Ben Update (Chrissy)

It's really cool all the things that babies can do once they hit 3 months. My job as a developmental therapist includes testing kids 0-5 to see where they are developmentally. A few weeks ago I brought one of our test booklets home (I had to write a report for a child a little older than Ben) to see where he was. What, I was curious! :)

There are 5 areas that we test children in. They are: gross motor, fine motor, cognitive, speech, and self-help social/adaptive. Ben is exactly where he needs to be with gross motor and fine motor skills, and a month ahead in cognitive, speech, and self-help social. I'm so proud of my little guy! All kids develop at their own pace, though, so even if Ben was behind in any area, I really wouldn't be worried. It just depends on when things click for them. I've seen kids at our center increase 4 months in skills in 1 month's time before. Pretty impressive.

I LOVE how much Ben smiles now. I can get him to smile whenever I talk to him (depending on his mood of course. And also, if you're specifically trying to show someone how he smiles, he probably won't do it. It's his goal to prove mama a liar.) Ben slept all the way through the night again last night. He's such a good sleeper. You'd think I'd feel less tired today with him having slept all night, but the thing you don't think about is that it's a habit to wake up and check on Ben when he hasn't woken you up. It's hard for me to get out of the worry mode...is he still breathing? What if his blanket is suffocating him? Ben also has a little aquarium toy that hangs off the side of his cradle. It plays music and lights up with bubbles when you turn it on. And Ben has figured out how to turn it on. And off. And back on again. And back off again. At first I thought he was doing it on accident, but then I watched him for a while, and I could see his little hand clumsily reaching up and slapping the power button on the front. He usually chooses 5am for aquarium fun time, which stinks because it's 30 minutes before my alarm goes off and I can't go back to sleep because Ben starts talking to Jumbalaya (the fake fish in his tank), plus the music and bubble sounds from the aquarium. As annoying as it seems, I still think it's cute, even while it's happening. I'll sacrafice 30 minutes of sleep for listening to a happy baby.

Ben and I were playing earlier and he was laughing and grabbing a squeaky toy out of my hand. When he brings things up to his face his eyes cross when he tries to focus on it. It's so cute! I also like his little laugh. It's like a cough-squeal. I can't wait for him to start giggling. Baby laughs are one of the best things in the world!

Mult-Tasking Mama (Chrissy)

Saturday is the day I do my heavy duty cleaning. So every Saturday I do all the laundry, vacuuming, bathroom cleaning, and decluttering the house needs. If Ben is having a good day then I can get all this done in about 6 hours. If he's very needy, then sometimes I have to finish some stuff on Sunday, which is my work day (reports and paperwork from Civitan). Today was a good day for Ben. If he cried for a bottle, then I propped a bottle up with a blanket when Ben was in his swing so he could drink it that way. I never leave the room when I prop up a bottle, for obvious reasons. So I would just clean the living room while Ben was drinking his bottle in his swing. It's the only way I can get stuff done without having to stop what I'm doing. He's starting to gain a real interest in TV, which is nice, but scary. I don't want him to be one of those kids whose life revolves around TV. He watched a good portion of Mean Girls while sitting in his bouncy chair, kicking his elephant that makes a rattle noise.

Things I got done today:

3 loads of laundry, sorted and folded

1 load of dishes in the dishwasher

Vacuum-living room, couches, Chewie's chair, bathroom rugs, window sills (dead ant corpses),bedroom, kitchen by the litterbox, and Junie's kennel.

Bathroom-toilet, sink, floor

Put away tons of dvds sitting around without their boxes

Ben's bath

Cleaned off the coffee table

Tried on all my jeans and put ones that don't fit or I don't wear in a bag to donate while reorganizing my closet

Moved Ben's cradle

Made beds

Mixed formula

Took care of Ben in between cleaning sprees

Took a 20 minute nap with Ben on the guest bed in his room
Organized diaper bag and restocked diapers on changing table

Emptied trash out of every room

Cleaned off coffee table and organized mail

A lot of other random things, but I'll stop the list here

We also think that Ben is teething. He just starts screaming like he's in pain randomly. We can see a spot on his gums on his bottom right that looks like a little tooth might poke through, but you can't feel anything yet. We've bought baby orajel swabs and nighttime stuff for him. He screamed a little this morning and Chris swabbed him, and he felt better. Then Ben did a big poop and he was in the best mood after that. He hasn't screamed at all today. My mom said that I was 3 months old when I got my first tooth, so I guess it might be time. I wonder what he's going to look like with teeth.

I moved Ben's cradle in our bedroom. He's been sleeping in a cradle next to my side of the bed. It was perfect because I can just look over and see what he's doing and ease those first few months of 'is he still breathing?' Chris and I are hoping to have Ben sleeping in his own crib in his own nursery by the time he's 4 months old. He's 3 months old now. So what I did was move his cradle from my side of the bed over to the other side of the room to see how he does tonight. It'll be a good test for me to see if I can handle him being on the other side of the room, let alone in another room in a few weeks. I think we'll both do fine. It'll be nice to not stub my toe on the end of his cradle, or trip over the humidifier cord anymore.

The picture of Ben is of him hanging out in his bouncy chair, watching Mean Girls. I stopped vacuuming to take the picture. He was very intense about it.

My Nerdy Baby Boy (Chrissy)

Ben's been cooing and laughing (his attempt at it) a lot lately. This morning he woke Chris and I up at about 5am because of a conversation he was having with the giraffe on his mobile. Sometimes he talks smack to it, but this morning it seemed to be a pleasant conversation, just really loud. We've also discovered Ben's favorite time to talk is while we're talking. I might have mentioned this before, but he's actually quite rude. In a funny way. If you're talking to him, he interrupts and starts cooing louder and louder to cover your voice. Chris came up with a knock knock joke for Ben. It's like "knock knock" "WHO'S THERE" "interrupting Ben" "INTERRUPTING BEN WHO" (while the second person says interrupting Ben who? you say ehhhhh...like Ben would say, interrupting the other person).

