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

He’s got the fever now… He claps while sitting, standing…he even does some clapping now for total strangers. He was at a play area in the mall today and he was waving at the other kids, too. Hilarious!

He’s also doing a little bit more walking… He can take several steps now before he crashes; his longest distance so far is probably about 6 feet or so. You can see him planning his landing when he takes off, too…

In other news, his teeth are still coming in, and we’re still having some restless nights… poor kid. :(

He really has turned into quite a little hugger and kisser, too. He’s still a little bit picky about who he gives them to, and he’s still not the most cuddly baby in the world by any stretch, but the love in him is coming out more and more. :)

It’s been a little while now since he first started doing it to his mother, but he’s now really big into blowing zerberts on Mom and Dad’s arms, legs, bellies, and laughing his head off. He thinks its the funniest thing, and it really gets his parents laughing, too. It’s really, really cool to watch him find and do things that are fun/funny/interesting to him. :)

This morning Dad’s working at his desk when he hears a repetitive noise behind him; he’s not sure what it is, so of course he turns to look…

It’s Benjamin, CLAPPING. We’ve been practicing clapping with him a little bit, but this was the first time he’s really done it on his own, deliberately, that we’ve noticed. He was watching his hands, as if studying the movements and the resulting sounds; it was very, very cute.

He went in for his nine-month wellness check with the pediatrician today, too. Stats:

• height: 28.5 inches tall
• weight: 19 lbs 15 ounces
• head: 18 inches around

Everything went well; he’s average weight, and slightly above-average height.

We were asked a number of questions about his development, and the only question we couldn’t answer yes to was “does he wave goodbye to people?”. He really doesn’t, but he also doesn’t really ever see Mom or Dad leave separately. Well, occasionally, but not that often…not often enough that he would have a lot of practice with the goodbye-waving, in any case. We do practice with him when we’re out and he’s socializing with other parents and kids at a store or something, and around his relatives.

The funny thing? Tonight, just a few hours after his doctor visit, Mom was taking him to bed, and he waved goodnight to his Dad! Very deliberate, and he even repeated it a few moments later. VERY COOL! We also blow kisses at him, so we figure he’ll pick that up on his own at some point soon, too. Very exciting!

He got his second flu shot today. Must have been a clean stick, as he barely cried. He takes shots pretty well.

He started calling his Mom “mama” a couple days ago! Dad’s with him most of the time during the day, so Dad’s kinda bummed it wasn’t “Dada”, but Dad will survive. ;) In the meantime, since he’s figured it out, Mom’s feeling both excited and a little frustrated, because he wants her ALL the time now, and there’s no denying it when he’s asking for her BY NAME. Hah!

He’s also able to take a few steps walking now! He walked about 5 steps tonight for Mom during the football game, before he plopped onto his butt, but it’s progress!

Stuff that makes parents so proud…

He’s moved on to stage-three baby foods and table foods now, too. There are of course a handful of foods he still can’t eat, to avoid potential allergies, but not a big deal… We’re eager to get away from the baby foods and let him start eating “real” foods.

He’s also been teething like CRAZY, and overnights haven’t been very fun… He’s got about 6 teeth now, and he’s gnawing on everything, and drooling like a maniac…

Benjamin’s had a few more good and interesting things happen to him over the last several days. They always seem to happen in clusters!

So… our apologies for not posting in a while; he’s been a little under the weather, and we’ve been a little more busy than normal.

Without further ado:

10 Sept 2006

• His second tooth (right side of the lower middle two) finally poked through. We’re up to two now! His first one is pretty noticeable now, although he really doesn’t enjoy people trying to pull his mouth open to look at things…which means we don’t have any pictures of his new teeth yet at all!

12 Sept 2006

• His first cold! (and other than the bout of diarrhea he had a while back, his first time being noticeably sick!) He’s still recovering from his cold, and combined with the teething, this last week was fun-fun-fun!

14 Sept 2006

• Climbed his first stair (the first flat platform stair at the base of a set of stairs)!

