Update + water/sand table photos.

Ben's doing great. He's keeping me so busy that I hardly have time to update anymore. He's becoming much more physically active since he learned to walk. He walks pretty much everywhere, unless we're playing a game of "I'm gonna get you" in which case he drops and crawls full-speed ahead giggling his head off.

Ben doesn't have many words, although we're convinced he's said or starting to say the following: bath, up, car, and bye. The cats remain "beh" or "bay".

He loves cars, so I suppose it's a good thing we have a fair amount of traffic out front of the house. Every since he was really wee he's loved watching the cars drive by, and it's a sure-fire way to settle him if he's a bit out of sorts. These days, however, if we're standing on the step he chirps with delight at each car as it passes by. It's adorable.

His comprehension is great. If he's not distracted he'll follow simple, single command requests, like "find a block/ball" or "give to Mommy, please" -- if he's distracted then there's no hope. ha!

One of his favourite pasttimes is crawling all over Mommy and Daddy. He also likes to try to sit on our heads. Not sure what message he's trying to send! ;)

Ben also likes to see what he can and cannot fit into. We find him in cupboards, various sized toy bins, and even trying to sit on top of his toy cars.

He loves his riding toy buggy from Granny and Granddad Bloomfield. He pushes himself around the house, but he much prefers to lift his feet up so that Mommy and Daddy can push him back and forth across a room.

When Ben gets excited he does what I like to call "cartwheels" -- I'll have to capture some video because it's hard to describe, but basically he gets up on his hands and feet and flips his bum through the air... if I say "wheeee!" he'll keep going, then he gets dizzy and tries to walk. Too funny.

Lastly, we finally have some nice weather around here so I was able to set up his sand/water table on the deck yesterday. What a mess! Ben sure had a blast throwing sand everywhere, and of course, relocating the sand in the water side of the table. Here are some pics:

No MMR vaccine for Ben... yet.

Ben had an appointment with his allergist this morning regarding the MMR (mumps-measles-rubella) vaccination. The allergist injected a bit under Ben's skin to see if he'd react (along with a control and a blank), and unfortunately Ben did have the tiniest of tiny reactions. As a result the allergist doesn't want to administer the vaccine in one go. So now the options are to either:

a) have the vaccine injected in dilute amount in a series of ten shots over a period of 2.5 hours

or

b) wait and see if Ben outgrows the egg white allergy that's causing his reaction

We're leaning towards the latter; there's no urgent need for Ben to have this vaccine, and not having his MMR will not affect his immunization schedule.

So that's today's news.

Video of Ben walking :)

Ben's doing really well walking. I love watching him get around. He's a little wobbly, but always gets back up and tries again (as you'll see). It's so cute how he immediately puts his hands to his chest when he walks; I guess it's a security thing. And he's learning to independantly stand. He's figuring it out pretty quickly and is quite steady getting to his feet.

Anyway, here's some video of Ben walking yesterday.