Walking, Talking, and Sleeping in the BIG Bed

Okay, so I am terrible at updating. There is a lot of catching up to do.

Benjamin is 10 1/2 months.

He took his first steps just over a month ago. He isn't a very patient guy though, and rather than learn how to walk slow and steady he just lunges himself forward and hopes that his feet will keep up. They never do and usually with in 3 or 4 steps he face plants. That does not deter him though, he simply continues on with a quick paced crawl.
He also said his first two words in the last month. Dada was his first, followed shortly by mama. And he has finally picked up the sign for milk, although, he only does it on occasion. And today he did the sign for story. Which was odd to me because it is one of the more complicated ones.
He has quite the personality, and he is all boy. He climbs and conquers various pieces of furniture in our home one at a time. Yesterday I found him in the middle of the living room, completely naked (no diaper) and playing with his pee pee. Today in church I was trying to keep him happy and quiet. He wasn't interested in eating his cheerios so I gave him the container to play with. He immediately flung over his head and we had to ask the people in front of us if they could hand it back to us.
He also got babysat for the first time (while awake). He made it 2 1/2 hours with his Auntie Heather! Then apparently he started trying to nurse (awkward >_>) and we had to head home.

There is something else I decided that I wanted to write about this time too. Since Benjamin was born he has been a very light and restless sleeper. For the first 2 months he could not sleep unless he was being held. If we tried to lay him down, no matter how long he had been asleep, he immediately woke up. We had no success no matter what we tried. Eventually we gave up trying things, and just accepted that he would be sleeping with us until he started sleeping better. We tried here and there to put him down in his pack n' play, which is next to the bed, but have never had much success. He never sleeps in it longer than an hour. We have ups and downs with his sleep and about a month ago we decided to try out his crib. He napped in it 2 or 3 times, and it was about the same as the pack n' play. Then, I was watching the news one day and they were talking about crib recalls, again. It wasn't our crib, but I thought...hmmm...I wonder if there is anything out there about our crib. So I crawled under it and found the make and model number and googled it. I was shocked to find out that our crib had been recalled a month after he was born. We were livid! How could this happen and we never be contacted. Apparently because the company is offering a repair kit that will make the crib "safe," they don' t have to follow all the recall rules. We can't get a refund for the crib. All we can get is the repair kit. When offered the kit I told the company, "No thank you. You had your chance at making a safe crib and you killed a baby." So we are now without a crib. And Benjamin is happily bunked up with mommy and daddy. Please refrain from telling me the "dangers" of bed sharing. We researched the matter in depth before deciding to let him sleep with us. We know the ups and downs of it, and we know the ups and downs of crib sleeping. We made our choice and we're extremely happy with it, especially since we found out about the crib recall.

The Upside of a Crying Baby?

Benajmin learned a few new tricks this week so it has been an interesting one. He learned that he can open all of the cabinets, not just the one by the fridge. He has pulled things out a couple of times, but yesterday he pulled things out and then climbed in. I'll have to watch for that now, if the door closes on him, he really won't like it. He discovered the diaper pail and kept licking it. Apparently it tastes good. I moved it to the coat closet so he couldn't lick it anymore. He climbed into the recliner. I'm not sure how, but he was up in it and playing with the stuff on the end table. He also learned how to avoid being strapped into the car seat. It is a big battle, and if I'm not quick enough he is turned around and ready to climb out while I'm still untwisting the strap. He'll be walking very soon, and that thought scares me. He is destructive enough just crawling. In fact, right now he is playing at my feet and trying to get the cords out of the modem.

My first mother's day was an interesting one. Christopher was great. He got up and made me breakfast....he tried to make the eggs decently, and they came out better than last time. I ate them and smiled and nodded. Thank goodness for Jamie's bread. I took a small bite of egg and then a BIG bite of bread, and then you couldn't really tell that there was egg. I don't know what he does. I thought eggs were a pretty fail proof food. Then he gave me my present. It was cute. He helped Benjamin make a card. He got me three new cookbooks, and then handed me an envelope. I opened and there was money in it. I was thinking..."Really hon, money? You gave me something I already had...." Then he says that he wanted to give me a Lush gift card (http://www.lushusa.com/shop) but didn't get it done in time, so I had to use that money for Lush! Yay! Not lame at all! And finally he pulled a banana cream pie out of the fridge. It was pretty good. Of course just a few short hours later I felt like a total failure of a mom when Benjamin fell backwards off the pew at church because I wasn't paying attention. I was trying to keep him from the flower and looked away. And he fell. He was okay, but I still feel bad. By the way, who thought that giving flowers to moms at the end of sacrament meeting was a good idea? I love my flower, but carrying it around and keeping my child from it for two hours was not awesome. Anyway, then we went to see Christopher's mom (uh). It turned out not be too bad though. Benjamin was sleepy and cried the entire time, so we left after an hour! Then we went home and enjoyed the rest of our day.

We love our gremlin

I decided to blog because a couple of people asked if I had one and got excited that they thought that my life was exciting and interesting enough for me to blog. I really don't do much that is exciting. I change diapers, feed Benjamin, chase him, bake, cook, and clean. I am attempting to learn how to crochet, but I've never been crafty, and doing the same thing over and over and over and over again is not that exciting to me.

Christopher has been at his new job now for a week and half and is loving it. He's still learning the ins and outs of it all, but he is doing great and enjoying it. Surprisingly, he has had more time at home than he did before, which a nice bonus! He can help me out a lot more with the gremlin.

We love our gremlin. Some of you know him by the name of Benjamin. Around here though, he is the gremlin. Why, you may ask, he seems so sweet and happy. He is a happy child, most of the time, but let me tell you, he has a temper. He lets his feelings be known. He has a distinct roar/growl that is the signal that the gremlin has been unleashed, and the only way to tame it is to give it exactly what it wants, or wear it out till it falls asleep. Then we will have our sweet and happy Benjamin. He is an exremely busy baby. He is almost 8 months old and has been crawling for 3 1/2 months. He started pulling himself up at 6 months and walking along the furniture at 7. He is now starting to let go and stand for a few seconds at a time. He gets into everything. He has managed to open the fridge and empty out the vegetable drawer. He knows what the wii controllers do and turns into the gremlin when they won't work for him. He has smashed his finger in the DVD player, and didn't care. He unplugs the modem and router at least twice a week. He opens things, knocks things over, pulls things down, you name it, he does it.