Taking a Walk

Ben is walking more and more now! It's really fun to watch him. He very carefully plans his steps, and his balance is quite good. Here's some video we took of him in the kitchen tonight.

Party Animal

Ben was quite the party animal this past weekend. On Saturday, we went to the zoo with his friends Nora and Koby. It was great to see them again. Sunday we went to Koby's first birthday party. The kids really got to play with each other. The last time they played together Ben and Koby couldn't sit up by themselves and they didn't interact like they can now. It was also cute to see the three of them walking, or trying to walk around. Saturday night we drove up to New Jersey and went to a graduation party for one of my (former) students. Ben was dragging me across the dance floor, loving the music and staring at all the dancers. We were rocking a bit and he was having a great time. Monday J.R. took Ben down to the River to watch a Navy Seals demonstration. It was fun that they got to spend some daddy/son time together. A cool part was Ben Franklin stopped by and J.R. took his picture with our little Ben. It was a great picture; too bad I deleted by accident before I downloaded it to the computer. Boy was I upset. I guess we are going to have to stalk B.F. to get his picture again!

Two weeks

Ok, it's been a while. In the past two weeks...I worked a lovely Graduation Gala at school, my students graduated, I spent my first Mother's Day trying to get Ben's 103 degree fever down while he beat a double ear infection, Ben has three new teeth coming in, we got rid of lots of stuff at a yard sale, we visited with Grandma and Grandpa, I took J.R. to the Emergency Room because he had the stomach flu, daycare ticked me off, Ben had lots of good days at daycare, and we are in the middle of doing 10 loads of laundry because the electricity was off in the basement and common areas.

Ok, update over, here are the pictures....
Here's my sickie with his juice
I'm not sure if there is a sick Ben in this picture with me, or if it's an alien baby
Ben riding his new toy Grandma bought for him

These slippers were made for walking

Ben has been taking a few free steps lately. He will definitely take a falling step or two to get to something he wants, mostly mommy or daddy. Tonight, he really got into walking with daddy holding his hands. It was great. (Should I be encouraging this?)

Wild Animals

We had a nice weekend. Grammie and Pepere came down on Saturday morning and left Sunday morning. It was really great having them here. We hung out at the house mostly, and went to the mall for a little bit. We can't wait to see them in another month for Ben's birthday.
Yesterday we went to the zoo. It was such a beautiful day I didn't want to waste it inside. Ben seemed to enjoy himself. Lewis the gorilla posed for us, and Ben couldn't get enough of a giraffe that was eating close to the edge of the pen. He liked the elephants and flamingos too. He really enjoyed just being outside and roaming around. When we got home, daddy noticed a new tooth coming in from the top. Yay - tooth number two!

Baby steps

Long story short, (because there are more important things to say) Ben is sick, possibly a slight case of croup. I really think it's just a bad cold. J.R. picked him up early from day care yesterday because he threw up 3 times (if food is fresh in him, he spits up a bit when he coughs), and although we called the doctor and we have a note, I kept him home today. Only because we rethought the barking cough, but again today, I was assured by the nurse he is fine (small attitude from daycare, but whatever).

OK - on to the cool stuff....Ben took a couple of steps by himself both yesterday and today!!! Wow! Yesterday J.R. had him and he let go of J.R. to get to the activity table. Today he let go of, oh I don't even remember, but he took two steps to get to me. He stands up by himself quite a bit, so I think his steps were mostly letting go of something and stumbling to something else (although it didn't look like a stumble), but still, pretty cool. Other than that, he is just starting to be OK with me holding his arms while he puts one foot in front of the other.

Another fun thing today....he made his first wall art! I should have taken a picture. His hands were a mess from eating baby spaghetti and his high chair is right next to the kitchen wall. Cute now, I'm sure it won't be later.

J.R. thinks it's sad when I blog and don't post a picture, so here's a couple of shots for ya.