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

Benjamin’s never been to a feature film. Until today. The four of us–Zachary included–went to see a matinee showing of “Horton Hears a Who” at a local movie theater, and we had a really great time.

First and most importantly, Benjamin really enjoyed himself. It’s not at all uncommon that he enjoys himself; he always manages to find something fun to do. But this was something new, and it got kind of dark, and it wasn’t anything he was familiar with as experiences go…but he adapted well and settled right in. There were moments where Vlad the Vulture spooked him into asking to go potty when he really didn’t need to. Benjamin sat in his own seat (with a theater-provided booster) and held the giant box of popcorn for the whole family, the entire movie.

There were also moments when he asked to go potty and needed to; he was still clean and dry when the movie was over, which was great considering the kid’s not yet even 2.5 years old. Yes, his parents are proud…

Unsurprisingly, Zachary enjoyed the movie a bit less. It wasn’t so much a matter of not enjoying the movie, because he wasn’t even really watching it; it was more a matter of having just been breastfed prior to the previews and then wanting to nap when the surroundings were unfamiliar and a bit, umm, animated… He did finally go to sleep, and everything worked out fine after that.

All in all, a great experience, and a great afternoon at a matinee show (and at a theatre worth supporting!). Mom and Dad enjoyed the movie as well. Mom in particular was laughing out loud at the song and dance bit at the end.

We’ll definitely be doing it again!

Didn’t really get a chance to mention it before, but for Christmas, Lyle and Vicki popped for all of the grandkids and their parents to go with them to Disney World in Florida.

We just got back on Thursday. It was a great trip! Really good experience for Benjamin; lots of socialization, lots of animals and sights and sounds for him to experience. He seemed to really enjoy himself!

We were really concerned that we might have some trouble with him as far as naps and food were concerned, but he managed to nap when he needed it, falling asleep and staying asleep during some louder show finales, for example. He ate well, and he slept well during the overnights. He handled the later evenings just fine, and loved all the attention and company, playing with his cousins, etc.

The most impressive aspect of the entire trip was how well he handled flying! While everyone else drove from WI down to FL, we ended up flying down, because 20 hours in a car seemed like a bad idea with an 11-month old. He was perfect on the plane in every way. Didn’t cry or become upset during takeoffs or landings, and lasted the entire flight with no trouble, despite being a lap passenger and not having a seat or an opportunity to get down and crawl around at all, being held the entire time, etc. He ate, he drank, he made faces and flirted with the stewardesses and other passengers…he is such a great social being!

We ended up with a few souvenirs from the trip, and a few pictures, too. We’ll try to post some of the pictures soon.

So we’re sitting with Benjamin this evening playing, and he’s on his stomach, then on his back, flipping around, etc, having a great time.

As we’ve mentioned recently, he’s been trying soooo hard to sit up from a hands-and-knees position… He’ll push back, shift to his side, and push himself most of the way up, but can’t quite get totally vertical and sitting upright altogether.  He knows he’s on to something, because you can see in his eyes that he knows this is what he’s suppose to do, and he’s trying with all his might to make it happen.

Well, earlier tonight, he did it. Physical-therapist Mommy calls these types of moves ‘transition’ moves; prior to doing that, however, he did the opposite transition move, from sitting to crawling position. Not even five minutes later, he transitioned the other way, from the crawling position to sitting upright–totally–on his own both times.

Who knows when he’ll do it again, but at this point, he’s done each move once, and we know he’ll be doing them again soon!

Yes, we’re proud again. ;) Mom was particularly excited, probably because it’s one of those “transition” things she knows all about.

The crawling thing is getting more interesting. He will actually raise himself up so he’s just on his hands and his feet, not on his knees at all, like he’s trying to stand up…testing his body to see what it can do. Growing and growing! It’s fascinating to watch him figure this stuff out.

Looks like Benjamin has started to understand hiding-then-reappearing faces. Just this past weekend, he was laughing his head off… It was the first time we’ve noticed it, and we’ve been testing him off and on pretty regularly to see when he’d start doing it and playing along.

Related to that, he’s also understanding that things continue to exist even though he can’t see them anymore. Very cool! He can uncover things on his own when we hide them.

