Moving to a new blog

Okay, I know, I’m really behind on posting here.  Forgive me; I’ve was pregnant and then had a new baby, and I’m working as well.  I know, I need to write about Benjamin’s first birthday party and catch up on how he’s doing, and someday soon I hope to have time for that.  But now that Benjamin’s got a little sister, I’m not going to keep separate blogs for them; I’m starting a new blog at http://gerdingkids.wordpress.com/ and that will be for both Benjamin and Annalise, and should there be any more babies, those as well (though that’s not looking very likely from my perspective right now, lol).   So go check it out!

Almost a year old!

Oops, it’s been a while since I updated here!  Not a whole lot new though.  Benjamin is still not walking yet, but we’re getting closer.  He cruises all the time now and has been standing without holding on to anything for a few seconds at a time before he falls.

He’s babbling a LOT lately, within the last few weeks – he’s always “talking.”  The only recognizable words are “dada” and “mama” but I am not sure if he is actually using those as names or it’s just more sounds.

Still no teeth!! I’m not worried by this as my mom tells me I was 14 months old before I cut my first.  He’s eating mostly everything we do now.  I don’t give him a lot of meat though because without the teeth it makes me nervous.  He gets eggs and those smelly little baby hot dogs in the jar for protein.  Still not much hair either. LOL

We’re working on clapping hands, “give me 5′ and some other stuff but he’s not very interested in doing it himself yet, though he gets very smiley and excitable when I do it.  I guess maybe 25% of the time I ask him for a kiss he’ll give me one…  he leans forward with his mouth wide open and drools all over me. LOL  Once in a while he’ll give me one I haven’t asked for and of course that just melts me.

We’re also working on being gentle – he gets excitable and flails his arms all around and ends up slapping, and with his little sister coming in 6 weeks or so, I can’t have him doing that!

Starting to cruise!

Benjamin’s favorite activity for several weeks now has been to pull himself up to standing.  The other day he took a few steps sideways while holding onto the couch to go between me and his dad.  He is also starting to let go with one hand and use the other to balance himself.  I guess he’ll be walking before his little  sister gets here – that’s about 12 weeks away!

Christmas Eve Pictures

Here are a few from Christmas Eve – when Walter’s family traditionally does their gift exchange.  We (Me, Walter, our kids) do ours Christmas morning.

Investigating the tree and gifts at Uncle Jim and Aunt Shari’s

Checking out his new toy

Playing with the box

Now on to the toy itself

Playing with big sister Corinne

Whatcha doing, Mama?

Chasing the dog

All worn out with Grandmom Ida

Benjamin does not like lemons!

Today was my mother-in-law’s birthday and we went to Applebee’s for dinner.  I have been giving Benjamin a little taste of just about everything we eat, and today I gave him the lemon slice that came with my iced tea.  Here he is before he tasted it:

The first taste…

What the heck is this?!?

Ugh! This is NASTY!

Took it out of his mouth, then put it back in, quickly taking it back out to give me this hilarious face…

And then promptly puked.  Not spit up.  PUKED.

We won’t be trying citrus again anytime soon.

9 month checkup today

Benjamin went to the dr today for his 9 month checkup.  He weighs 20.2 lbs, not as much as I would have thought.  He is in the 50th percentile all around, height, weight, head.  Dr proclaimed him to be “growing beautifully.”  He goes back at 12 months unless he gets sick in between.  Later i will post pictures.

A lot can happen in two weeks!

So Benjamin is now speed racer with the crawling.  He follows us wherever we go, and when I’m working,  he crawls under my desk, which is a problem since I use the foot pedal for transcription.  So very soon we will be getting a baby gate so he can’t come into the room where my computer is (it’s adjacent to the living room).

He is now pulling himself up to standing on a regular basis.  Now that he can do it, he seems to love it, because he does it all the time.

I know I said this last post, but I’ve been writing on a monthly basis lately… but in case I don’t write before Christmas, have a blessed, happy one!

8 months old

Benjamin was 8 months old yesterday.   Not too many changes the last month.  He still hasn’t gotten the hang of crawling on his hands and knees yet.  He gets up there and tries to go, but he quickly falls flat on his face (I shouldn’t laugh, but I do; he’s not hurt) and then must think, “Forget it, I can do it the other way!” and “army crawls.”  However, he started incorporating his legs into it and he’s a lot faster now.

Just in the last few days he started trying to pull himself up.  A week or so ago I looked at the crib and saw one hand on the rail and just the top of his head peeking over the top, but the day before yesterday he got himself pulled up onto his knees.  He’s also tried to pull himself up on the door once and on the couch once.

When he’s on the floor he gets himself into a kneeling position and then it looks like he’s trying to stand up which is pretty funny since he sure can’t do that.  He *almost* has got the hang of getting himself to a sitting position from a laying position.  He kind of props himself up on an arm, but can’t quite get that last little push up to get himself sitting.

Still no teeth!!

He’s still nursing, but only in the mornings and before he goes to bed.  I might have weaned him by now if I weren’t expecting, but I want to keep the milk up for the new baby, so she doesn’t get jaundice the way Benjamin did.

And that’s about it…

In case I don’t write before Christmas, have a blessed, happy one!

Benjamin’s first illness :(

Benjamin had sort of a mild cold for a while, then he started running low fevers so I took him to the doctor and he had a sinus infection, so he is on amoxicillin.  He also had a stomach virus right in the middle for a few days where he couldn’t keep much down.  The antibiotics helped in that the fever went away and he got somewhat less junky, but he still has a little congestion.

I’m happy though that he was nearly 8 months before he got sick for the first time!

7 months old!

Benjamin was 7 months old on 11/1 – I can’t believe it is going by so quickly.   This last month or so has been very eventful for him – now he’s sitting by himself with no problem and he’s mastered the “army crawl” – he pulls himself along to get somewhere just using his arms.  He’s been balancing himself on his hands and knees for a few weeks and just in the last few days he’s started to try to lurch along so I guess he’s going to crawl in the typical fashion at some point too.

His eating has certainly expanded.  Now he eats both rice and oatmeal cereal and he’s had and likes white potatoes, sweet potatoes, carrots, bananas, apples, and has had but didn’t like peas, but I will try them a bunch of other times to see if I can get him used to them.  Last weekend I took my 13 year old daughter and her friend to the mall and afterwards we went to a pizza place and I gave Benjamin pizza crust and he loved it!  I don’t know how much he mashed up and ate and how much got on the floor, but all in all I had to give him three pizza crusts.  Here’s a few pictures of him with that:

Still no teeth.  I don’t know what happened, if that little point I saw for several weeks was something else or what!  He’s always gnawing on something though, drooling a lot, so whether he’s actively teething or not I don’t know anymore. lol

He loves his bath.  He hasn’t realized he can splash around when he’s sitting, but he’s got lots of floating bath toys to keep him busy.  After he’s washed I drain most of the water and let him lay on his back and boy does he go crazy kicking and flailing his arms around splashing that way.  I need to take a video of it with my cell phone.  Here he is in his bath chair:

On Halloween he dressed up like a duck, which was my niece’s costume from last year and is adorable.  We didn’t go trick or treating of course, but we put him in his costume and went visiting family.

The weekend prior we went to a pumpkin patch and here he is there.

Obviously I’m just posting a few pictures here but I’m in the process of putting them all up at http://gerdingfamily.myphotoalbum.com/