Happy Hallowe'en!

Here's Ben meeting his little pumpkin (Mommy and Daddy carved bigger ones last night):

Ben in his bee costume:

Ben meets the candy bowl (no, he didn't actually eat any!):
Aaaand, someone's had enough picture taking for one day:

Happy Hallowe'en, everyone!

10 months old and finally a tummy sleeper :)

Ben had a wonderful day to mark his ten months. Granny and Granddad Bloomfield came up for a visit, he had three naps instead of two, *and* a first - he's sleeping on his tummy, entirely of his own doing.

I just went in to check on Ben and found him sleeping on his tummy. I have never seen him sleep on his tummy, aside from his first few of weeks of life when he slept on me all the time. I couldn't believe it. His room was dark and I couldn't see much... I thought he still had his pacifier in his mouth so I reached in to pluck it and found myself tugging on his ear. Ha!

Ben's been working so hard to become more mobile, and finally he's rolling around, becoming more confident in his ability to move. And I understand that this might not seem like a big deal at Ben's age, but this is a real accomplishment for our Wee 'B', and I'm just overflowing with pride.

I also think he might be cutting his 12 month molars a little early. His cheeks were very red today, particularly this afternoon, and he's been gnawing on his fingers like mad the past week or so. He's also woken up through the night, very upset, which is pretty unusual for Ben.

Kleenex and toothy smiles

A few pictures I took of Ben today. :)

Hm. A box of Kleenex.
Whee! This is fun!
I wonder how it tastes...

Oh. Not so good.

And here's Ben showing off his chompers:

Bought Ben's Hallowe'en costume today.

And it's exactly what I've been looking for. It's adorable and fits him perfectly. He looks oh-so-cute in it.

But, as much as I would love to share it with you, you're going to have to wait until Hallowe'en to see it. :P

Nekkid Ben!

Ben loves being naked... he also likes trying to check out his own bum!

Benjamin sporting his new winter hat

Thanks to Andi's mom, Carol, for knitting Ben this wonderful toque. He just looks absolutely adorable in it! We went out in the yard yesterday to test it out.

My boy's a bum scooter :)

Ben has been favouring scooting over crawling. We've seen him move short distances, but never with any real intent or purpose (that we were aware of), but this morning I saw him scoot around (slowly, mind you, but scooting nonetheless!!) and really working for toys out of his reach. In fact, he worked his way off his play mat, over the the console table to get out his drum kit that was underneath, then I watched him open it up and take out all the toys to play with.

Here's the master of disaster in action this morning:



And I know I've mentioned that Ben can put balls into his dino, but I've learned that he really understands me when I tell him to do so. When I tell Ben to "put the ball in the hole" he grabs a ball and puts it into his dino. And when I asked him to find a ball this morning he looked around, then fished one out of his basket. He looked so pleased, and in case you can't tell, I'm incredibly proud of my little man.

Ben has learned to use his Fisher Price dino

After about 2 months of me showing Ben how to put the RollARounds in the holes to make the dino play music and make it light up he's done it for himself! Yay Ben!! I didn't get any pictures of him actually doing it because I was busy clapping and sharing in the excitement of it all. I do, however, have a picture of Ben after beheading his dino. What a little barbarian.

I can't believe it...

We're going to have to retire the Jumperoo soon. It's weigh limit is 25 lbs. Boo!

At least we'll regain some floor space. It looks like Ben's exersaucers are good up to 40 lbs though, so yay for that. We don't really use them very often anymore though. Most of Ben's playtime is spent on the floor and has been since he started sitting independantly at 6 months.

Happy 1st birthday, Cooper!

We can't believe how quickly your first year has passed, little man, and we've all enjoyed being a part of it. Happy BIG ONE, Cooper! Lots of love and hugs from Benjamin, Leanne, and Nic. xoxox

Babytime at the local public library

I have just signed Ben and I up for Babytime at the local public library. It starts tomorrow and runs every Wednesday (10.30-11am) for 8 weeks. Here's their description of the programme:

An interactive program for you and your baby, this eight week program includes songs, a variety of active rhymes and puppets, for the baby 6 – 23 months of age.

Ben should love it, especially the puppets. Ben loves puppets. A little bit earlier or later in the day would work better, but I think we can swing it. It'll be great for him to get into a group with other babies, and a half hour session is very reasonable.

