Bath time

Bath time has become fun for us, and a little challenging as Ben wants to stand as much as possible. He also likes to pull out the drain stopper and play with it, making it difficult to take a bath with no water in the tub! He really likes the water, even having water poured over his head. We're looking forward to joining the Park District kiddie pool 2 blocks from us this summer.

Here he is doing one of his other favorite activities, standing outside the bathtub, walking back and forth and exploring the bathroom.

Coble University

William's brother George and his wife Debby sent us "Coble University" adult sweatshirts and baby onesie for Christmas and here's Ben showing off his new attire. We know Grandpa Coble would have been tickled!

Standing

Ben surprised us all by learning how to stand last Saturday. We went into his room to get him up from a nap and there he was, standing in his crib.

Now, instead of going to sleep when he's supposed to, he prefers to stand and he's really quite proud of himself. We think it looks like he's composing the next great political speech, and only waiting for the ability to communicate it.

It makes getting him to sleep rather difficult!

Rockin' Rudolph

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all!

William and Ben have developed a routine where William sings a rock beat and Ben dances. This is how we started Christmas morning - with a rockin' Rudolph the Red-nosed reindeer.




A few minutes later he got his first present from Santa - a green wooden worm.

And later in the day, we learned that Ben knows how to open presents... since he's meticulous about studying the details of most objects, we're not surprised!

And the man behind the best pictures we have...Grandpa Bruce caught waiting for a picture.

Crawling OR He Has a Mind of His Own

Ben has begun demonstrating his independence! He started crawling last week, a few days shy of his 8-month birthday. Although he's been up in the crawl position for 2 months, he never quite got the hang of forward motion. Early last week, he started crawling, but with his belly still on the ground. He looks like he's swimming. He moves his arms and legs in the right sequence, just not in the typical crawl position. And, he moves fast and has an interest in going places independently... the bathroom to play with his bathtub, to follow me to let the dog out, his favorite un-babyproofed location (the phone jack in his room), to play with our feet when we're standing near by.

Here's a shaky video for your viewing pleasure:



And another video where I'm hoping he'll demonstrate his newfound crawling, but does a lot of spinning on his stomach.

Happy Halloween!

And this is what Ben's up to lately...

Ben is now over 7 months and weighs 16 lbs 10 ounces, 27. 5 inches long. He had his 6 month check up (a little late) last week. He continues to be on the small side among babies, but growing at a steady rate. He now has 6 teeth, 2 on the bottom and 4 on the top. All 4 came in at the same time in the last few weeks. He's a very smiley and social baby. At church this morning, as usual, he spent the whole time either bouncing on my lap or looking around and smiling to see who would smile back.

Since I've last updated, he was baptised and his godmothers were William's sister Jenny and Jen's Aunt Chris. In addition to a nice visit from William's sister (Syracuse, NY), we also had an equally nice visit from William's brother George and his wife Debby this summer.

He's been enjoying solid food and sitting in his high chair. Here's his first solid food feeding with bananas on his face in August.

And last week, eating an appetizing combination of squash and chicken. Look at the lower left to see the spoon slowly working its way toward his mouth and notice the anticipation in his arms and concentration in his face. His arms will start waving any minute (if we had captured this feeding on video).

Rolling is Ben's favorite method of getting around. On the floor of his room, if you leave for a minute he'll find his way under the crib where he likes to examine the bottom of his mattress like a car mechanic. He recently found a basket of bath toys I left under there and now rubber ducks are his favorite chew toy. His other odd fascination are the silky tags on stuffed animal and other toys. He can study one carefully for 15 minutes without a break.

Crawling can't be far off. He's been getting up on all 4s for more than a month now. That's often how we find him first thing in the morning in his crib, rocking back and forth and smiling.

Who can resist a few more adorable pictures of our boy?

And one final picture - Ben's thinking "Who is this?" Why it's my cousin Attica!