Little Reader

Benjamin has done a few things lately that are so cute that I have to come out of my blog coma and post. The first is that he has been reading us stories. First one was Good Night Moon (aka "Moon"), which we read to him every night ("Moon. Fire. Mitt.") Then last night he read me Go Dog Go ("Dog. Little. Car. Climber."). He also has very funny titles for his favorite books. Jamberry is "Boat". Where the Wild Things Are is "Max". The Best Mouse Cookie is "Mouse". Why a Donkey was Chosen is "Camel". Mama Do you Love Me is "Dear". When Mama Comes Home Tonight is "Baby". The Little Red Hen Makes a Pizza is "Hen". Curious George Rides a Bike is "George" or sometimes "Biker." Everyone Poops is "Poop!" (read with great enthusiasm). There are others, but those are a few of my favorites. Last night I was putting him to bed, and he tried a new tactic for tricking me into staying, which totally worked. First he said "Mama sing!", which was completely a surprise, because he will never let me sing to him. Then he said "Mama rock!", also surprising, because he does not usually like to sit in the rocking chair. So I got to snuggle and sing to him in the rocking chair, and he got to stay up extra late. It was a win for everyone.

funny couch sleeper

Travel baby

Well I figured if I didn't post something soon, everyone would stop checking, so I have made a valiant effort to stay up until 9:58 to post something. Its the first round of Maui pics, from the airport and the plane. I know, kinda lame, but they can't all be beach pics people. Anyway, my little Jamcake was a total champ on the plane on the way there. A teensy bit of trouble taking his nap, but that was about it. I mean, we bribed him with Vanilla Milk ("baby crack") from Starbucks and goldfish crackers and new toys, but he did a great job. The trip home was not quite as smooth, but I am trying to block it from my memory in order to travel again in the future. Beach photos coming soon, I promise.

Procrastination Reigns Supreme

I know, I haven't blogged in a month (more than). I also haven't started my taxes, or the 30 hours of real estate clock hours that I have to complete by the end of the month. There it is, I am a total lazy slacker. Anyway, since I have about 6 weeks of blogging to catch up on, I have decided for a brevity and photos approach going forward. The good news is I have high hopes that there will be several days of posting in a row! While I will eventually get caught up to Maui pics, I do want to post some of goofing around with Mr. No Pants before we went. We do try to read to Benjamin every night, and while he does seem to like it, he has not yet learned to sit still for a story. He does enjoy to pick books out quite a bit. And now sometimes when he is ready for bed, he walks over to his crib, and grabs onto the bars and shakes them, demanding to get into bed. Funny guy. When he gets tucked in, he gets tucked in with Kitty, Puppy, his music, and both his special blankets - the one that Aunt Cookie knit for him, and the one that was his Dad's when he was a baby. And if we are lucky, he does the smile-wiggle-sigh and goes right to sleep. What a nice baby.

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

Sunday morning paper

Loren and Benjamin read the paper together this morning, which I think could be the start of a lovely tradition, as it allowed me to sleep in a smidge. And by a smidge, I mean I was up at 6, but then got to go back to bed until 7:30. Which is not really what I like to think of as sleeping in, but I'll take what I can get. Sleep is a precious commodity these days, what with the little dictator deciding he should get up twice a night again. Benjamin's participation in the Sunday paper reading was mainly trying to eat the paper. I'm guessing here, since I was in bed, but I bet I'm not too far off. I'm thinking he also liked its crinkly noises. He is wearing his cute new little Old Navy outfit, one of only 2 clothing purchases I have ever made for him. This, like the first, was necessitated by a very wet oufit during a shopping trip. My mom and I initiated him into the Nordstrom anniversary sale yesterday, and he was quite the excellent shopper, aside from the outfit wetting. You'd think I'd learn and put an extra one in the diaper bag, but maybe I am just looking for an excuse to pick stuff out for him. Also, you can buy a whole baby outfit for $12, which is roughly one tenth of what I can buy a new outfit for.

The Very Sleepy Caterpillar

Benjamin has a new and very endearing trick these days. He sleeps on his stomach now, since he is such a big guy. That in and of itself, not that cute, I know. But now when you put him down in the crib, on his back, if he is a good sleepy baby, he does an immediate flip to his belly, the instant he touches the mattress. And once he is on his belly he does this adorable little caterpillar wiggle, to get in exactly the right spot, or exactly the right position, or exactly the right who knows what. It is so cute. And its very extended. Not just one little wiggle. But wiggle, wiggle, wriggle, wiggle, wriggle. And then he zonks right out. HOWEVER, if you put him down and he does not do the belly flip, he arches his back and loudly voices his disapproval of going to bed. I have to slink out then, and try to ignore the complaints. He usually does stop complaining and fall asleep within 10 minutes or so. Thank goodness. I on the other hand, no longer get to wriggle into exactly the right spot and sleep in extreme comfort. If I get to sleep at all, it is surrounded by children and animals. They are slowly ganging up on me to take over the bed. Not the most restful, actually.

Happy Birthday Adventure Dad!

Today was a big day! We celebrated 5 birthdays (Loren, Madelyn, Lee, Andrea, Isabelle) and Father's Day. We had the traditional pancake breakfast at my parents, and the traditional bbq dinner at Loren's parents. In between, we scouted photo locations at the arboreteum with Judith and crew, and shopped at U Village. At birthday dinner, Benjamin ate some tissue paper, inherited one of his dad's baby blankets, and fell asleep in the car on the way home. It was a big day all around. Happy Birthday, June birthdayers!

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.

