So, I have some catching up to do

I know, I know, its been almost a month. I have no excuse. I am very sorry to the three little Fernies, who I know check all the time, only to be disappointed. But look! I am back now! Back with so many things to update on that I don't know where to start. Here are some of the highlights from the last month:

• Jam's first words. We have a tie here. He now says both "up" and "dog" and I could not tell you which one was first. Its a little like the walking. You think there will be this grand definining first moment, but its a lot more gradual than that. He said dog probably a lot before we realized what he meant. Up started as "Hey you, pick me up right now" and evolved into other meanings as well, like "help me" and "I want that". Dog refers mainly to Maisy, but also to Georgia, pictures of dogs, and all cats. We are working on the defining features of what makes a dog a dog, but its hard when you consider everything from Great Danes to those little fluffy dogs are dogs, when really, they don't have a ton of features in common. My mom claims that signs count as words too, so we have a couple of others to include. Waving, which he is a big fan of. Likes to wave good bye and hello, and likes to look out the window and wave. Also does an adorable sign with his hands which means "Give me that", "Pick me up", "you come here" and some other things. I will try to get it on video, as it is hard to explain but it is a two handed gesture, repeatedly folding his fingers into his palms. It is super cute.






• Christmas! What a big fun event! Many cool giftys were exchanged, and Benjamin made out like a bandit. This kid got a haul of presents, everything from power tools, to books, to puzzles, to golf clubs and on and on. Very funny key board with microphone, which he sticks entirely in his mouth, and then makes noises like Charlie Brown's teacher, or whale song. We also learned about Benjamin's sophisticated palet, where dark chocolate is concerned. He got a hold of my 78% cacao content fancy dark chocolate from my stocking and went to town! I had to arm wrestle him to get it back. Apparently the little turkey loooves the dark chocolate.






• Snow storms. We were basically blizzarded in for a few days. It was like Laura Ingalls Wilder in the Long Winter, when the trains almost didn't make it with the Christmas presents. We had to postpone the Nutcracker until after Christmas, miss the Peps Christmas party, and some other parties, skip the second round of Santa photos, and a whole bunch of other sad stuff. On the plus side, we did put Jam in the backpack and tromp through the snow, which was very satisfactory all around.






• Benjamin has mastered climbing the stairs. This was first officially witnessed in Issaquah on Christmas Eve (big night/place for milestones. Christmas Eve last year was the first roll over. We now have a gate at the bottom of the stairs in addition to the old one at the top.






• We had the first swim lesson this week, which is unfortunately scheduled right at nap time, so the poor guy spent most of the half hour rubbing his little eyes and crying with tiredness. Not sure what to do about that, since there is no other time we can take the class together. Stupid work, getting in the way of swimming lessons.






• Other events included a doctor's appointment, a new tooth, a new bathroom, new professional portraits (we love you Cookie!), eating grapefruit (yum!), and most likely some other stuff.






• Some other miscellaneous new tricks:






• Brings books when asked (sometimes)






• Shows tongue on command (rarely)






• eats with a plastic baby fork (more or less)






• feeds stuffed cheetah ("Kitty") dog treats when the real dog is not available to feed. Also now cuddles Kitty at bedtime. Sigh. So cute.






• Dances (so adorable I practically cannot stand it. Must capture on video).






• Can identify which toy is the duck toy and which toy is the frog toy when asked. May say "duck" but it sounds suspiciously like "dog"






• On one memorable occasion, he lunged toward the pack n play when he decided he was ready for his nap.






• Rides his toy lion. Hilarious.





• Throws temper tantrums. When he doesn't get what he wants he immediately flings himself to the ground, crying and flailing. It is simultaneously amusing and traumatic for me.





• Made his first succesful phone call. It was not to 911, which was my fear, but to the Washington State Ferry Information line. He helpfully put it on speaker so I could hear them asking him to say "ferry" for ferry schedule.
  

Now, if I were a super organized person, I would divide these all up into separate posts, and spread them out through out the week, but sadly I am not that person. So, instead I will upload a few miscellaneous photos that go with the above events and then go eat cookies and finish my book.

. H

We're number 1!

