New Territory

Benjamin is really starting to say more new words.  Considering he has only had a few words for months now, this is big news!  About a week ago he said "key" for the first time and has repeated it several times since.  Today he said "mama" several times on his own (usually I have to prompt him).  He has been doing better at signing "more" and today he picked up a toy phone and said "hi" several different times.  That was particularly exciting as we have been concerned about his pretend play skills, and that is one of them.  Once again, our son proves he is just on his own time line.

Speaking of time lines, tonight/tomorrow is a big milestone for us...our little boy #2 is at the same exact gestational age as Benjamin was when he was born - 25 weeks and 2 days.  That means after tomorrow, I am in new territory - I have no clue what being in the third trimester feels like.  It is almost like a first pregnancy!

This weekend we were looking at the picture below of Benjamin the day after he was born.  This is the stage our baby is at now and he probably looks pretty similar.  The picture below it is a 4D ultrasound that was done of our baby last Thursday (hand on the right, knee on the left.)  It was amazing to see what a baby looks at in real life at 25 weeks, but since we have been there and done that, we'll skip it this time :)  

 
It was truly amazing to see him in 4D though.  What a miracle every child is.

Half Way!

Our baby boy is 20 weeks along now, so we have officially reached the half way mark.  So far so good!  I am continue to have weekly progesterone shots (5 down, 15 to go) and have doctor visits every 3 weeks as long as there are no warning signs.  As the politicians say, I am cautiously optimistic at this point.

We have been knee deep in home improvement lately.  Brian has been working on building a fence for our backyard whenever the weather permits.  We are planting a new back lawn and while we were at it we decided to put in a landscape irrigation system, so now we have a 4" trench around most of our yard.  This week we also turned in an application for a building permit for a garage too.  Ok, we are more like neck deep versus knee deep.  It is not always fun, but I know it will be awesome when it is all complete.  Benjamin likes to help too.  Here he is trying on mommy's gloves.

Mother's day weekend we got our first recliner.  I was resistant for a long time, but I must say it is wonderful to be able to kick up my feet at the end of the day, especially being pregnant.  Benjamin likes it for reading.  The picture below was taken the day we got it.  He just climbed up and made himself at home.

Last week Benjamin got to play with his friends Maxson and Aiden.  They have an amazing play area behind their house that is like a park.  It has a sandbox, which Benjamin loved, swings, and an incredible pirate ship fort with a slide.  It was super fun.  Benjamin loved the swings, despite his tendency to slide forward which made him look like a hung sock monkey. :)

        

Celebrating Moms

It is so wonderful to have one day of the year set aside to honor our mothers.  Now that I am a mother myself, it has even more significance.  I have an awesome mom and have always loved her and thanked God for her, but it wasn't until I lost hours of sleep up feeding or comforting my son, changing explosive diapers, etc. that I became even more thankful.  Everything I do for Benjamin, my mom has already done for me.  This week I have thought about that quite a bit.

Yesterday, Benjamin and I did some grocery shopping.  He usually does great, but yesterday he got a little impatient, even with a container of snacks.  He started crying at one point and was so loud that a clerk came over and said "Is all of that noise coming out of this little guy?"  She was very nice about it, but it was a little embarrassing.  He calmed down and I continued shopping.  He likes to hold on to objects, so I gave him a watermelon to keep by his side.  He usually picks at the sticker and all is fine.  This time, however, while I had my back turned I heard a thud and turned around to find a cracked open watermelon on the floor with juices spilling out.  Even more, Benjamin was pointing at it as if to say "look mom, the watermelon jumped!"  It was one of those moments where I just wanted to hide.  Fortunately, I was able to bag up the cracked melon and found paper towels nearby to clean up the mess.  I doubt that I threw a watermelon (my mom would have probably known better than to give a 2 year old a watermelon), but I am sure I did a few things that made my mom want to hide.  So, thanks Mom, for losing sleep, changing diapers, and surviving embarrassment, not to mention all of the things you do and have done for me as a grandparent to Benjamin.