Sleeping... Part 2

The sleep report, as a follow up to yesterday's post. Last night Benbino woke me up around 1ish to eat. Same routine. I fed him, and put him down, and he started wailing. This time though, I had a new approach. I closed both doors and turned off the monitor, and went right back to sleep. Horrid mother, I know. He kept crying and I woke up 20 minutes or so later, and poked his dad (genius, I know), and said "he's crying, your turn", and went right back to sleep until 5:30, when he woke up again. Loren brought him to me in bed, and I fed him and went back to sleep again, until 7ish. It was lovely. Thanks honey!

The Beastly Baby....

.... kept me up all night last night. Or at least thats what it felt like. Don't be fooled by the sweet picture. That was way back when he was a newborn and could sleep like a champ. Tuesday one of the worst nights we have had. I went to bed at 9:30, because I was exhausted. Before I was actually asleep, he woke me up to eat around 10ish. Ok, thats pretty normal, and he went right back to sleep (I think. Some of these events may not be accurate as my memory is very sleep blurry). Then he woke up at midnight. I should mention here that "awake" is a little bit of an overstatement of what he does at night. He fusses and cries with his eyes closed (I can only imagine he is still asleep), and I pick him up, feed him, burp him, and put him back down, all without his eyes ever opening). So, midnight. I fed him, and put him back down in his bed. Now, this is his latest trick. Instead of staying asleep, per usual, as soon as he touches the bed, he starts wailing. Pick him up, stops instantly. Put him down, wailing. We did a variation of this theme for about 2 hours before he finally went to sleep. It totally sucked. And then he woke up again at 5, ate, and same thing, wouldn't go back down. I finally just brought him back to bed with me. grrr. This had better not be the new trend.

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.

The many faces of Benjamin - Part 1

I think I am starting a new photo series documenting this kids billion and one facial expressions. It is so funny how fast he goes from worried eye brows to laughing to crying. Quite the emotional range already. It makes him a very fun subject to photograph, and of course is as endearing as can be. Here he is showing off his fancy new red pajamas (thanks Josie and Taletha!). He is torn because he is in his favorite spot (the changing table) and dad is doing all kinds of entertaining stuff, but its also bedtime, and he is a tired little bear cub, so he is a little fussy, and fighting off that pesky old sleep. The resulting faces are pretty darn cute. One day I will learn to be a better formatter, and these pictures will be organized in a nice neat row. Until then, they are a little collage-esque.

Ladies Man

The charming and accommodating child opted to sleep through the night again last night! Agreeable baby. It may have been that I had a glass of wine at PEPS, or maybe that we kept him up until 9:15, but whatever the reason, he went to bed at 10:45, and woke up at 5:30, so that was great for me. PEPS was really fun last night. He was happy and chatty the whole time, and must have been making faces, because people kept grinning and making faces back at me (he was on my lap), and at one point he was accused of being drunk. Its funny to have a baby on your lap, because people totally let down their guard and act super goofy at you. Toward the end of the meeting, Benito was on the floor on his back at a 90 degree angle to Anya, who is a month older, also on the floor on her back. She was shrieking loudly and happily, and he was fascinated. He kept craning his neck to try to see what was going on. He also got really close to rolling over. He would look over at her, and get turned all the way onto his side, but his right arm kept getting in the way, and he couldn’t make it all the way over. Everyone was cheering for him though. He was also smiling and talking to Amelia, another little PEPS buddy, so now they all think he is quite the ladies man.
When we were getting ready to go the poor little guy was beyond tired, and he started doing his singing the blues cry. Someone commented on what a cute deep voice he had, and someone else said, yeah, just like a little baby Barry White. And here, I had no idea, and just thought he had a regular baby voice. Funny Barry White voiced baby.

Sleeping Beauty? I think not.

The last two nights the little trickster has woken up in the middle of the night again, ending his streak of, I don't know, weeks of sleeping through the night. I think he is just trying to keep me on my toes. Surely tonight he will revert back to his sleepier self. He actually laughed in his sleep as he was drifting off last night though, which was so darn cute that I forgave him for waking up the night before.

Then today, he did another new trick which just about did me in with its supreme cuteness. He was giving me the fake desparately hungry cry. Its not seriously desparately hungry, but more like the moaning the Harry does in when Harry met Sally when he is feeling sorry for himself. Only a little louder. So anyway, I start to feed him, and with his mouth totally full, he gives me two little "mmmmm"s. It was a little bit like in a coke commercial, when someone takes a drink and then goes "aaaah", or maybe the dinner scene in What About Bob. He has never actually talked to me while eating before, and he just seemed so satisfied with the whole thing. It was hilarious.

In a totally unrelated topic, I forgot, for the third Saturday in a row, to go to the "belly after baby" class. At this rate I will always have the post baby belly. But several fun things did happen today instead. Loren went snow shoeing all day (I didn't say I got to do all the fun things). Benito and the hound and I walked Greenlake with Wenmei and Cowboy and Zachary. Cowboy likes to show Maisy up by walking politely on a leash. We love her anyway. Wenmei gets a Starbucks discount, which has to be one of the best job perks ever. Its not free airline tickets, but its up there. We bumped into Shana at Starbucks, one of the many reasons I love my neighborhood. She is one of only a handful of the Beermonsters that has met Benjamin, so that was fun. Then Aunt Cookie and Annie and Madelyn came over. Cookie took some fantastic pictures of the boy (Check out Smiley boy on her blog: http://www.fernstromphotography.typepad.com/) and we went on another walk. Maisy was in heaven getting 2 walks in one day, but poor Annie scraped her knee in the second block, and couldn't stop crying the whole way. At one point she actually started wailing "boo hoo, boo hoo". It was so funny and cute, I couldn't stop myself from giggling. It seems impossible that my baby will ever get that big.