Happy belated Thanksgiving!

I haven’t been doing a very good job keeping up with my posts! So, here is a summary of life in the Hilty household since last time.

We still are fighting the coughs that hit three weeks ago. But. we all feel much better, so that is a good thing. Benjamin is cutting more teeth…he never seems to stop… so that has been the most recent challenge. We think he is getting his right side molars and the canines will follow shortly. It is crazy that at 11.5 months, he has 10 teeth! The problem is that when he is teething, he bites…the furniture, random objects…anybody that picks him up or walks within a few feet of him. I could feel his teeth through my leather boots this morning! We aren’t quite sure how to curb this new bad habit. He doesn’t do it unless he is really hurting…but it isn’t something we want to continue!

 

We spent our Thanksgiving in Bluffton and Findlay. It was so nice to visit family and have some down time to catch up on sleep and relax. Benjamin learned so many new things while we were there. He learned to say “Nana,” something that sounds like “see” for Daisy, and Ba for bottle. He also learned how to sign “all done,” but instead of waving his hands, he waves both of them at the same time. He thinks this is how you wave “bye bye” also. I wish I would have caught it on camera. The funniest moment of the weekend was when he sat in his high chair at the top of the basement stairs, happily watching Papa paint the stair walls while he ate his dinner. He just grinned and grinned! Again, I didn’t get what would have been an awesome photo!

We also spent some time with his grandparents in Bluffton. He got his pictures taken at Grandma Jan’s house, and we plan to order some next week, so stay tuned!

Benjamin LOVED playing with Nana. They spent lots of time reading books and singing songs.

When we got back to Cincinnati, he didn’t know what to do with himself after such an exciting weekend.

Here is a photo of him trying to break out of his gated kitchen. One of his new skills is turbo crawling. He can turn it on when we least suspect it and take off for the stairs before we even notice he is gone. That means, we have to keep the gates closed ALL the time. This does not make him happy!

While Benjamin has always had a sense of humor, he has been cracking us up with his antics. He loves to make us laugh as much as we love to make him laugh! His “pig nose” is the cap from my shaving gel. We use it as a cup in the tub to wash his hair. He also decided it is a nice cup with which to drink tub water. Eww!

Jeremy insists Benjamin needs a hair cut. But, I can’t imagine cutting these precious curls. Just look how adorable they are!

Finally, here is a photo of Benjamin watching story time with Nana. We recorded my mom reading books, so if we can’t Skype or we can’t visit in person, he can watch her on television. He especially liked her puppet, Charlie Bear!

I am trying to think if there are any more developments. I guess the only other thing is our adventure in trying to get Benjamin to eat regular food that isn’t delivered in the pureed form. So far, it is a challenge. He will eat graham crackers, apple slices, cantaloupe slices and Gerber snacks that resemble Cheetos. Yep. That’s it. Occasionally, I can sneak in a few bites of Cream of Wheat if I am lucky. Otherwise, that’s his diet. So healthy! The other challenge is getting baby food in his mouth on a spoon, because he likes to throw temper tantrums when he doesn’t get to feed himself. If you hand him the spoon, he just flings the food on the floor. My precious baby is turning into a VERY strong-willed toddler! But, I love him to pieces and wouldn’t trade him for the world! :)

Here is a video of me trying to convince him to eat Cream of Wheat. He was laughing so hard he was crying. Jeremy just recorded him when he was winding down, so he wasn’t really laughing all that much. Then, you can see the stubbornness…he was ready to fling that food onto the walls!

 

 

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