Thursday, December 31, 2009

2009: Ben's year in numbers

2 - Number of weddings he attended.

4 - Number of haircuts he received.

5 - Number of great-grandparents he met.

8 - Number of states he entered: Arizona, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky [very briefly], Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin (he's already more worldly at 16 months than a lot of the people I went to school with)

9 - Number of words he learned to say: Mama, Dada, no, cat, dog, cheese, go, shoes and boo (which means "moo" - he says it when you ask what a cow says).

1,235,321 - Number of compliments he received on his hair.

Infinite - Number of times he's hit his head.


Happy New Year's!

Tuesday, December 29, 2009

I want a hippopatomus for Christmas

I love holidays in our family. Everyone gets along and there's relatively little drama. Thus, we spent Christmas eating, drinking, opening presents, watching A Christmas Story as many times as possible, playing games and enjoying being together. While it makes for a wonderful weekend, it doesn't necessarily make for an exciting blog post. Here are a few tid bits, anyway.

We spent Christmas day with Heath's family. Ben was more into ripping open presents than even three months ago on his birthday. That was fun to watch. Obviously he doesn't "get" the idea of Christmas yet, but he loved playing with all his new toys. I thought we could get him to play elf and hand everyone their presents, but that wasn't happening. Maybe next year. He also really warmed up to his Uncle Chad. Chad lives in Colorado, so Ben's only seen him a few times. However, Chad really made it his mission to get on Ben's good list, dishing out as much tickling, rough-housing and as many silly faces as Ben could handle. By the end of the day they were buddies. My brothers and I don't have much extended family we're close to, so I don't know what it's like to grow up with uncles, aunts and cousins around. It really means a lot to me that Chad took the time to get to know Ben while he had the chance. I'm excited for Ben to grow up in a close-knit family.

On December 26, my parents, brother and sister-in-law came to our house for Christmas. It was our first time hosting a major holiday. Nothing was burned and nobody suffered food poisoning so I considered it a success. I also got to pull a classic childhood prank on Ian. For various reasons, this year we decided not to exchange presents with my side of the family. Ian was sort of the impetus for that, so we got a big box and wrapped up some raisins for him. At least this time I didn't trick him into buying me a real present. And the raisins were chocolate covered.

So our Christmas was everything a great Christmas should be: delicious, warm and filled with laughter. I always forget to take pictures while we're in the middle of things, but Heath got me a sweet new digital camera, so hopefully that will change.

Happy New Year, everyone!

Monday, December 21, 2009

What Ben got for Christmas: Two ear infections! :(

Thursday night Ben had a fever. We weren't too alarmed, because almost two weeks prior he'd received shots which the doctor said might cause a fever in about two weeks. So we figured it was just his vaccines kicking in. Friday he was fine, but then Saturday the fever came back with a vengeance. He hung out with us on the couch all day and napped for a total of 4.5 hours. He was feverish most of the day but it broke before bed. Sunday he seemed fine. His temperature was normal, he was running around and playing and he went to bed easily. Then around 11:45pm he woke up SCREAMING. Heath was still awake, but it woke me up, even with a fan on for white noise. Heath ended up sleeping with him in the guest room, where he tossed and turned a lot of the night.

So we went to the doctor this morning and he has infections in both ears. According to the doctor they're "really bad." She said it hurt her to even look at the one in his left ear. Poor Benny. We've acquired strong antibiotics ($44!!) and have another doctor's appointment in 10 days. Hopefully he'll be feeling better by this weekend, so he can enjoy Christmas.

Friday, December 18, 2009

Wave of the future, wave of the future, wave of the future...

I remember when I was younger sitting down at the computer to write and popping in a CD before I started. I'd hear the notes of the first song and then seemingly only minutes would go by and I'd hear the CD end. I was concentrating so intensely I didn't even hear the music.

Heath told me a similar story about himself. In elementary school his class went down to the library. He picked out his book and then sat down to read while waiting for everyone else. Some time later he looked up and the library was deserted. He walked back to class, where the teacher informed him they'd called his name and even touched him to get his attention, but he never noticed.

Given that, it's no surprise to me that Ben has inherited the same type of focus. Sure, sometimes he has the attention span of a gnat, but other times he concentrates so strongly it's amazing. He has a small, plastic train that came with several Little People figures, a tiger, giraffe and zookeeper. I've seen him play with that train and those figures for up to an hour and all he does is put the tiger in one car, put the giraffe in another and put the zookeeper in the smoke stack. Then he looks at them for a second and he moves them around to different spots. For an hour. An hour in toddler time is like a day in adult time (and often it feels like a day to me).