He’s still not quite crawling yet… Well, he’s crawling, but it’s very uncoordinated, so we’re not calling it “real crawling” yet. He’s trying really, really hard to figure out how to get from his side up into a sitting position on his own, now, too. He almost got it yesterday; you can really see the determination in his eyes, just before you see the frustration. ;)

He has also figured out how to move great distances on his back by arching his back and pushing off with his feet.

We’ve also moved on from carrots to green beans now. The palate continues to expand…

Benjamin’s first baseball game was last night, Friday night: Brewers home game against the Cincinnati Reds (Brewers lost, big surprise, 4-3). The three of us went with Mom’s parents, and we had fun, although it was waaaay too hot.

Benjamin himself seemed to have had a good time… The big crowd (attendance was around 33,000) seemed both interesting and scary to him. He looked around a lot at all the people, all the activity, but when there was a big play and lots of cheering, or some sudden yelling or catcalling, he freaked out and started crying. :(

Closer to the end of the game he seemed to be handling it a LOT better; we made sure to see that it was happy yelling and cheering, showing him that we were clapping and being excited and all that. It seemed to help.

There were some fireworks at the start of the game; Benjamin LOVED them.

Our little guy got hungry while we were there, too… Mom was a little nervous breastfeeding in front of 33,000 people, but did it anyway. Mom’s really not afraid to feed him pretty much anywhere, anytime. Go, Mom! :)

Benjamin was pretty hyper duing a lot of the game, mostly due to the craziness of the crowd, but closer to the end, he managed to fall asleep for a while, which helped his demeanor. He was up past his bedtime, and it was starting to show. It was also really, really hot; we stripped him down to just his diaper, which seemed to help, but we were all dripping with sweat.

Over the course of the game, he dropped almost every toy we brought on the peanut-shell- and beer-covered floor, too, so he was running out of things to play with…

In the end, it all went pretty well. It looks like we can take him to another game sometime and not have any real problem. Dad’s pretty excited about eventually taking him to some hockey games now!

Benjamin’s getting to be more and more active. He’s also wanting to be more mobile than he’s currently capable of being, and it seems to be frustrating him a little bit. He’s rolling over back and forth like there’s no tomorrow, and he’s even kind of figured out how to mini-steamroll around the room, but only for a couple of flips before he stops… He can spin himself around pretty easily, either while on his back or his belly, and if you’re not paying close attention, he can move about ten feet across the floor and be in a totally different orientation, leaving you wondering how he even did it…

He’s still not quite crawling, but he is up on all fours now pretty often (and more and more every day). He rocks back and forth now, and he’s been occasionally bunny-hopping his way across the floor in very short spurts. He’s got the idea of crawling down, we think, but he’s not quite coordinated enough to make it work; he gets on his stomach, realizes he can’t do what he wants to do, and eventually gets frustrated and needs some help.

He sits up for an hour or longer at a time now, so we think he’s got that pretty well under control, unless he’s hungry or tired or bored, in which case he very readily falls back/over and cries for assistance or additional entertainment. Smart kid, heh. He’s getting so much better at entertaining himself for longer stretches of time, too, playing with different toys…and he’s quite the little talker when we’re playing with him, too! He is increasingly ticklish and loves to laugh–great sense of humor so far!

Benjamin’s still on cereal twice a day (in addition to regular breast/bottled-breastmilk feedings), and that’s going really, really well. We’ll be introducing some vegetable baby food in a couple weeks or less, we think. He’s been sleeping really well all night long, too, which is fantastic… it’s so nice to have some quiet, alone time for Mom and Dad in the evenings. He’s up earlier in the morning now as a result, which has obliterated Dad’s morning 1.5 hours or so’s free work time…but Dad will get used to it.

We started babyproofing the house recently, too. Fun! (ok, not really…) Outlet covers, some cabinet locks, etc. Crawling around on the floor trying to see things from his vantage point… We have some openings between rooms that aren’t the right size for standard baby gates, so we’re not sure what we’re going to do about that just yet, but we’re shopping around still hoping we’ll find some that will work. We finally got around to buying a new vacuum cleaner, too, so that’s taken care of now.

We were also talking a couple days ago how he’s starting to look more like a little boy and less like a baby (cue Dad’s excuses about the lack-of-pictures situation here). We were also talking about how everyone has told us how quickly this time would fly by, and how we were prepared for it to go by quickly, but we’ve still been stunned at just how much more quickly it’s gone by than we ever could have imagined! We’ve probably said it a billion times in the last nearly-six months: amazing!