Monday, July 20, 2009

St. Louis Visit

Ben took his first trip and of course it was to the stl. He did great on the car ride both there and back with only one stop for some food. We had a fun filled weekend with his cousins and the grandparents. A huge thanks is deserved for my dad for taking the night shift for three nights in a row!! Brian and I enjoyed sleeping a whole night through (although we were each up out of habit just to check that he wasn't a demon for my dad).

On Sunday we went to my grandma's (Momo) house for her annual BBQ and extreme croquet tournament. The ribs were great, the game was entertaining and the company was the best. Ben was a good boy and enjoyed all the attention. How couldn't a kid enjoy being passed around and getting constant attention for 6 hours?! He also got to meet my cousin's new little one, Lily, that is only 4 days younger than him. She's adorable and has some of the most beautiful eyes I've ever seen! It's amazing how quickly all the cousins are growing up each time I go back for a visit - they're getting so big! I can't wait for Ben to be walking to be able to play with them.


Click on the pic for a slide show from the BBQ.

Sunday, July 12, 2009

Another Playdate

So we had another play date with Nicola and Milo and this time they were sort of awake for some of it. We have been getting together weekly so this is just the beginning of the pics since we're going to try and take them each week to capture the essence of these wonderful times.

You better wake up quickly Milo - Nicola's getting fresh! Ben's isn't too sure about it either!


Party time!

Thursday, July 9, 2009

Pool Day!



Ben had his first dip in the pool and after the initial shock of the water he seemed to enjoy it....until it was nap time. He's quite a kicker normally, but didn't seem to understand that in the water is really when you should kick and he just laid in my arms like a bump on the log. Looks like we'll need to work on his swimming skills!


Saturday, July 4, 2009

Happy 4th!



Ben wanted to say happy fourth to everyone. This is the most patriotic outfit we could find in his wardrobe so luckily we had something that was red, white and blue. And of course a crab for the fourth makes sense, right?



Hope everyone had a safe and happy fourth of July!

Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Gastroesophageal reflux (GERD)

Turns out all the fussiness throughout the day and night accompanied by arching his back and stiffining up his limbs, thrusting his head backwards, spitting up after every meal (projectile sometimes), crying and pumping his legs throughout his sleep (see night terrors entry), waking up from a dead sleep to arch his back and crying (basically not sleeping), crying after eating or during it, etc is GERD - aka acid reflux. For the past two weeks Brian and I just thought he was a fussy baby and would outgrow it as that's what many other parents have told us, however once we came across the symptoms of GERD we realized it's more than just being a baby. In fact, I learned that many parents often associate these symptoms with gas or possibly a milk allergy which we did of course and tried all sorts of things to help with either of those cases. I stopped with my dairy intake and we had no luck with Mylicon or gripe water.

So now the issue becomes getting Ben to take the medicine to help him. Turns out the liquid medicine, which smells like candy, he hates. You would think that since he liked all the other stuff we tried he loved he would love this too, but of course, the one thing that can help him is like poison once it touches his lips. I keep trying to tell him that this stuff will make him feel better, but for some reason he doesn't listen. Instead he just spits it out forcefully and cries. Hopefully we can find a way to settle this battle between baby and medicine soon so that he can start feeling better and I can start sleeping more! I'll spare you pics of him during his pain as it's hard for me to even watch let alone capture a picture of what he thinks is the horrific event that occurs all the time.

Monday, June 29, 2009

Smiling for a reason

Ben is starting to figure out his smile. We've been able to get him to respond to us by smiling sometimes, however it's few and far between. It's great to actual get a response from him and it makes everything worth while. Can't wait for him to start giggling now! Here are a couple pics.



Friday, June 26, 2009

Playdate

So yesterday we had a playdate with Nicola and Milo. Emily, Julie and I sure enjoyed it since the little ones were so good. I guess it's hard to really call these play dates since they're all so young and don't exactly 'play', but for our sake we sure enjoy them :) Here are a few pics of what the kids did for the three hours we were there.

Nicola


Milo


Ben