He's also incredibly meticulous. Lately a lot of his playing has involved lining up toys or arranging them in a specific way. One day I found that he'd taken Heath's and my sneakers and put them all in a very straight line. They were so neat I couldn't believe he'd done it, aside from the fact that they were lined up on a dining room chair. That's not normally where we leave our sneakers.

Fears about having an OCD child aside, it's exciting to finally start seeing some of my traits shine through Ben. Heath and I feel like we're on the edge of OCD ourselves, anyway. I wonder if you can buy family packs of Prozac at Sam's?

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Daddy's boy

Ben has always been a Daddy's boy to the point that sometimes he won't even let me hold him if Heath's home. For the most part I understand. He sees me all the time, but Daddy's only home sometimes so he has to take advantage of that when he can.

Well, last night before Heath got home I was letting Ben help me make dinner. We were making zucchini chips, which involved putting zucchini slices into a bowl of milk and then into a bowl of breadcrumbs. Ben absolutely loved putting them in the milk and he made a relatively small mess, compared to what I was expecting. So Heath came home in the middle of that and Ben didn't even blink an eye. He was all about the zucchini chips. When we were finished Heath tried to pick him up and Ben started crying. Then he lunged for me and wouldn't let Heath take him. I think he was mostly mad about not having any more zucchini chips to dunk, but I have to admit it made my heart swell to be the favored parent, even if only for a minute.

Monday, December 14, 2009

Bad Blogger! Bad!

I apologize for the lack of content lately. It's been a stressful few weeks in the Borders household for a number of reasons, not the least of which is TEETHING. Ben has some molars coming in and they're taking their sweet ol' time getting here. In the meantime this means lots of drooling and chewing on things and lots of restless nights. Heath has been taking the brunt of the bad nights, sleeping with Ben in the guest room because I cannot do more than drowse when I'm in bed with Ben.

We're also in transition from two naps to one. Holy crap do I hate transition times. It throws the whole routine out of wack and I thrive on my routine. We'd been doing the two nap thing for at least seven months when about two weeks ago Ben decided that was for suckers. Now I never know what I'm going to get. Sometimes he takes two naps, sometimes only one. Sometimes he takes one 30 minute nap and then a two hour nap. Sometimes it's two 90 minute naps. Sometimes it's one one-hour nap, which are the days I have the urge to e-mail all my friends without kids and talk about the positive aspects of sterilization. Spending 13+ hours with a toddler and having only one break long enough to shower and maybe eat lunch is crazy making.

So, those two situations don't exactly put me in the blogging frame of mind. However, things seem to be calming down a bit (fingers crossed). Hopefully Ben's teeth will pop through soon and I'll think of some more funny things to write about.

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

New stats!

Ben had his 15 month check up on Saturday:

Weight: 27.14 lbs - 85th percentile
Height: 32 in. - 90th percentile
Head: 50cm - 97th percentile

He's only gained six ounces since his birthday, which is by far his smallest weight gain and has caused him to drop from 96th percentile to 85th. He's grown one inch, staying steady in the 90th percentile. His head is still ginormous, meaning that it's a pain to put on his shirts in the morning. In fact, this weekend we had to retire a perfectly good shirt that fits him in all other aspects, simply because it was too hard to pull over his head.

Ben didn't take his shots too well this time, but he did get four of them, poor guy. He's almost done with immunizations, though! The doctor said he'll have two at his 18 month visit and only one at his two year visit. Then we go down to only one check up a year. That'll be kind of sad, because I really like his pediatrician. He makes you feel like your kid is his favorite patient EVER and he's so sincere you almost believe it.

Monday, December 7, 2009

Recipe for ripped biceps

Ingredients:
(1) 8+ pound newborn who grows at a quick clip (preferably 15 pounds by two months)
(1) Stay-at-home mom who does most of the baby carrying

Mix ingredients for a year and admire results.

Friday, December 4, 2009

Rent-a-toddler

Tuesday night we went to Olive Garden for dinner. There wasn't anything spectacular about the meal. We didn't save anyone from choking or leave a gigantic tip or anything. But as we were walking out the hostess stopped Heath. She cooed and laughed at Ben for a minute and then she gave Heath a coupon for $5 off our next meal.

Apparently all you have to do to get free coupons is bring a cute toddler. This has money-making possibilities...