angelfacepreciouspants!!! :)
Uncle Patrick, or "Puncle" as we affectionately call him ;) graduated from THE Ohio State University last weekend. Ben and I went up a week early to spend time with CiCi, Grandpa, G-Gma and G-Gpa. Colin just got back from Afghanistan a couple weeks ago, and he was able to come for a visit too - it was a GREAT, big family reunion. WOW what a fun time we all had! We went to the zoo, the mall, the park, practiced sitting, played with new toys, read Green Eggs and Ham to Ben for the first time (my fav kids book), tried peas for the first time (Ben's fav food yet!), went for walks, played with the dogs, took a sink bath for the first time, had a family cookout, an open house party for Patrick and Colin, and went to Columbus for Pat's commencement ceremony. Phew! Here are some pix to tell the story :)
One of my favorite Benjamin-Mommy moments happened today. I was pushing Ben through the store in his stroller. He was facing me and I could tell he was watching me as I shopped. So I started playing with him by pretending to look at items and then turning in towards him and saying "wha!" kind of like a peekaboo/surprise thing. He burst out laughing every time! Neither of us could get enough of it. I tried to take a video with my phone, but he only did a full laugh a couple times when I was videoing because he was half paying attention to the phone.
This is the first time he has laughed without some sort of tickle/physical contact, and it really felt like he was reaching a new stage - he seemed older somehow because he is now finding humor/joy in a social interaction. As we checked out, another shopper who had seen/heard Ben earlier during his laughing jag said to her daughter, "Look sweetie, there's the laughing baby!"
Benjamin has been busy trying new foods lately! He had avocados last week and he did pretty well with those, although he spit up quite a bit. I think we'll come back to those in a few weeks. We started bananas Monday, and he is really enjoying them, though he likes it mixed with his rice cereal. I think straight bananas are too sweet for him at this point, which is fine with me because I don't want him to develop a preference for sweets - we have lots of veggies yet to introduce! His tummy is handling bananas well, and I think they will become a mainstay in his diet. Tomorrow he will try sweet potatoes for the first time ... it is so fun to prepare and serve him new foods!
Ever since Ben was born, he has had a high-pitched shriek like a Pterodactyl. As a newborn, it was the start to his cries, now it's how he practices his vocal range. We even call him Pterry sometimes because of his ear piercing noises - haha. Here he is a couple days ago making his Pterry noises :) There is also a big burp about halfway through - cracks me up every time.
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