Free Rice and AdventureDad

I was just checking out my peps friends Brian and Melinda's blog (http://www.brianmelinda.blogspot.com/) and discovered a new website that they link to, which there is now a link to on the left hand side of my blog. It is http://www.freerice.com/ and it is very cool. They donate rice to the UN World Food Program when you correctly answer vocabulary questions. Which is fun because it makes you feel all smartypantsy for knowing vocabulary words, and also all warm and fuzzy inside what with the food donations. So, Miss Doxie, who never posts anymore anyway, is out. Instead please visit freerice and solve world hunger. Also, since I am in update mode, I have replaced Crabmommy, who is very funny but who I have never met, with Adventuredad, as he is pretty funny too, and I am married to him.

Ready, Set, Ferber!

Well, I am way behind in my posting, but in my defense I have been out of town working. To make up for it I am now posting at work. We started the Ferberizing last week, and I have to say, it was a lot less painful than anticipated. The first night, Benjamin woke up the first time, and had to be comforted 3 times, on the 5 minute, 10 minute, 15 minute schedule. Fortunately for me, Loren had the first shift. On the second shift, I comforted him once after 5 minutes, and he was back to sleep before the 10 minutes were up. The next night he woke up and cried once, but he had stopped before the 10 minutes we needed to wait were up. And that was it. He slept through the night the next night. Slept through the night for 12 hours, mind you. Of course last night he woke up at 4 am inconsolable and wailing and I had to feed him to get him to calm down, but I think he really must have been hungry. He is getting the hang of the sleeping through the night thing very nicely. Clever baby.

Solid-ish food

Today was the big solid food adventure! Solid food is a bit of an overstatement really, because rice cereal is in no way solid. It would be much more accurately described as room temperature rice soup. Jammy figured it out pretty quickly, and opened his mouth for the spoon and swallowed. Very impressive little savant. He ran into a few snags though. He would forget what he was doing and open his mouth, and everything would dribble out. He also did not realize that he can't practice his sounds and eat at the same time, so had a few bites where he would start chatting and blowing bubbles, and sprayed cereal everywhere. The biggest challenge was that the little guy wants to do it himself, and would attempt to intercept the spoon at every possible moment. We took literally 100 pictures, but I have just picked a few of my favorites here. What a funny guy.

Two peas....

All the research that you read these days says that kids should watch no tv at all until the age of 2, and that it should be very limited after that. Well. We have decided to go a different direction. Benjamin has learned very early the joys of kicking back on the couch to watch tv. He is working on figuring out the remote next. General consensus is that the boy looks like his mom, but in temperament, he is definitely his father's child, what with the tv watching, and the general easy going mellowness. (Mom is a little more high maintenance and demanding.)Check out the pair of them on the couch. Quite the funny pair. Dad (my dad, not Jammy's dad) - you will have to read extra books and step up the German lessons to counter act all the brain melting garbage he is imbibing from the tv.

Doctor's Report

Today was Benbino's sixth month check up. I have a love/hate relationship with taking him to the doctor. I love hearing how well he is doing, how healthy he is, and how generally charming, cute, smart and athletic he is. And its from a doctor. That means it has to be true, right? Its a professional opinion. So, love all that good stuff. Hate the shots. Hate hate hate them! I mean, I think its great that we have all these fabulous vaccines, and he never has to worry about getting pertussis or ruebella or polio. But I hate watching him get the shot, and I hate helping hold him still for it. He gives me these big weepy eyes and piercing look of betrayal while wailing the most piteous wail, and squeezing out the tiny baby tears, in most copious and squirty fashion. Today was no different. He had to get 3 shots, which is actually good, because it was supposd to be 5, but they can combine a few. It seems so unfair, because he is such an unsuspecting little victim, happily kicking his legs, and looking around the doctors office, when WHAM! he gets stabbed in the leg. Twice. And then as soon as he is calmed down from the first two, he gets hit again. After that it was total meltdown, so much he wouldn't even eat at first. Poor boy. He slept it off most of the day, and then was tired and fussy. He went to sleep at 6:30, which is some kind of record.
But now for the good stuff. He is 27" long, which puts him in the 75th% for height, and he is 16 pounds 8.5 oz, which is the 40th% for weight. So on the tallish skinniesh side of average. You would never guess it from looking at that round little belly, or those chunky monkey thighs. He is right on track with his grabbing things, and his vowel-consenant blends. He is all ready to start the rice cereal, and it has been recommended that we Ferberize him so we can all sleep through the night. Tonight he was wiped out and out of sorts from the shots, so I am postponing the Ferberizing until tomorrow night. I'll give a full report on how it goes and explain what that means on Friday morning. Unless I am asleep at my computer, which is entirely possible. Wish us luck!

Boy vs. Bug

The picture on the top right was taken way back in February, the one on the left was taken in May. I was taking the pictures this week thinking, oh wow, he is so much bigger than he was the first time I took these. But really, looking at the photos now, there is hardly a noticable difference. Oh well. I'm sure he's much bigger now. He will weigh in at the doctor's appointment tomorrow and we will know for sure. There is a little wager on his weight. I think he is probably around 16 pounds, Loren is thinking more like 18. We will see. Anyway, after I was done taking the comparison photo, some kind of natural predator instincts kicked in, and there was a baby/bug battle to the death. The baby triumphed, first strangling the bug, then going for the jugular, and finished the whole thing off by pulling off an antenna as a trophy. Blood thirsty baby.

Baby Yoga

Benjamin has decided to start practicing yoga. I'm not sure where he got the idea, since I never do it at home (the dog and the cat get in the way). Anyway, he has developed his own routine, and it appears to be very successful, as not only is he extremely bendy, but also has a very stress free zen attitude. Here are a few shots of one of his favorite yoga poses. And yes, he uses the dog bed instead of a more traditional mat.