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Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Sore Loser


Sam loves Zingo (with an emphasis on Sam loves to win at Zingo)! In this first video, Sam is a happy, trash-talking winner.


In this second video, you can see our sore loser. Warning: turn down the volume or mute if you don' t wanna hear crying.


Not wanting Ben to feel left out ... here he is doing what 3 month olds do.

Friday, January 22, 2010

Boys Playing


We sure have had fun playing with the boys over the last month and we've got lots of pictures that we haven't gotten around to posting. My maternity leave is over and I go back to work on Monday, so I wanted to take this last day and post some of them.


I swear Sam had barely played with the trains for the last six months. We had even contemplated putting some of it away. Then one day in December he decided they were the coolest toy and started playing with them every day. He's come up with some really cool track configurations that I never would have thought of. Quite the engineer!



Sam in one of the cute outfits he got for Christmas.


Sam loves to get under the play gym and play with Ben.


Sam plays with the toys and Ben watches intently.


Random picture of me sitting on the couch.


The boys school/day-care was closed for two weeks. I know our house must have been clean at some point during that time, but there wasn't much point in trying. This is what it looked like the night before they went back.


More pictures of the boys and the play gym.


Sam being a clown.


Ben is doing a great job holding his up his head during tummy time. These links are his favorite because they are so easy to grab.


Melanie and Chris making a custom upholstered headboard for Melanie's bed. She's so creative! It turned out awesome!


Sam and I kept busy taking down the Christmas decorations while Mimi and Daddy worked on the headboard. We have a lot of Hallmark ornaments which come in boxes with the picture on the box. Sam and I played a really fun matching game where he had to find and take down the ornament that matched the box. Sam had the best time and it kept him entertained for over an hour.

Oh, and by the way, it is now Daddy. DeeDah only slips out every once and a while. How sad! It was so cute.


Sam and Ben in the bath. Sam has obviously not been washed yet. Look at that messy mouth!


Ben LOVES the bath. He doesn't make a peep. He just makes these wide-eyed faces and splashes in the water. He is not happy when we take him out ...


... until he gets on his changing table. This is my favorite time of the day.


Sam wanted me to take his picture at a birthday party for one of his friends. It was at an arcade and we played laser tag. The laser tag vest was too heavy for him, so we mostly just ran around in the dark and pretended to shoot people. He had a blast!


Me feeding Ben in the kitchen. He's growing a lot and is eating 3 to 6 oz at each feeding.


Close-up of Ben. I bought this onesie at Disney World this summer.


I connected the links on the play gym so that they hang over Ben where he can reach them. He's getting better at grabbing them, but swatting at them makes him just as happy.


Sam built this track with his battery powered trains last night and wanted to play with them as soon as he got up this morning.



Ben was fascinated and watched for a while. Sam thought that was cool!

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

3 Months Old and Milestones We Aren't Ready For


Ben turned 3 months old yesterday. He is a very happy baby. He gives us wonderful smiles with huge dimples when we "flirt" with him and is starting to smile on his own. He's got this cute fuzzy, spikey patch of hair on the top of his head and I love kissing him.

He loves to be on the floor on his play gym. I have toys hanging where he can reach them and he is getting better at grabbing them. We started reading books to him and he's focusing on the pages.

He's growing great. He seems to be at around 13lbs and has outgrown most of his 0-3 months clothes.


Check out those dimples! I love it when he smiles with his tongue out!


Ok, so we've been pretty spoiled for about four weeks now. Ben had pretty consistently been sleeping from 11pm to 7 or 8am. The trick to getting that sleep has been the "dream feed", the swaddle and the pacifier. He's been breaking out of the swaddle for the last week and waking up around 5am. I've been able to just reswaddle him and give him the pacifier and he will then sleep until 8am.

Once he started breaking the swaddle we knew we were going to have to wean him from it. We tried a few naps this weekend. He normally naps for 1.5 to 2 hours for each nap, but he had a lot of trouble falling asleep unswaddled and then only slept for 30 or 45 minutes. When I checked on him it was obvious that he still has the startle reflex. Every time he would relax and start to fall asleep, his hands would touch the crib and he would startle back awake. Since he wasn't doing great with cold turkey, we decided to start trying to put him down with one arm out during naps and then a full swaddle at night to try to start weaning him during the day.

Well, all of that changed yesterday. During his evening nap he managed to get himself rolled onto his side while in the swaddle. He was arching his back and trying to rolled over all the way onto his stomach when I went in to check on him. The problem is that it's dangerous to swaddle babies if they are able to roll over on their stomachs because they need their arms to help ensure they don't end up face down in the crib and to be able to roll back over on their backs. Ben has rolled over from his stomach to his back a few times, but it is about two months earlier than expected for him to be able to roll over from his back to his stomach. It's his favorite thing to try to do now. The minute he's put on his back he starts trying to roll over to his stomach. Of course if we put him on his stomach he rolls over to his back. Fun, huh? It's really important baby work he's doing.

So we put Ben in a sleep sack instead of the swaddle last night. He slept from 8:30 to 10:45 when I woke him to feed him. When I went in to feed him, he was fussing a little and flailing his arms, where he's usually peacefully sound asleep in the swaddle. Then he slept from 11pm to 2am. At that point Chris swaddled him so we could theoretically get some sleep. Ben's sleep must have been disrupted because he woke up around 5am and 6:45am. Both times I reswaddled and gave him the pacifier and both times he was completely broken out when I went to get him. He's probably looking for the pacifier more than the swaddle to get back to sleep. He really needs to learn to suck on his hands or we may be getting up all night to pop it back in. It just seems cruel to take both the swaddle and the pacifier away at the same time though. I told his day care not to swaddle him for his first two naps today, but that if he doesn't get any sleep they can swaddle him for his third nap.