My great big giant one year old baby had his one year check up today. His doctor started the appointment by saying he was the cutest boy in the history of boys, which clearly he is, based on the photos below, and if you disagree, well, then you must not be his mother. Then later she told him he was the biggest flirt she had ever met, so based on those insightful remarks, we will keep her around for another visit. Which will happen soon, because the poor lad has regressed on the height/weight chart and needs to go for a weigh in at 15 months. He was 50th percentile for weight and 75th for height at his last visit. He is now 10th percentile for weight, at 19.7 pounds, and 25th percentile for height, at 29". Dr. Brown is not terribly concerned, because he is genetically predisposed to be on the skinny side, and he is so darn active right now, what with all the walking around, that he is bound to be skinnier than all those non mobile babies who are just sitting around eating chips and pizza all day. Where he does triumph is in the size of his great big melon, which is in the 90th percentile for head size. Way to go buddy! Congratulations on your giant brain! And, lucky you, now we will try to fatten you up with all kinds of yumminesses. During the appointment, Benjamin was fascinated with the biohazard sticker on the trash can, the flashy red light that operates the table, where it says "caution: very hot", the cords plugged into the wall, and last but not least, all medical instruments including the stethascope the doctor was wearing, the flashing light she used to look in his ears, and the blood pressure cuff, which happened to be hanging just in with his reach. Doctor told me I needed to work on child proofing. They were out of the flu shot, so Benjamin only had 2 shots today, and he has to go back for flu and MMR. He was not very happy about the 2 he got. Not happy at all. But he does get to switch from formula to big boy milk, and from the bottle to a big boy cup. Also, will be starting on baby vitamins, which I think is kinda funny, and a dental regime of tooth brushing, also funny. In the next 3 months, we are supposed to look out for words (he should have 3-5 by 15 months), and we are supposed to be checking for language comprehension. IE, if you ask where Maisy is, he should look around and point to the dog, or something like that. What I forgot to ask about was the car seat. Rumor has it that you turn it around to face the front at 1 year, but then contradicting information says no, leave it facing backward for a while longer. Anyone else with a newly 1 year old baby know the answer to this dilemma?
Tomorrow I will have to digress from the birthday posting to mention the cutest little day care/preschool in the world that I toured this morning, which will remain anonymous, as I am attempting to keep it secret, so that no one else gets on the wait list and bungles Benjamin's chances to get in.

3/4 of a year old

Wednesday was Benjamin's 9 month check up, which was the greatest doctor's appointment yet, if you ask him. Dr. Brown said he was cute about a million times, and best of all NO SHOTS. It was good all around! So, vital stats are a little fuzzy, since this was a few days ago, but the basics are that Jammy is 28" tall, and 18lbs 4 oz (I think). He is a little over 50th percentile for height, and a little under for weight. He was very determined to spend the whole appointment playing in the biohazard trash can, and very mad that I didn't want him to. He could only be distracted by sitting on the edge of the sink and playing in the water. Dr. Brown was funny, she commented again on his deep voice, and his uber blond nordic-yness - she thinks we should call him Sven, or maybe Anders. Neither of which were on the name list, and do not rate high even on my nick name list. She did publish an edit that we must be offering him solid foods 3 times a day, and also must get to work on the child proofing. Yikes. Not ready for mobility yet.

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!

Ouch!