I tried to sign us up for Parent/Child Mother Goose at our local OEYC, but I unfortunately received conflicting information. I was told to wait for the next sign up date (which is today) but when I phoned I was told we needed to get on a waiting list, and the waiting list is so long that we'd have no hope getting into the program this year, and since it's for babies up to 1 year of age Ben will be too old next year. Bah.

I suppose the benefit to missing out on the Mother Goose programme is that I've discovered all kinds of things offered at the library. There are a number of music programmes too. Ben really loves music, so I will try to get Ben into something like that once we finish with Babytime.

Ben's 9 month doctor appointment

I forgot to update the blog with this information, so here it is. Better late than never, right?

The doctor was quite pleased with Ben. Was happy to see that his rash is completely gone (and has been for a few months now.) We've recently switched his formula back from Good Start 2 to Enfapro A+ so hopefully we don't see a resurgence. Ben's been eating bits of dairy, mainly cheese, and a small taste of ice cream when he lunged at my cone of vanilla soft-serve the other day (it's fair to say Ben likes ice cream), so we figure he's digesting casein and whey proteins with no problem. Of course, the volume of these whole cow's milk proteins significantly increases with the formula, so we're watching to see, and we'll revert back to Good Start 2 if we need to.

Ben was in great spirits for his doctor. The doctor seems to get quite a kick out of him. Ben was laughing and smiling, and jumping in my lap. He cried, however, when he was startled by the doctor quickly unraveling the paper to cover the examination table.

Ben also performed his first impromptu clap at the doctor's office (happily, not like the video in my last post... ha!) The only clapping I'd seen up until then was clapping I'd prompted.

Anyway, let's get down to the nitty gritty, shall we? Ben is weighing in at a hefty and healthy 24 lbs. That puts him around 75th percentile. I found it hard to believe that 25% of babies Ben's age were heavier than him until I saw a 25 pounder yesterday who was only 7 months old. Huge! And while I don't recall Ben's specific height measurement, percentile-wise he's ~70-75th percentile, so he's all around well-proportioned. And he's dropped in percentile quite a bit, down from 95th+ for the longest time. Big or small though, so long as he's healthy, percentiles are just statistics, which we refuse to get hung up on.

So that's it! Ben's doing great. He's healthy, generally a happy, content little boy. And we're seeing more sides of his personality every day.

Oh, and he and his buddy Cooper are so much more interactive. It's a lot of fun watching them play together, steal one another's toys, and chatter to each other as if they've something really important to discuss. They're very cute together. And I think Ben's learning more about mobility by watching Cooper move around (he's like Visa - everywhere you want to be!)

And one last thing I almost forgot! Ben has started saying "mum-mum"... it's meaningless chatter for now, but he's been saying "dadadada" for some time now, so I figured this was noteworthy. ;)

A couple of Ben videos

Ben's not crawling yet, but he does get around. He's been doing this for the better part of a month:



And while most most babies clap when they're happy, not my boy!

9 month update (a little late)

Ben turned 9 months on September 27th. It's incredible how quickly these months have passed. It still seems like we brought Ben home yesterday. Seriously.

Since Ben's a little on the big side (I'll get his exact measurements on Thursday when he has his check-up... he is ~23 lbs now though) he's not as mobile as some babies are at this age. Oh, but he's trying. He's rolling around now, although he needs a reminder now and again as to how to return from his tummy to his back. Sometimes at night he'll roll to his belly in his sleep and it scares him and he starts to cry. Poor little guy. I'm told this phase doesn't last long, and fortunately it really hasn't messed with his sleep much. The rolling at night tends to happen around 10.30pm and I'm usually still up, so it hasn't messed with my sleep much either. :)

And Ben really would like to crawl. He pushes himself around on his belly backwards using his hands. Sometimes, using his feet, he'll push himself backwards while sitting. If we're out and don't have a highchair available I'll feed him sitting on the floor. We generally start out on one side of the room and end up on the other. He's started getting his bum in the air these past couple of weeks, so it won't be long before we're chasing him around the house.

I've also started working on having Ben drop a nap. He was napping three times a day, but yesterday and today I've been able to successfully space his naps out enough so that he's only having two naps without getting overly crotchety. So far it's working out really well.

I have a plethora of pictures to post, but I'm beginning to get annoyed with some of the Blogspot limitations (it's a free service, so I guess I can't complain too much), so I'll have to upload them tonight or tomorrow night once the monkey's in bed.

And here are the plethora of pics I promised. Since Blogspot isn't cooperating with me I've just added the html myself.