It's A...

Today was our ultrasound to check out baby #2.  We found out that we will be having another boy!!!  It was so fun to see little one looking just like a mini person and wiggling around.  From what they could tell baby is right on track for size and right where they they want him to be (huge praise!).  It is so wonderful to say "him" instead of "it" or "they!"  I already feel more connected to my youngest son just by being able to think of him as a little boy and not just a baby.  We don't have a name yet, though a couple ones we have discussed are Henry and Wesley.  This happened to us with Benjamin - we were just stumped over it.  One day I love a name, then the next day I don't so much.  Here is an ultrasound of our little guy:

Signs & Wonders

After about a year of me trying, Benjamin finally signed his first word, "more" about a week and a half ago and has been doing it consistently since then.  He can almost do the sign for "all done" though it is more like clapping so I am not always sure what he wants to communicate.  I cannot get over how correct the Early Intervention team we have been working with was right...communication does truly follow walking.  After just a couple weeks of being able to walk we have seen so much change!  Even his toy preference is changing.  He now has a love for stuffed animals, especially a soft teddy bear the hospital gave him the day of his surgery.  Before they were just objects for throwing.

Tomorrow is the day we (hopefully) find out if Benjamin will have a little brother or sister.  People keep asking me if I have an intuition on what it is.  I was much more sick with this baby than Benjamin, making me wonder if it was girl, but lately have been thinking more boy and last night had a dream it was a boy.  I am sure that one of my two guesses will be correct!  Either way we are thrilled at what God gives us.  It will be fun to call baby "he" or "she" rather than "it" or just "baby."  Hopefully we will agree on a name so we can call baby by name and pray for him or her by name too.

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter!  I love Easter.  It is a wonderful time to reflect on God's entire plan for the human race from creation, the fall, offering Himself up as a sacrifice to pay our fines, conquering death, and offering eternal life to us.  How blessed we are to be part of His eternal plan!

This year we celebrated Easter with our church family as usual and in the afternoon headed over to Grandma & Grandpa's for dinner.  We had a delicious dinner and too many desserts, but it was sooo good.  After dinner we headed outside for our traditional Easter egg hunt.  This was Benjamin's first year to join in, since last year he wasn't even crawling.  We tried to help him understand the point of the hunt, but he just wanted to pick up the egg and play with it, so after 4 eggs we just let him sit down and play with them.  Next year we may have to practice ahead of time. :)  

The 2011 egg hunters: Cohen, John, Amy, Benjamin, and Emma.  

Tulips & Surgery

On Monday, my mom and I took Benjamin to the Tulip festival.  I had not been for about 10 years and it was fun to see the beautiful colors.

Benjamin loved the pretty flowers and was so gentle with them.

But much more fun than the flowers were the rocks.  Such a boy.

If you look closely, you will see below that Benjamin is not admiring the pretty flowers, but the rock he is holding. :)

Now those are what I call shoes...

Tuesday was Benjamin's eye surgery.  We had an early start and were back home by early afternoon.  Everything went well and Benjamin did great.  When he checked in he was actually excited and thought it was a party.  The other children we were sharing a room with were crying and very upset and Benjamin was bouncing around having a great time.  Maybe he felt like he was back in familiar territory?  Maybe he was excited about wearing the pink hospital clothes again (I still don't understand why they didn't choose green, brown, or yellow)?  He certainly didn't need the meds they gave him for anxiety, but they did help him to be less hyper.

After the surgery was not as much as a party as his eyes were sore and I am sure he was confused, but he still did great.  The worst part now is having to give him eye drops 4 times per day.  Have you ever given a toddler eye drops?  I reminds me of calf wrestling you see at rodeos.  To do it well, you need 3 people.  One to control the hands and body, one to keep his head still, and one to get the drops in.  Unfortunately, it is just me for 3 of the 4 times per day.  You can imagine how that goes!  Now he is a bit cross-eyed and his eyes have a lot of red in the white part, but both of those should clear up in a week or two.