Well, today was the little man's 4 month check up. The vital stats: 14 pounds (50th percentile), 25.5 inches (75th percentile), 42.5 cm head circumfrence (50th percentile), cuteness - exceptional (this is a professional medical opinion). Benito was on his very best behavior and doing everything he could to charm the pants off Dr. Brown. Metaphorically speaking. Which made it all the more sadistic to poke him in the leg 4 times. But we'll get to that, first the good stuff. He was so happy and chatty and fun, the doctor was totally enamored with him. She asked how we were doing with tummy time, could he hold his head up, and I said yeah, pretty well. She wanted the demo, so I put him on his tummy on the doctor table thing, and he immediately rolled over. I mean, split second. I have never seen him do it so fast. And we were all (my mom was there, as chauffeur/nanny/governess) kind of surprised and laughed, so the doctor picked him up and put him back on his tummy. Same thing. He wasn't on his tummy a nano second before he turned back over. He was totally showing off for her. She was appropriately impressed and made all kinds of nice noises about being super athletic, and how we would probably get to spend his college fund visiting him in Rome on his year abroad, because he would most likely get a full ride. She commented several times about how cute his little voice is, and what great sounds he is making. Lets see, what else... We are allowed to try to skip the middle of the night feeding, and see if he will go back to sleep when he wakes up in the night. Its only 2 months away from solid food - rice cereal here we come! Teeth are apparently just around the corner as well. It all seems to be going alarmingly fast. She felt my weird eye bump and said it was on my eyelid, most likely a clogged duct. I was sure it was eye cancer and would require immediate eye removal surgery, so that was a relief. So that was all well and good, and she said make an appointment to come back in 2 months, which I am just now realizing I didn't do, and waltzed out of there, all happy like, before the carnage began. Then Leilani the nurse comes in, and I feel like the Darth Vader theme song should always accompany her entrance. (She is actually very nice.) I explained very patiently to the boy that we don't want him to get Polio or Diptheria or Pertussis, they are all very nasty diseases, and that I have no idea what Pneumococcal disease or Haemophilus influenza type B is, but that I'm pretty sure he didn't want to get those either. He just drooled at me and let me know he was getting hungry, so it seems like he didn't listen at all. Most likely this is just the beginning of many years of being ignored that I have in store. Anyway, she lines up the 4 shots, and 4 bandaids, and he still had no idea what was coming. I let him chew on my finger, but the second that first needle went into his chubby little thigh, he started wailing. Its not so much the noise that bothers me, but those little tiny baby tears are just a killer. Tragically sad. As soon as she was done I tried to feed him, and he was trying to cry and eat simultaneously, which was so pitiful. Fortunately he did calm down pretty quickly and ate some and then zonked out. The rest of the day was apparently quite sleepy, and he has been asleep since I got home at 6:30 until almost 10, waking up only briefly to eat a couple of times, which I'm pretty sure he did mostly in his sleep. So its been kind of a big traumatic day for the little guy. On the bright side, it turns out there is a government fund to help pay for care if he has a serious vaccine reaction. I found that to be super comforting information. Sheesh.

Scary Medical Procedures

Even though Benjamin is barely 2 months old, he has already survived quite a lot of trauma in the scary medical procedure department. The first one was the circumcision. Ouch! We did the back and forth debate about whether to snip or not to snip, and went around in circles. At the end of the day, it just seemed easier to circumcise him then to eventually have to try to teach him to deal with and clean the turtleneck. Also, research about not spreading stds as easily blah blah blah. So we decided to do it. He hadn't had a wet diaper at the hospital when his doctor was leaving, so she wouldn't do it. We had to take him in to the Swedish circumcision clinic, which was actually probably a good thing. Its this youngish guy dr, and basically all he does is circumcisions, all day long. So he at least knows what he is doing. Loren was a lot more concerned than I was about the whole thing, and asked the doc a ton of questions beforehand. In the event of an earthquake during the surgery, it would be more likely for the doctor to cut off his finger than any of Benito's important boy-parts. And the complications seemed all very fixable, and the recovery pretty quick, so that was all very reassuring.

As much as I did not want to be there for it, I figured if I was going to put the little guy through it, I had to be able to watch. It was more complicated than I thought it would be, actually. They have to strap him down, which sounds awful, but wasn't that bad. They wrap a little blanket over his chest, and tuck it under something, to keep his upper half from wiggling. Then there are wide pieces of fabric that go over his little thighs and get velcroed down. He got topical anesthetic, baby tylenol, and I was in charge of giving him a pacifier dipped in sugar water. He did cry, but not worse than when we changed his diaper, which he hated at the time, mostly because it made him cold, I think. It was really warm in the room though, so at least he had that going for him. I thought it would be one straightforward little clip, but they actually have to put 4 clamps on his little baby foreskin, and slice with a scalpel. It was pretty scary to watch. But everything was fine, and there were no problems.

It did make diaper changing more exciting for the next week or so. You have to make an ice cream cone of neosporin on the cicrumcision every time, and it was all red and ouchy looking. But he really didn't mind it, as far as I could tell. Combined with the umbelical cord stump, there was a whole lot to watch out for. The stump was really pretty gross, and would get stuck to his diaper, which I thought must hurt, but Benjamin never minded. He is such a tough guy. Now that there are no injuries to look out for, the diaper changing is much less worrisome. Of course now there are other things to contend with, like long range peeing ability, ever increasing wigglyness, and I won't even start on his poop producing capabilities. Its like he is working for a gold medal in pooping. I had no idea such a small person could produce such large quantities of poop so frequently.