We're also going to have to wean him off of the dream feed. I'm going to move the time earlier and reduce the amount for a week or so to give him a chance to get used to making up for it during the day. He's never been a big eater (I think because of the acid reflux), so he's always needed that extra feeding at night.

I honestly don't know why I'm so concerned. It's just my personality. Ben is sleeping so much better than Sam did and we managed to survive with Sam. Hell, I don't even remember being sleep deprived with Sam even though I know I must have because he was up every three hours for months and months and months (if not years). Someone did a really good mind erase on me when it comes to that.



Ben sleeping in his Miracle Blanket swaddle.


I'm thankful that we caught up on our sleep because I know we are at a time of lots of transitions. He's learning so much with rolling over, grabbing things, and putting them in his mouth. It's hard to believe he'll be sitting up in a few months. Then teething (yikes!), crawling, cruising, and walking are close behind. It goes so fast. I'm trying to sit back and enjoy each stage for what it is. It helps that he's such a cutie pie!


Before he gets so big, we took some pictures of his tiny hands ...


and tiny feet.



Monday, January 18, 2010

You're Cramping My Style

Everyone is at home today for the MLK holiday. We've been having a great time playing with the boys ...

Sam:
Are you tired of playing?
Me: No, why? Do you want me to do something?
Sam: Read a book?
Me: Sure, I'll read you a book. Go pick one out.
Sam: No, I'm doing my own thing. You go read your book.

Thursday, January 14, 2010

New Year with Pops


Pops came to visit for Christmas and New Years. We had our traditional New Years lunch of pork, cabbage, black-eyed peas, and cornbread. Chris smoked a boston butt on the Big Green Egg and it turned out incredible. It had to cook for around 18 hours so he put it on the night before and let it cook overnight. He had a few issues controlling the temperature and keeping it low enough, but he figured it out by the end and it's definitely worth doing again. The leftovers made the best pulled pork sandwiches I've ever had.


Mimi came over too and spent some time with her boys. Ben does so well for her, and Sam gets jealous.


Sam loves spending time on the couch with Pops.

One night Sam showed up in Pops room in the middle of the night and said he was hungry. Pops told him to go tell Mimi, but Sam crawled in bed with Pops instead. The good news is that he actually went back to sleep and didn't keep Pops up all night. When Chris got up to feed Ben at 5am that morning he saw Sam's door open and had to go looking for him. Sam has really been going through a spell where he wants someone in bed with him. He wants me to stay in bed with him until he falls asleep and he comes and gets in bed with us when he wakes up early. We had a talk with him yesterday and we are going to have to break that habit now before it gets out of hand.


Ben is getting stronger and can stand up in your lap when you support him. It's also good practice for holding up his head.


Hanging out on the couch in PJs. Check out that smile on Ben's face.


Pops and Ben



Ben is starting to give us the best smiles. He has two big dimples. He's starting to make some good squeals and coos. It's so much fun to see and hear!

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Sam's Camera


Lulu got Sam a digital camera for Christmas. It's a Vtech Kidizoom and it's a lot of fun! It even takes video. Sam got to open it a little early when we opened presents with Mimi.


Sam was excited and started taking pictures right away! These are a few of the pictures he took that night and the next day ...


Of course Chris was also interested in the camera and what it could do. Here are some pictures that Chris and Lulu took with the camera ...





Monday, January 11, 2010

Homemade Pizza


Chris and I got each other the Big Green Egg for Christmas. We love to cook food on our gas grill, but we've had it for almost ten years now. Chris was ready to try something new in the form of charcoal and smoking. The first attempt at pork chops turned out a little smoky, but everything else has been wonderful.

One of the things that Chris wanted to try immediately was homemade pizza. We also asked for and got the pizza stone insert for the Big Green Egg for Christmas for just that purpose.


We've made homemade pizza before, but we were never satisfied with the dough/crust recipe. Chris researched the perfect pizza dough and found Peter Reinhart's recipe. Sam was very interested in helping to make pizza since it's one of his favorite foods. Chris was skeptical of the recipe as they were making it. It required overnight fermentation and didn't look like what he expected when the first step was completed.


Sam was fascinated by the mixer.


The dough recipe makes enough dough for six small pizzas. You can keep it refrigerated until you are ready to use it, so we decided to just make four pizzas the next day. Chris pulled it out of the fridge, let it come up to room temperature and rise, and it started looking pretty good.


Chris got brave and tried tossing the pizza dough.



Sam was proud of the job they'd done loading the toppings on the first pizza.


Chris getting ready to put the pizza on the grill.


This video is dark, so you can't see much, but you can see the flames around the pizza stone. We were worried the pizza wasn't going to slide off the cookie sheet well, but it came right off!



The finished product was quite tasty! The crust was exactly how we like it. One trick that Chris learned quickly was that cornmeal burned on the grill, so he switched to flour to get the pizza to slide off the cookie sheet. I think he might have had to slightly lower the original temperature too. We ended up cooking the last two pizzas on the pizza stone in the oven a few days later and it worked out great there too. It sure was fun and yummy and I hope we try it again soon. Thanks to Lulu for taking pictures and thanks to Aunt Sharon for the pizza stone!