2 years !!!

Benjamin turned 2 years old on Sunday!  We celebrated in the evening and had dinner with family.  Benjamin received some fun new gifts that he has been enjoying this week.  Below is a picture of Benjamin when he was being serenaded "Happy Birthday."  His Grandma Jan made the beautiful cake.

He received another special birthday cake from his friend Bella (4).  This was not any ordinary cake, as it was composed of colorful, special ingredients including a bracelet and some lovely hair clips for frosting.  As you can see below, Benjamin got a little "frosting" in his hair.  (Hopefully daddy doesn't see this post or this part might get removed.) :)

 

Here is a fun picture of Benjamin "helping" me with the dishes the other day.

Remembering

In the past week I have seen Benjamin start to walk on his own much more.  He is still a bit uncertain and wobbly, but he is starting to walk between furniture and across rooms at times.  Yesterday he walked by himself just holding onto one of my hands down to the end of the block.  I was really hoping that he would be doing this by his second birthday, which is Sunday!  I cannot believe it has been two years since my little guy made his surprise arrival.  Last week during an insomnia spell one night, I allowed myself to drift back to the days spent in the NICU.  I often think of bits and pieces of our journey, but I really allowed myself to remember this time.  Honestly, it was hard.  It is amazing how you can stuff pain away like an ugly sweater in your closet.  But next to the ugly pain sweater is the beautiful "miracles & blessings" sweater that is a joy to rediscover.  The David Crowder Band song "How He Loves Us" just came to mind.  That song is so true.  If you haven't heard it check it out at this site http://www.onlylyrics.com/hits.php?grid=11&id=1034792.  God loves us so powerfully and He is jealous for our hearts.  You can know God if life is just dandy and nothing bad ever happens to you, but when you go through something tough and suddenly God goes from being big and good to being your lifeline and source of breath...wow.   It is so weird to love a difficult experience.  My mom and I were talking about this just the other week.  We didn't wish this on Benjamin, yet we would not want to go back and undo the experience (but I don't want to do it again either!)

A quick update on my little guy's progress.  We had an appointment with the Developement Pediatrician & PT today.  I must say I am not a big fan of these apts because we almost always end up walking away with more apts with other specialists and they usually can be rather negative as they focus on what he is behind on rather than how far he has come (that is when I realize how blessed we are to have his other PT, Karen who tends to focus on the positive and provides much comfort for this mama's heart.) They did standardized testing on him to see his progress.  He did much better than last time, but as usual they want more work on speech and occupational therapy and ordered a hearing test.  (I told them Benjamin's hearing is fine, but could they look at Brian's instead?  He never seems to hear me.)  I always walk out of there feeling like a bit of a failure as a mom.  Just another reason to pray harder for a full term or near full term baby this time.  It would be cool to just have one regular pediatrician to work with instead of a bunch of specialists.  I do not recommend parenting under a microscope.  

Day 5

Well, I am in day 5 of my new job, and today I am loving it.  It snowed yesterday and has been cold enough that some of it stuck around this morning, but the sun is out and even though I am not out in it (36 and windy is too much for me) I love looking out the window.  Also, this is the second day in a row that I had a little break from nausea.  I felt good for 3-4 hours yesterday and actually most of today.  It is amazing how much difference your outlook on life changes when you feel good.  I still feel sick at night, which I could do without, but I keep reminding myself that it is just a reminder that I am carrying my little peanut. :)

Benjamin did a little funny this morning...He was sitting in his highchair eating some kix cereal while I checked my email for a minute.  I left the box on our table with the intent to give him a little more when he finished, but apparently he didn't want to wait for me so he stretched to get the box and when I looked over he had poured most of the contents onto his tray!  Thank goodness it was not a full box, and he managed to only drop half a dozen on the floor.  Guess that is what I get for not staying on top of my duties!  Sounds like he will be a take-charge kind of guy.