Anyway, back to the topic at hand. The other medical procedure was even scarier than the circumcision. The lactation specialist at the hospital pointed out to us that Benjamin was literally tongue tied. The frenulum, which is the little piece of skin that attaches the tongue to the bottom of the mouth, reached all the way to the end of his tongue. This can cause difficulty with breast feeding, and later on can also create problems with speech. Benjamin was a champ eater, and his doctor said that for the most part the frenulum stretches, and might not cause any difficulty with speaking, but also that it is a quick easy fix now, and more difficult later. Long story short, we decided to have it clipped.

I took him to the specialist that does this, and it took her one glance at his open mouth to say yes, we should clip it. The whole procedure took approximately 5 seconds. She has these little scissor looking things, that seem like something the dentist would use. It took her longer to put topical anesthetic on him than to do the procedure. The nurse held him on her lap, and they wanted me to feed him right after, since that helps calm him, and is somehow beneficial for the healing process. He was crying anyway, since he was hungry, so I wasn't to worried about that, and I knew he wouldn't feel it, because he was numbed up. So I didn't think it would be that bad. Wrong! They handed him to me when they were done, and he was wailing, which I am more or less used to. I tried to feed him immediately, but he was having trouble latching, understandable what with the numb tongue. And his mouth was pretty bloody, which had to taste weird for him. So the whole thing was pretty alarming for him. The part that just killed me was his expression. He had these eyes that were so scared. I had never seen him look scared before, and it was heartbreaking. And the thing that is supposed to comfort him, eating, wasn't working right. Very scary for a little guy. I was practically in tears, it was really hard to see. But it was very short lived. Maybe a minute. But it seemed longer. He did get latched on, and was able to start eating, which calmed him right down. In 5 minutes it was like nothing had ever happened. I would put it about on par with his 2 month immunizations, maybe a little worse. But now he is all better, and seems to have forgiven me for everything. Whew!

Jumping on the blog wagon

So, like everyone else in the world seems to be doing, I have decided to start a blog. A long time ago I read Annie LaMotte's "Operating Instructions", a great and hilarious book, and I thought, oh yes, someday when I have a baby, I will also write down clever and touching observations about it. As is turns out, I am vastly to lazy to keep up a journal (1 partial entry tapped me out), and I thought the ability to type it and add photos might make me more motivated. Its mostly for my own benefit, so I can look back and remember, so if its boring or nonsensical to you, tough luck, read something else. This will be an attempt to memorialize the last 10 months of the first year of my son's life. As I missed the first 2 months due to the aforementioned laziness. Well, I may actually try to recreate some of that as well, since I am doing whatever I want, regardless of order and regular thought processes. It will be a little bit of an exercise in non-linear thinking.

Anyway, Benjamin was born November 10th, and changed life as we know it. Its such an all encompassing change that its hard to know where to start. I'll jump right in to yesterday, at his 2 month doctor's appointment. We went to see the lovely Dr. Brown, who gets to stay his doctor because she always exclaims how beautiful and charming he is. The big highlight of these check ups is to find out how big the bambino has gotten. This time around, he is 11 lbs, 10 oz, so he is right neck and neck with the cat (Bailey http://www.flickr.com/photos/deborahjm/2202216544/in/photostream/ , the 12 pounder) in their size contest. I'm not sure how the balance of power will shift when Benito outweighs Bailey, but we'll see soon. (Side note: when we brought Benjamin home from the hospital, the dog slid down one spot in the totem pole to the cat's spot, and the cat was bumped down as well, and now hovers around house plant status. And the house plants are now withering from neglect.) Apparently 11 lbs 10 oz puts him right above the 50th percentile for size. He is 24" long, which is closer to the 70th or 80th percentile. Dr. Brown was not very clear on this point. However she was very impressed with his ability to roll over. (Side note again: He can roll from his tummy to his back, which he did for the first time on Christmas Eve, when Auntie Cookie ( http://www.flickr.com/photos/deborahjm/2201461429/ ), the big fancy professional photographer, was taking his pictures. )

The other part of the doctor's appointment, is not so much fun, it is the (scary movie music here) immunizations. The doctor leaves the room for this and makes the nurse do it, and I had to be her accomplice and hold his poor little legs. He gets 2 shots in each leg, and just wailed about it, it was tragically sad. He looked up at me afterwards with these big wet eyes, and gave me the "how could you, I trusted you" face. He is already a master at guilt infliction, clever fellow. He forgave me as soon as I fed him though, he is definitely a boob guy. I guess that will be it for today, now I will attempt to add photos!