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

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  Festive and fair...and hot!

  Stacey and Alex 18:36 pm on August 5, 2006 | 0 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: animals (3), breastfeeding (9), carrier (2), nap (7), playing (30), sleeping

  Last weekend it was Germanfest, and this weekend it was Wisconsin State Fair.

  Pretty hot both days. Temperature today was much nicer than last weekend at Germanfest, but State Fair today was very humid, and at one point the sun came out and it got really hot on top of that. We ducked in and out of shade and various buildings today, so that worked out pretty well. It was more difficult at Germanfest last week; the Summerfest grounds don’t really offer a lot of shade unless you’re smoking and drinking in a bar area/tent.

  Dad and Mom took turns today carrying Benjamin in his carrier, wearing him in the front, facing out, so he could see everything. He was having a pretty good time, but he didn’t like some of the crowds… There were some new piglets being born in the birthing barn as we were there, but Benjamin wasn’t terribly interested. He seemed to like looking at all the cows, though!

  It’s not easy to find a place to breastfeed at the Fair; we finally hunkered down at a picnic table in what appeared to be a break area for the ambulance service, behind their office trailer. We were almost shooed away by a security guy until he saw what we were doing. Thank you, security guy.

  We were there about three and a half hours; Benjamin finally managed to settle down enough from all the chaos around him into a nap, so we figured it was time to go. :)

   

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• 

  Took him out to the ballgame...

  Stacey and Alex 10:59 am on July 29, 2006 | 0 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: baseball (2), breastfeeding (9), fireworks (2), nap (7), playing (30), sitting (13), sleeping, toys (8)

  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!

   
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  Rockin' and rollin'...a general update

  Stacey and Alex 20:13 pm on July 27, 2006 | 0 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: babyproofing (3), breastfeeding (9), cereal (9), crawling (11), laughing (8), playing (30), rolling over (9), scooting (2), sitting (13), sleeping, solids (11), talking (6), ticklish (2), toys (8)

  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!

   
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  Sleeping and crawling...and babyproofing, too

  Stacey and Alex 0:30 am on July 23, 2006 | 0 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: babyproofing (3), cereal (9), crawling (11), playing (30), sleeping

  Friday we were excited that he’s been sleeping through the nights again, only to be awakened Friday night by a boy with an upset stomach… We were on Day 10 or something of this most recent run of all-night sleep. Darn. At least he’s not waking up for food or attention, so that’s good. :) He was only awake for 20-30 minutes, needed some comforting through his stomach gurgling (from the cereal? we don’t know), and went back down for the rest of the night.

  As for his progress crawling, it’s an ongoing thing, but he’s been making big strides this week, and in the last few days in particular. He’s getting his legs and knees up under himself and rocking back and forth, and making small gains in the forward–and occasionally backward–direction(s)… It won’t be too long, we figure…and we still need to babyproof the outlets, etc. We’ve gotten down to baby level on the floor and taken care of a lot of the lower stuff he could get into, but we still need to rearrange some furniture, cover outlets, move cords, and buy a new vacuum cleaner that works better than our current one. It’s amazing how dirty your carpet suddenly seems when you’re down with your face in it with your new child!

   
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  Sleepin' and eatin' well, and the Fish Day Parade

  Stacey and Alex 20:12 pm on July 15, 2006 | 0 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: breastfeeding (9), cereal (9), diapers (4), giraffe (3), height (7), parade (2), playing (30), poop (7), sitting (13), sleeping, solids (11), toys (8), weight (8)

  We’ve been experimenting with a baby spoon with some frozen breast milk slush to see how well Ben adapts to and handles being spoon-fed. Turns out he does it pretty well. No spit-out, tongue-thrusting reflex kicking anything out. His first time a few days ago, he was like a pro, right away.

  Well, with that success, we are proud to announce Yet Another First: Benjamin had rice cereal–his first solid food–today for the first time ever. One tablespoon with several tablespoons of breastmilk (making it really runny, but it thickened up more with time and more stirring). He pretty much ate it all, though he got a little on the table and a little more on his chin…

  We’re a little nervous about how this change will affect what happens in his diapers… but a bit more seriously concerned about how it will affect his sleeping (he’s been back on a sleeping-all-night schedule the last three nights, yay!) and his height/weight.

  So we’re really proud again. Big day with the giraffe, and then this. Whoo! :)

  Port Washington, WI has their annual Fish Day celebration, which is all about (iirc) celebrating the fishing heritage of the town (it’s right on Lake Michigan). They have a great one-day celebration, with a pretty good (but candy-free…) parade. Today it was really super-hot. Too much sun. Ben was sweating and uncomfortable. We finally found some shade, and he played and generally enjoyed himself, sitting up on the blanket and watching everything and everyone. Once the parade was over, he slept during most of our drive to Gurnee Mills….all tuckered out, poor boy.

   
• 

  20.

  Stacey and Alex 21:48 pm on July 11, 2006 | 0 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: breastfeeding (9), cereal (9), crawling (11), fishing (3), height (7), pediatrician (15), playing (30), rolling over (9), sitting (13), sleeping, weight (8)

  Yesterday, Monday, July 10th, 2006, was Benjamin’s 20-weeks-old birthday.

  FIVE MONTHS. Crazy!

  Today, though, was his four-month followup visit with his pediatrician. A little late, due to some scheduling issues (doc’s taking Wednesdays off all summer, go figure), but not a big deal.

  Stats from his visit today:

  • Height: 26 1/4 inches
  • Weight: 16 lbs, 12 ounces
  • Head Circumference: 16 3/4 inches

  His doctor was quite satisfied with his progress and appearance. He’s right on track with most things, and a little ahead of the game in others. We’ve been given the green light for introducing rice cereal, too (just a little; we’re still breastfeeding)…but of course, we’re not ready (though we bought the cereal already a few weeks ago)!

  Ben’s really been quite a trooper these last several days. He is rolling over back and forth, front to back, back to front, etc etc, like nobody’s business. He’s not figured out that he can steamroll his way across a room yet, but we’re sure he will soon. He’s not quite crawling yet, either, but every day, literally, he gets a little more coordinated and a little more successful with his attempts. He’s sitting up for longer periods of time, too, when he’s not being lazy. ;)

  He got shots again today, too. The same three he got last time. He only cried once when he got stuck, for about 5 seconds, and that was it. He was all smiles after that, and it was like nothing happened. Amazing. Several hours later, and on into this evening, he seems to have a little bit of a fever and is doing some heavier sweating, but that’s typical….he’s on some baby Tylenol to keep him comfortable.

  His doctor was disappointed we haven’t put him on any Vitamin D supplement yet, despite our reassurances that he’s getting plenty of time in the sun. He also expects us to have been sleeping through the night by the time he’s 6 months or we’re supposed to start letting him cry it out so he figures out he’s supposed to be sleeping through the night. We’re supposed to start on cereal now and solids at six months… We’ve read -everywhere- that solids shouldn’t be started any earlier than 6 months (ideally sometime in the 6-8 month time frame, so 6 months is on the early end of the spectrum…), so we’re not in any hurry there, either. He says cereal doesn’t count as far as solids are concerned…we’re not quite sure that’s true…

  So basically, we’re trying to figure out–with all due respect, of course–just how correct he is about these things, what our options are, etc.

  Anyway…. just an update, again. Hard to believe he’s five months old already. Almost halfway through the infant phase of his life already. He’s a strong, healthy, handsome, darling baby, and a great kid so far. Everything we wanted in a child, and so much more.