It is so nice to move at this new pace.  I feel like a lot of tension has been lifted.  I am just thanking God for lining it all up for our family.

One Chapter Closes, Another Begins

Change...it is beautiful, stressful, fresh, and just plain different.  There a lot of changes and blessings in our household these days.  First, Brian started his job in early December.  It was a huge blessing since the economy had us wondering if he was going to be a stay-at-home dad for a while.  It was also a bit of a stress as we were back to the crazy routine of dropping Benjamin off and picking him up and juggling his appointments and life in general.  So when it was time to make a decision about my future, the decision was not as hard.  In mid January I turned in my resignation.  The week after I gave my notice, we found out that Benjamin was going to be a big brother!  This is my first week off and in many ways I am so glad.  I am only 8 weeks along, but for the past 2 weeks I have been so tired and a bit nauseous.  With Benjamin I started to feel better around 11-12 weeks, so I am praying that it will be the same and I will start feeling better in 3-4 weeks.

What now?  I have worked full time for nearly 10 years now and was the sole bread-winner for most of our marriage.  I thought to myself, "now I get to just relax for a while and take it easy."  And then I remembered that I am a mom of a busy toddler and a 1/2 inch peanut.  It was a nice thought though.  I am excited about spending time with Benjamin and actually getting to rock and read books and not feel like I have a million other things to do.  I am also excited about having time to make meals that take more than 20 minutes to cook and having a home that doesn't look the aftermath of an earthquake.  Brian and I agree that we will probably not ever live in a really nice home or drive new cars or take nice vacations, but the trade off is worth it to us.  I am only 2 days into this, but I think it will be really healthy for my family.

As for Benjamin, he is almost 2!  He is still not walking, but mainly because he is too proficient at crawling.  His physical therapist has challenged me with motivating him to walk.  He has taken up to 6-7 steps on his own, but since his is extremely proficient at crawling I think he wonders why he should walk.  He says a couple words and is doing more repeating.  He is hugely fascinated with light.  No matter where he goes he always points out the light fixtures and if they are off, he says "ahh" for "on".  My dad say he works for the electric company, since he will ask and ask and ask again for the lights to be turned on even in broad daylight.  He loves to be read to and to splash in the bathtub...basically a typical boy.

Here is a picture we used to help announce the news of the new baby on the way and is also showing Benjamin's love for laundry.

A long time...

Oh, it isn't February anymore?!?  It has been a busy many months. )

Here's the highlights:

After the crash we moved in with my parents while our house was being repaired and enjoyed great fun in the country for 2 months.

Benjamin turned 1 in March (yeah!)

Brian graduated in March (yeah!) and was blessed with an internship that went through September.

Summer was a busy blur, but we did go camping to celebrate Brian's 30th birthday and Grandpa's 60th birthday.  We also planted and harvested a garden (even though summer did not arrive until early July.)

In July Benjamin started wearing glasses.  His nickname for a time was professor Grove.

Benjamin's aunt Lisa got married in September and we all got to dress up to celebrate.  Her husband's name is Ben too but Benjamin prefers to call him Uncle Bobo and looks forward to someday getting to play with a new cousin or two.  A week later we cut off Benjamin's beautiful curls (he was referred to as a "she" one too many times.)

In September we also were able to get away for a couple nights on our first little family vacation and took Benjamin to the beach.  It was the first time he got to play in the sand and he loved it!

Last week Benjamin had his 6th (and hopefully last) surgery.  It was just a clean-up surgery to take out some scar tissue and dead tissue from one of his previous surgeries.  It was the easiest surgery by far, but still made this mommy nervous.  He did wonderful and we were out of the hospital within 3 hours of the start of the surgery!  He has recovered quickly and is back to tearing up our house. :)  We praise God for yet again blessing and protecting our boy.

Our family has been blessed again as it looks like Brian has a job!  It is a very difficult job market as most people know and God yet provided again.  He didn't even have to interview.  Amazing!

