b e n j a m i n f a l k e n b e r g

HUGE thank-you to Vicki, Stacey’s mom, who watched Benjamin for us so we could go out on a date (we went to a local university theater production of Tommy).

It was only for a couple of hours, but it felt nice to have some time alone with each other.

Previously, we had Ashley (our fabulous babysitter this past summer) watch Benjamin while we went out for dinner (for a surprise for my birthday), back in September.

That makes a total of two ‘just us’ dates we’ve had since he was born (now seven months ago, yikes!). As much as we love Benjamin, we’ve been craving some time alone together… He was still in our heads constantly throughout the evening, of course… no escaping that! ;)

We were told he behaved really well; we’re really glad it worked out, because we’d certainly like to do it again! :)

Yesterday was our 4th anniversary. Stacey decided to conspire with Ashley to take me out for dinner.

This was a big deal for several reasons. First, it was our anniversary. Second, my wife is rarely successful at surprising me/keeping a secret. And third, it was to be the first time we’ve left Benjamin alone with a babysitter.

Stacey and Ashley had this whole secret cooked up for over two weeks. Sneaky, sneaky!

Stacey was worried that _I_ would be nervous about leaving Benjamin. As it turned out, I was fine. I have been around Ashley enough now to know that she’s been doing a great job watching him, and so I have faith in her to do that. Stacey was the nervous one, and eager to get back home once dinner was over. It was kinda funny. :)

Stacey: thank you for a lovely surprise and a great dinner. Thank you, too, for being a lovely and wonderful wife to me and mother to our son. It’s hard to believe it’s been four years already; I suspect time will only increase in speed now that we have Benjamin (and any siblings down the road)…

I look forward to all the years to come. :)

We were without Ashley for a week while she was on vacation with her family. She was back yesterday and today, however, and it went really well again. She and Benjamin seem to get along really well together; Ben definitely recognized her again and likes her!

We’re glad to have her back, and feel very fortunate to have her assistance. She’s been great with Ben, and we really appreciate her efforts.

…by Ashley’s recent success (read: not to be outdone by the babysitter! ;)), I was able to get Benjamin to back-nap once today. Only for half an hour, but hey, it’s a work in progress.

He was really tired when it finally happened, however; he was resisting pretty mightily.

Yes, it’s true. She did something yesterday that Mom and Dad can’t seem to really do… Mind you, it didn’t last long, but we were very impressed.

Before I go any further, I should just mention one thing: her name is Ashley. I didn’t mention her name previously because I don’t know if she cares that I’m writing about her here or not. I suppose if she has a problem with it, she’ll let me know… ;)

So I was upstairs yesterday and Ashley’s watching Ben. I hear a little bit of crying. Totally normal for Ben about an hour or so after eating…he’s tired and needs a nap. We were inching closer to it being time for Ashley to go home, and suddenly I realized I didn’t hear Ben crying anymore.

She must have gotten him down for a nap! Yes!

So I snuck downstairs quietly and looked around from the banister; I saw Ashley, but no Ben. He’s… asleep?

Not only asleep, but asleep on his back. Now, before anyone gets their feathers ruffled, he DOES indeed sleep on his back overnight. Every time. But for his naps during the day, for some reason, he seems to prefer his belly. No idea why; that’s just how it’s been, and we’ve been kinda rolling with it.

So he was ON HIS BACK. NAPPING. I about freaked out. Ashley ROCKS!

It didn’t last very long; he startled himself awake, probably dreaming about rock climbing or something. But 20 minutes on his back for a nap is a start!

We’ve been trying more and more recently to solve the increasingly-irritating problem of getting him to sleep at night. He just doesn’t seem “ready”. It can take hours sometimes, and it’s frustrating. Just go to sleep, little man… We’ve got a pretty good routine, but he just doesn’t buy it sometimes. It doesn’t help that with it being summer the days are longer and there’s still daylight going on. We’ve added a light-blocking blind to the window in his room, and it helps, but we think he can still smell daylight or something… (we’re open to suggestions!)

Anyway, back napping. Great news. And Ashley’s obviously working out really well so far. :)

Today’s Ben’s first day with a (new, regular) babysitter!

She’s a very nice young woman who will be here a couple times a week (to start) for a couple hours or so a day, so I can get some work done that’s much easier to do during the day instead of late afternoon or evening.

I’m just upstairs in my office while this is happening, so we’ve not really left him “alone” yet, but we’re working our way up slowly to eventually being able to leave him for a while so we can, oh, I don’t know, go to a movie or something…that we’ve not been able to do for months now.

So far, from what I can hear from my office, everything sounds like it’s going great! :) Ben can be a bit fussy about going down for a nap, so we’ll have to see how that goes here in a little while…