Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Best Night.

Tonight I had a fantastic evening with Ben. Nothing really stellar or special happened, but it was one of those nights where everything just seemed to go right. I want to make sure I don't forget moments like these, so to the blog I take. :)

This last week or so has been particularly difficult at our house. It seems Ben has discovered a bit of aggression and is showing it in the way of hitting, biting and pinching. I have no idea where this came from - no one in this family hits, bites or pinches him. In looking through some babycenter.com articles, I have to go with this is just a stage in his life. We're struggling with the right way to discipline him while maintaining our own cools. It's difficult, but we'll figure it out.

So, because of that difficult period we're going through, it makes me stop and appreciate nights like this even more. After Nick went off to school, Ben & I headed out to the elementary school a block over and spent time just playing. He went down the slide a time or two, but mostly he was having fun picking up the little wood chips from the play area and making a pile with them on the steps to the jungle gym.

I noticed the sky was getting pretty serious looking, so we walked on back home. He held my hand every time we crossed a road with no struggles or fuss. He found a little lilac bloom that had fallen off a tree and sniffed, sniffed, sniffed before handing it off to me for smelling.

Once we got home, it was time for some play in the living room. We played with his fire truck steering wheel dealie, we made music, made silly sounds through blocks and danced. We took silly pictures of ourselves and looked at them on the camera.


Then it was off to bath, where he played and played - took time putting his little wash cloth on top of his head and then giving me the cheesiest grin ever.

When the wind started to get loud and crazy, we came back out to the living room to get jammied up and then looked outside at the blowing trees.

When it was time for night-night, he went to his room with no fuss (usually he "escapes" once or twice and I have to chase him back to his room). We read a story, the whole way through, again with no fuss. We said nighty-night to nana and turned on his music and spent some time cuddling.

There are times when he absolutely tests my patience and I wonder how we're ever going to make it to two years old. Those times make me question my sanity at ever wanting children in the first place and being certain (at that time) that there won't be any more children. Then we have times like this, everything goes right and I think "yeah, this is why I had a baby."

Thursday, May 19, 2011

17 Months.


Well, jeez. Can you believe it? Next month Ben will be a year and a half old. Time is flllllllllllying by. I'm excited for his well baby visit next month, I want to see how much he's grown!

Not really a whole lot different than last month. He's picking up more and more words. We bought him one of those "first words" books and he's gotten fairly good at pointing to the correct picture when I ask him where something is.

Some things different are his moods. My sweet happy boy is being replaced more and more by this whiney, tantrum-y, dare-I-say-it: brat. In retrospect, these moments really aren't that often, but when they're happening, it tends to feel like they're happening ALL. THE. TIME. He's also started to get a bit aggressive, trying out hitting & biting. Good times.

Sleep continues to be gross. Naps have started to get interrupted for whatever reason (I'm sure it's teething) and I find myself recently having to go in at least once a nap to tell him it's still nap time and to go back to sleep. Night time he seems to enjoy waking up at around 2:00ish to jabber. For hours. No amount of soothing, cuddling, firm "it's still night-night time" reminders seems to encourage him to go back to sleep any faster. So in defense of this, I've started turning the monitor almost all the way down. Soft enough that my fan drowns out the jabbering, but still on so that if he cries or is in distress, I can hear him and go see what's up (like the time his foot was stuck through the crib slats).

I'm thinking the bink may have to go sooner than 2 years, as I said in my last post. I'm pretty sure this is the reason for most of the night wakings. He wakes up, realizes he doesn't have it and can't go back to sleep. He's completely off it during the day and has no problems either giving it to me to put away after nap or putting it on the shelf himself. So next we get the glorious task of taking it away for sleeps. I think we'll wait til after Nick graduates for that one.

Meal times are also becoming an adventure. Some days he'll eat great, loving everything I give him and eating it all. Other days, he refuses to eat, spits it out and/or throws it on the floor. I never know what I'm going to get at meal time. A dinner he devoured two weeks ago is nasty the next time he has it. Everything I read says this is fairly age appropriate, but annoying nonetheless. :)

I think that's it. Really, nothing too new since last month. I'm sure June 18th will be here before I know it!

Saturday, May 7, 2011

Life.

Well, jeez. I kind of feel like I've been neglecting my bloggeroo here for the last little while. I make sure I record the Ben doings but aside from that, I haven't really kept up on this. Some of it's intentional, some of it not.

So what have we been up to? Mostly the usual. This quarter at school for Nick has been really demanding - probably the most of the last three years. Aside from that, he's working on big project releases at work so he's just nonstop busy. I don't think the poor guy has been to bed before 2:00 since the quarter started. Hopefully, though, with the release at work getting all ironed out he'll be able to start working some more from home. We've really missed having him at Little Gym.

As for myself, I'm trying to keep busy. I've joined a mommy & me group that I'm trying to get more involved in. Unfortunately, a lot of the activities are planned right in the middle of Ben's nap. While I don't mind adjusting occasionally, I try to keep him on schedule as often as I can. It makes for a happier Beesley house if we do. :) I've also joined two different book clubs, and a scrapbooking group. I'm excited to go to the first meetings and meet some new people. My May is rather booked, which is just how I like it. I can't make new friends if I'm stuck inside all day, playing on Facebook and looking at blogs. ;)

We haven't progressed much on our bedroom make over. We did finally sell our old bedroom set on Craigslist (full asking price! good things come to those who wait) but we were foolish with our money (it's so nice to have some extra for once... ha ha) and it went back out the door before we bought new stuff. It's okay, though. I found more furniture plans for some nightstands that Nick thinks he can make easily enough and then we just have to get a dresser.

We also haven't done much more on our backyard make over. We're still sort of debating what to do with the back. I think the easiest and most practical thing will be to just go with what we originally planned. Hopefully we'll get to that soon - I have two more projects for Nick to do. Ha ha. I want to move our TV from above the fireplace to the wall adjacent to it and have Nick build a bookcase to go underneath. Then I want him to build me a crafting desk. Since we redid our bedroom, I've moved all my stuff into the guest closet and I'm cramped with not enough space. Since we actually use our guest room quite a bit (certainly more than we used our guest room in our last house), I want to keep it a guest room until I have to turn it into a nursery for our some-day other baby. So the mostly neglected front room will be my new crafting area. Eventually.

It looks like the house behind us (the former produce-throwing house) may have finally sold after over a year in foreclosure. I'm praying for clean, tidy and most of all QUIET neighbors. We've really enjoyed using our backyard since our old loud and rude neighbors left - even more so since I take Ben out there to wander.

Poor Sadie's starting to show her age. She's still relatively healthy but she's so deaf we have to shout before she hears us (and then she thinks she's in trouble so she hides) and I think her eyesight may be gone in one of her eyes. The last week or so her inner eyelid isn't closing all the way when her eyes open. I need to get her into the vet and make sure it's nothing that can't be easily fixed. I'm thinking it's just old age. Poor old girl. :(

In other news: if any one knows of a reliable and trustworthy babysitter, could you pass on their info? I'm looking for a back up in case my sister in law or my dad can't help out. I've got a few things planned in the coming weeks for myself that I'll need a sitter for and I can't expect my family to always be available.

So that's it. I think. ha ha

Ciao!