Well, his first day of daycare went ok. He was fine until he realized Joe was leaving, and then the waterworks started. But they assured us that soon after he stopped crying, and when I picked him up, he was playing happily on the floor. He also reportedly ate pasta with tomato soup and pieces of grilled cheese, so at least he wasn't hungry :) So the first day was a success, and here's hoping the rest of the week goes as well! I did a photo shoot of Ben over the weekend, and I love getting to work in natural light. It comes out so much better than the low light lamps I usually have :) I also tried to get some cute "valentine" shots, but of course, I don't really have the right backgrounds here, and trying to get Ben to pose by himself is impossible. Especially when he then tries to feed the heart picture I printed out to the dog :)
We'll try for another valentine's day photo shoot this weekend... hopefully with better props ;)
Ben starts his new daycare today! He is in "transition week" so today and tomorrow are half days (I pick him up at 12:30) and then Thursday and Friday are full days. He's used to getting two naps a day, so switching to this new schedule will be rough. But hopefully within a week or two he'll be napping like a champ. It's a full fledged daycare center (he was in an in-home before), and the teacher/child ratio is 1 to 3 (sometimes there are 13 kids in the class, so one teacher, usually the head teacher, will have 4 kids). They follow a "montessori" type atmosphere, and in the one-year-old room where the kids are 12-22 months old they don't follow a strict schedule, other than food and napping. As he gets older, they have a 2-year-old room, and then preschool starts at 3 and 4. The center got rave reviews from the moms in my neighborhood, and a friend of ours also used to work there and can vouch for their awesomeness :)
Anyway, that's the big news for this week! Ben is doing spectacular... we thought he had an ear infection last week, but when we dragged him into the doctor's office, she didn't see any redness or inflammation. She did say that there was fluid building up in there, and that the pressure could be causing him pain, but to wait on the antibiotics because it wasn't infected *yet*. She told us that if in 24-48 hours if it wasn't better, to then give him the medicine. Well, two days later, Ben is still not himself and acting like he's in pain, so we filled the prescription and treated him with antibiotics. I did notice that his molars are still coming in, so I suspect that it might have been his teeth and NOT his ears... or a combo of both that were causing him all the pain. But with his history of infections, we went the safe route. I don't like giving him antibiotics because I'm well aware that he can develop a tolerance for it, so hopefully this is the last ear related problem of the season!
Since I had a holiday from work yesterday, I was able to take some photos of Ben, and even shoot a video where he shows off his standing and crawling skills. So yeah, all those worries that he was behind? Totally pointless. So here's a moment in the day in the life of Ben:
He's a crawling/standing machine! :) We think he says words for "cat" and "truck" and "car" but can't tell for sure yet. In other news, there are two things right now that bring poor Ben to instant tears. One is the green "Scout" puppy his Aunt Danielle got him for Christmas. If you hit the "lullaby" music, he hears 3 notes and instantly puckers his lip and lets the tears roll. At first I just thought it was a coincidence, but nope, it's EVERY time. The second is a commercial for Bud Light. If anyone is familiar with their "too light, too heavy" campaign, you may have seen the one where the guy goes to a backyard barbeque and jumps out of giant head with fireworks. That commercial brings terrified SCREAMS and tears... I guess from a kid's perspective it IS a little terrifying. Watch the commercial below:
So we have to be careful not to hit any lullaby music or censor the TV commercials unless we're ready for some waterfalls. Poor guy!
Well, hopefully I'll have good news to report after his first week at daycare, and I'll be posting new photos soon!
Well, it's officially been a year of meetups with my fellow Mamistad ladies :) We met through a local group for "new moms" while we were pregnant, and now our kiddos have known each other for a full year! So from this:
To this, last Saturday (only Lily, Jude, and Ben made it):
Looking forward to the new year, and lots of exciting outings now that the babies are mobile! :)
What a great holiday! Before we left, Ben was still doing the army crawl, not pulling up completely, and nowhere near able to walk. Over the break, he blew through so many milestones, it was crazy! He's now a fast hands and knees crawler, pulls up on everything (including me), stands in his crib, and will walk while holding onto my hands! I couldn't believe it! We're so proud, and I definitely think he will be walking in the next two months. His molars came in, so we are just all sorts of grown up around here :)
I finally got all the photos off my camera and uploaded online, and as you can see, we had a great time with my friends and family over vacation :) I think I'm still missing a few photos, but I wanted to get up the ones I could:
Christmas in Michigan:
Late Christmas and New Year's Eve in New York:
Watching 3 Stooges Marathon with Grandpa Bob on New Year's Eve :)
And then we took Ben out for his first taste of the snow! :) His boots didn't quite fit, so standing wasn't possible, but we were able to pull him around in a box on a sled! :) He loved it!
Looking forward to the spring, and his first steps!
Birth: 11 lbs 7oz - 21 in
2 weeks: 11 lbs 5oz - 22.5 in
1m: 14 lbs - 23in
2m: 15 lbs 8 oz - 25 in
3m: 17 lbs 8 oz - 26 in
4m: 18 lbs 4 oz - 26.25 in
5m: 19 lbs - 28 in
6m: 20 lbs 1 oz - 28.75 in
7m: 21 lbs 7 oz - ? in
8m: 22 lbs - ? in
9m: 22 lbs 7 oz - 30 in
10m: 24 lbs - ? in
11m: 25 lbs - ? in
12m: 24 lbs 11 oz - 31.5 in
15m: 28 lbs 6 oz - 33.25 in