Developmentally, Benjamin is doing very well, all things considering.  He started crawling last summer and started cruising around our furniture about a month ago.  He can stand on his own momentarily and he is starting to show signs of wanting to walk.  We just need to work on balance.  He eats very well and loves food with lots of flavor.  One of his favorite sauces is Bullseye BBQ and he also loved Famous Dave's Sweet & Sassy BBQ.  He has not really started saying many recognizable words, but we were told this is to be expected and we will start working with a speech therapist probably sometime after the first of the year.

All in all, life is very good.  Maybe I will post a blog before 9 months pass!

Yet Another Miracle...

Last night we were enjoying a fun time with Brian's sister Lisa and our friend Ben.  We were just about to finish a nice fondue dinner when probably one of the strangest (and scariest) things I have experienced happened.  We heard a loud noise and the whole house lurched.  Much to our dismay and horror we found that a drunk driver had smashed into our house...into Benjamin's room!  Here is the "miracle" part.  Benjamin usually sleeps until 6:30-7pm.  This accident occurred at 6:45.  Though the car didn't go through the wall, it punched it in and knocked the changing table across the room, pushed the freezer (yes, Benjamin is roomates with an upright freezer) out a couple feet  and sent some plants, pictures and other items flying.  We could have easily been standing at the changing table or Benjamin could have been sleeping in his crib and received the scare of a lifetime.  We are praising Jesus because this particular evening Benjamin would not stay asleep. I ended up getting him up from his nap early and I was holding my sweet boy in my arms in a safe place at the time of the crash.  
The driver hit her head pretty hard, but she was able to get out of the car and was taken to the hospital.  Please pray for her healing - both physically and spiritually. As for our house...it will need some work.  Ok, it will need quite a bit of work.  We are waiting to get a full assessment of the damage, but it sounds like they will need to do some pretty exensive work and we might be without use of our house for a time.  Now we are buried with insurance, contractors, and all the sorts of things that come with this sort of thing.  Yikes.

Hello 2010!

A new year...7 months old...and 10 1/2 months too!  Benjamin is changing so much.  Since the last time I wrote he has learned a few tricks.  He has learned to blow bubbles, sticking his tounge out, and scoot himself forward on his back by using his strong extension muscles (he made it several feet at my mom's house and ended up under a chair.)  I think the one we are most excited about is that a few weeks ago he finally touched his toes on his own.  That is not typically a big milestone for most babies, but when one spends the last 15 weeks of development flat on their back or tummy instead of curled up in a ball, it is hard to reach down arms and pull up legs!  Ever since then he has been playing with these newly found "toys."  More than once I have walked into his room to get him up and the first thing I see are two feet sticking straight up in the air.  He has also discovered that he can pull his socks off with his hands.  Benjamin has started sitting up with help and is getting better at holding himself up while being held.  He is very vocal and social according to his Physical Therapist.  He is eating well and now enjoying the fine cusine of carrots, peas, squash, and sweet potato.  Here is a picture of him after he stole the spoon from me.

 Did you know Benjamin is studying to be a sound engineer?  Here he is helping daddy edit Sunday's sermon.

He still has a lot of the same challenges - mainly digestive stuff and muscle tone, but we are continually amazed and reminded of the incredible blessing we have been given.

Every new year I like to reflect on the past year and dream about the new year to come.  Last year I was 3 months pregnant with my first child, thinking I was going to have a girl and making bets I would be a least 7-10 days late.  Oh, how we plan :).  I'm glad that I didn't know then what I know now, but I do not regret what happened.  Brian and I are different now.  When I hear about someone with a sick child, even if I do not know them, my heart breaks for them, and my prayers for them are more specific and intense.  That little pound-and-a-half baby has taught me more about life and living than anything I can think of.  As for this year...I dream of less appointments, playing in the sunshine, and celebrating lots of little milestones together.