15 Sept  2006

• Climbed to the second stair before his mother stopped him… He might have kept going, for all we know. He really wanted the reach the short stack of paperwork Mom left there to take upstairs to the office later…

He’s also doing some cruising now! He’s been doing a little bumbling around by the step, walking along the base of the stairs, holding on, for about 3 feet or so, back and forth. Today, however, he got up, held the coffee table, and very smoothly walked the length of it!

He’s not supposed to be doing this yet! Yikes! Stacey says it’s a roughly 11-months-along thing. The walking can’t be that far off…

He’s also spending a lot more time standing up and experimenting with letting go…free-standing! He falls pretty reliably on his butt, luckily, but we’ve seen him take one step so far (before falling)… He’s definitely testing his balance as much as he can, and you can see the gears turning in his head as he works out his stance and his next move/steps. It’s really fun and interesting to watch him.

Benjamin is crawling! :)

OK, it’s still not totally coordinated, but the last several days, he’s been very consciously and correctly applying left-right leg motions to his crawling. No more wonky bunny-hopping and falling over…or, well, not as much…

He’s still got a bit to go before he’s got it down perfectly, but his Dr. of PT mother says he’s crawling, and she’s the expert, so…

   yes! :)

Other milestones include pulling himself into a kneeling position and pulling into a standing position. He’s also doing both of these! From what we’ve read, he’s basically months ahead of “normal” development as far as these milestones are concerned. He’s 6.5 months old, and pulling-to-stand (if memory serves) is an approximately 10-months-old thing.

Of course, there’s very much a Your Mileage May Vary(tm) thing at play here; not every kid develops at the same pace. Benjamin is ahead in some ways, right on schedule in others, and probably behind in some ways as well… Each child is different, and there’s certainly no reason to panic OR celebrate, necessarily, based on anything at all.

That said, we’re still pretty fired up! :)

So he’s been sitting up for a minute or two or more, with increasing duration, for a couple weeks or so now…maybe three?

Yesterday he was sitting on the lawn at a backyard party, for about 15 minutes. Unassisted.

Today, he’s been sitting off and on, minding his own business–unassisted, again–for most of the afternoon!

Sure, he still falls over once in a while, but he’s definitely able to catch himself and prevent falls (most of the time), and he’s got really great control overall.

We’ve spent a fair amount of time with him practicing, and most importantly, we think, letting him crawl around on and around us in awkward positions, getting a feel for upside down, rightside up, trying to right himself no matter what angle he’s at or position he’s in, helping him with standing up, walking and dancing around, etc. We think it’s helped him get strong and develop better control.

He’s also coming along very quickly now with the crawling… he’s not crawling anywhere yet, but he’s able to get his legs underneath himself, and he can reposition himself and spin around and kind of wobble around. Give him a week and he’ll be crawling, too!

As for back-to-front flipping/rolling over, he’s basically got down what he needs to do to make it happen…it’s just a matter of putting it all together now; any day!

Two naps today on his back, too. He’s getting better about that, but he still has to be pretty darn tired for it to happen successfully.

Anyway, another Proud Parents Moment(tm)! :) It’s weird that these things seem to be happening so quickly; we’re still pretty thrilled from the initial rollovers a few days ago! Pretty soon he’ll be borrowing the car!

At 8:52am this morning, Ben rolled over from his stomach to his back for the first time ever unassisted!

[[ EDIT: Second time. See the post above this one! :) ]]

:) :) :)

He was in his crib; I had just entered his room, and he was still kind of half-asleep. I called his name, and he propped himself up on his hands to look around (as he’s been doing for weeks now). He cranked his head back and up to look at me, and we started our “morning chat”, talking to each other…

All of a sudden, he rolled over onto his back and kept right on talking back to me as if nothing had happened. It was done so effortlessly, yet intentionally.

I about flipped myself!

He’s actually flipped himself over several times before, but it was always on the bed or the couch with one of us sitting next to him, so the mattress or cushion was always angled, and he was basically rolling downhill more than actually turning over. ;)

One more milestone! We honestly figured he’d flip from back to front first, based on how he’s been doing when we’ve been playing with him. And of course we realize that this first success doesn’t mean instant mastery, either.

He’s such a strong little guy. He’s up to about 2 minutes or so sitting up unassisted now, too, and loves standing up (with our help).

He’s only 4 1/2 months!