Today he got mad at me because I was talking to another baby in the baby room (at work/school) and Ben was sitting in a bouncy seat about 7 feet away from me. I was talking baby talk to this other baby and Ben kept yelling at me. I would look over at him and tell him I'm talking to someone else and I'll be there in a minute. Ben just kept staring at me and yelling until he finally started crying so I would go over there and pick him up. He was jealous.

So You Think You Can Dance started tonight. It's my summer show and it was very entertaining. It's like the other show that has new episodes over the summer. I recommend it to anyone who hasn't seen it. It's like American Idol, but with dancing. Chris and I are watching HOUSE and House asked a patient to name an animal that starts with the letter B, and the kid just stared at him for like 20 seconds and finally said "baby elephant". I don't know why that was so funny.

Baby Clothes Anyone? (Chrissy)

So there comes a point in every new mama's life in which she has to start putting away clothes that don't fit her growing child. This takes HOURS. Especially when your child is spoiled and has too many clothes to begin with. The hardest thing is to figure out what you'll be keeping and what you're giving away. Luckily for me, there are two women at my work who are pregnant and having boys, so any clothes that I decide not to keep goes to them. I spent all day sorting clothes in Ben's closet and drawers. There are clothes that he's never even worn that I'm giving away because Arkansas is already too warm for him to be wearing long sleeved shirts and pants. I'm also keeping a lot of clothes that have sentimental meaning, like the outfit he wore home from the hospital, my favorite dinosaur onesie, my favorite overalls, etc. I also kept a lot of clothes that were still in new condition in case Chris and I ever have another boy. You never know....
I've come to realize that I don't really call Ben by his name. I have a thing about nicknames. Chris and I are really good at coming up with different things to call Ben. And then the nicknames take on their own nicknames.
I started with Benito -->Benini-->Nini Bear-->Bear.
I also call him Sirsie (like when I tell him "No Sir"!), and doo doo. :)
Chris has gone with Benny Binkleman, Benny Boodleburg, Boo Boo, Bobopie, Benelope, and ninerbucket. But the most common one for Chris to call him is definately Boo Boo.
He's going to be one of those kids who just stares at you when you ask them what their name is. Or he could be like one of the kids at the preschool I work at. When I ask them what their name is and they tell me they're 4 and hold up 3 fingers. Sad sad day.

Son of a Bad Word! (Chrissy)

One of the preschoolers told a teacher that her little sister got smacked in the mouth by mama for saying a bad word. The teacher asked what she said, and the preschooler said "Son of a Bad Word". I think I'll use this in the place of swearing.

I got a letter saying I was accepted into the graduate program at UALR for special education. I need to do this in order to keep the job that I have, since I'm doing a job that requires me to be certified in special education, which I'm not. I guess classes start in August. I'll only have to take a few at a time, maybe even just one at a time. It'll be hard, though, to work during the day and attend classes at night. Maybe I can do some classes online. I'll have to talk to my advisor.

I can hear Ben screaming in the bedroom. He's going through a really annoying stage of crying when I'm not holding him. Usually his fits take place after we get home from school/work. It's hard for me to get things done. I know he's not hungry because he just ate, and he's not wet because I just changed him, and he doesn't have to burp. Those are the things that go through my head whenever he cries, kind of like a check off list. So I'll let him scream. He won't wear himself out, but at least I get a little break. It's the kind of screaming that he can turn off the second he sees my face peeking over the crib. As southerners down here tell a child throwing a fit "He needs to dry it up".

Today I got an awesome gift from Grandma Barbie and Great Grandma Chris. They designed and made Ben safari themed curtains and a blanket! It's soo cute! I can't believe the amount of detail that went into it. I'd never in a million years be able to make something so amazing. I love it. I already told Ben that he has to keep it in his room until he's at least 10. I need to have Chris lower the curtain rods a few inches and it'll be perfect! You can see Ben in the crib screaming if you look closely. Mama wasn't holding him. :) He's in the back right hand corner of the crib. It's a blurry picture, so it's hard to tell.

New Blog (Chrissy)

I know we're probably not going to keep up with this very well, but we're really going to try. I figured that I'll probably be the one who blogs the most, but Chris might have a random thought every once in a while. I'm also going to try to make sure I put my name next to the title of the blog so that you guys can tell who's talking. Genius, I know.

Through Melissa's review of the new Star Trek movie, I decided that if she liked it, then I'd like it. And I really did like it. Like, REALLY liked it. I almost cried at the beginning of the movie and got pissed off at myself because I was not going to cry at a Trekkie movie. Chris is a big fan of Star Trek. As most of you know, Christopher Kirk Allen is named after Captain Christopher Pike and Captain Jim Kirk. We also house a Star Trek comforter (twin sized) in our garage. It's Chris' old one from when he was really little. I just asked him how long he's had that comforter, and he said "longer than I remember". That means he probably had it when he was 15. Anyways, it was a good movie and I highly recommend it to anyone, Trekkie or not.

Ben is just getting cuter. He is talking all the time now. He talks more to me than he does to Chris, but I also think that it's because I talk to him way more than Chris does. I can see that he's going to be one of those kids who asks a lot of questions. It's going to be annoying. He's also started squealing when I play with him. He likes the game "mama's going to get your belly" which just consists of me saying "mama's going to get your belly" and slowly moving my mouth toward his tummy. He can't stand the anticipation and sometimes squeals about it. He also laughs and smiles while we do this. It's funny because when I finally blow on his belly, it's rock hard from being tense. Funny little guy.