A trip to the park

We took a trip to the park with our friends Mary Kate and Nick. Ben wanted to show off some of his "one hand" walking.

Then he wanted to walk over a bridge, he was surprised to find Daddy underneath him.

Finally Marina and I both agree that slides are an important part of a boy's development.

Cake!

To nobody's surprise, Ben loves Cake. I wanted to share with you a collection of Ben's favourite moments.





Yes? Can I help you?






He's terribly efficient.






Where did the cake go?






Cake beard.

Birthday party

We had a lovely party at a local park. About half a dozen lovely parents came with their kids.
.

A year ago right now Ben was still not born, we were in the labour room bone tired and weary. He was just a few hours away from appearing.

It's very odd to think that he's been with us for a year.

July 2010
Tiny and pink.

August 2010
Still so new we were terrified of breaking him.

September 2010.
Still a raisin.

October 2010
Starting to have a personality.

November 2010
Breaking hearts already.

December 2010
International traveler

January 2011
Discovering swings and snow.

February 2011
Food you say?

March 2011
Little boy

April 2011
Ben really discovers volume

May 2011
He's a handsome devil.

June 2011
Helping us move house.

July 2011
Where did this grown up boy come from?

This time a year ago, Ben didn't exist.

It barely seems possible, now.

Here enjoying a little Elevenses, after his morning nap.

So, so grown up now. I keep remembering last year. He was induced on the Tuesday afternoon and arrived on the Wednesday at lunchtime. I can't get my head around Ben going from being not-here to here. I couldn't get my head around it at the hospital, and it still doesn't feel possible that he once wasn't part of our lives, that we once weren't a family.

We've decided that our family could grow by at least another 25%. And a cat. But not this year. My dissertation will be my baby this academic year. And then I'll perhaps steel myself to go through pregnancy again! Childbirth wasn't a big deal for me - lucky me - but pregnancy made me sick, exhausted, and as of yet I have no desire to repeat the experience. If only Tom would stop dithering about and do it!

Bedtime routine

Ben's bedtime routine has become pretty regular.

At around 6pm he has dinner. This can be any of a number of dishes he likes, often yesterday's leftovers from Mummy and Daddy's meal, but it always ends with "pudding." This is a mixture of baby-rice and ready-brek like oatmeal that he loves. No matter how unhappy he is with life or tired there is always room for pudding.
After pudding we go to the bath. Ben is not very good at baths, he has no interest in playing. Why would he play when he can stand! So he stands most of the time holding one of Daddy's or Mummy's hands while they wash him. Occasionally he falls down with a splash, but seems unable to appreciate how funny this is, or why Daddy is laughing at him.
After the bath he is wrapped in his towels, the same one as this (but the photo is slightly out of date... by about 10 months) he has a good smile at "mirror baby" then is whisked upstairs to be dried and dressed.
Once dressed he and Mummy have a good nurse on the bed. This has become slightly less important to him and it often ends with him crawling off to go and press the buttons on the Air-Conditioning unit. When this happens Daddy is summoned via the baby-monitor and Ben gets put in his crib.
Putting him in his crib at this point is a new development. He gets his stories read to him with him sitting in there, this minimizes the screaming when he gets moved and also allows him to start falling asleep during story time. There are many books he likes a lot: "Room on the Broom" is a great one (given by some lovely cousins) and "Mr. Brown can Moo, can you?" is the absolute favourite. However, we always end with "The going to bed book" and then "Goodnight Moon." At the end of that one Daddy turns the light off and gently pushes him onto his front, before creeping away with (hopefully) no crying. These days, when done well, there is no crying at all.

Cause and effect boy.

Ben has mastered cause and effect.

Dancing boy

Ben has a new toy that plays music and lights when he hits a button. This is mostly used so he can get his groove on.

Wonderful bed-hair

Todays nap came with top quality bed hair.

Hot cross Ben

The temperature here rose to well over 100 F yesterday, Ben is not a fan of this weather.

He IS a fan of his newest trick - Big boy drinking from mummy's glass.

Things Ben was chewing

A new category for this blog, one which I think will grow and grow.

"Things Ben was chewing when I turned around from the computer to check on him."

so far this afternoon:
(1) My phone
(2) His nail clippers.
(3) The xbox controller.

Not the lovely maracas with cute painted owls on them, or the shiny new toys that came from toygaroo this week. Of course not.

Unsupervised strawberries

What were we thinking? This picture does not do justice to the coating the works got.  Mushed strawberry on his outfit, his socks, his shoes, the carpet...

Hiding indoors

Today we will mostly be hiding indoors. The world outside is way too hot to deal with.

One of the ways we deal with this is with frequent visits to my school. The big air-conditioned hallways make excellent runs for an active boy. Sadly my classroom is currently being refurbished so we cannot hang out in there, but we do the rounds saying "hello" to all the staff, and giving them either huge smiles or wails of disapproval depending on how long we've been there.

Ben is a big fan of our new Technology Director, who thankfully has kids of his own and is used to the baby latching onto his leg. I think a lot of Ben's love for him is down to his room; which is a treasure trove of motherboards, old laptops and circuitry, all of which Ben loves!

Here we see Ben giving his car a brief tune-up while eating something which I promise is not chocolate (it might be cocoa-frozen bananas, but they're ok right?)

Standing up boy

Amazing standing up boy in the garden. We bought him a water table and it is just the best thing in the world.
Apologies for the poor quality video.

The dogfood update.

I found him eating from the dog's bowl this morning. With real relish- he protested loudly when I picked him up and tried to scrape the food out of his mouth. He also found my noises of disgust hilarious.

We've been buying the pricey dogfood since we adopted Polly two years ago. Now I see why: because it's delicious!

I had mentally classified this as a new parenting low, but a friend reframed it by saying "ah, now you can hold this over him all his life! When he's a lippy teen you can say "well you liked eating dogfood! Hah? Now who's so cool?"

Parenting seems to be mainly a matter of keeping your sense of humour intact.