Pomp and circumstance

It’s official! Jeremy graduated Friday, and we are DONE with school! It has been a long nine years of graduate work, but Jeremy now will enter the work world as doctor, doctor Hilty. It has been a joke with everyone about what to call him. Now, to start paying off the student loans that amount to another house payment each month… The good news is, I have a part-time job to help with that. I am “retiring” from journalism in three weeks. July 1 is my last day. Two weeks ago, I got a call with a job offer. I told them I was planning to be a stay-at-home mom and did not want a part-time, 20 hour job. They said they would work with me. So, I start July 5 at Partners in Prime working eight hours on Tuesdays. I will work a few extra hours from home the rest of the week, dealing with any media calls. My main responsibilities will be putting out a newsletter every other month, maintaining two websites, keeping up with social media sites and pitching stories to the media. I also will be handling some advertising accounts and some marketing. So, it is going to be a lot of work trying to learn the job, but once I have it down, I am hoping it isn’t too stressful. The good part is that since it is a senior services agency, they don’t care if I take Benjamin if I need to work on days without child care, because a lot of the clients love children.

Back to Jeremy. Benjamin got him a gift for his graduation. You can see Benjamin wearing it here.

Benjamin didn’t get to go see his Daddy walk across the stage, because he is too squirmy, and the ceremony was at his bedtime. So, he said congratulations to Daddy ahead of time.

Aren’t they the two best looking guys around?

My grandparents made the trek from Lorain to watch Benjamin for us so that I could go to the ceremony. My grandpa went with me, which was wonderful, because I didn’t want to go by myself. We got DRENCHED from a rain storm that struck just as we reached the parking garage exit.  We had to walk two blocks, and the water was shin deep on some sidewalks.

You can see I was still a little wet two hours later when I caught up with Jeremy.

I was so proud of him! He graduated in the top five or six of his class, even while working and helping me take care of Benjamin.

What was hilarious about the weekend was how Benjamin started calling my grandpa “Bob.” He can’t say grandpa, so it worked out well. He would walk around and call out “Bob bob!” They were fast friends. I am not sure what it is, but Benjamin loves men. Don’t get me wrong, he has never met a stranger and will be best buddies with just about anyone… but if one of his favorite guys is around… mama or nana or whomever is chopped liver.

This was the case last weekend when Nana and Papa came to visit.

He and his Papa were attached at the hip. When Papa went home, Benjamin walked around the house for days calling “Papa? Papa!” It was so sad.

We had so much fun at the zoo, eating ice cream, playing at the park and taking walks.

Nana and Benjamin played in the pool and hung out while the rest of us stained the deck.

Each morning, Benjamin and Papa watched cartoons on my dad’s ipad.

We have been loving the weather, having visitors and playing at every park around town!

Well, I can’t really remember anything else to write. The past few weeks have gone by in a blur!

Learning Tower

Jeremy and I decided to splurge and get Benjamin a learning tower. It essentially allows him to stand at counter level. He can now cook with us, wash his hands, color, etc. So far, he thinks it is a pretty cool indoor jungle gym.

His first experience with it was to help us make nachos. He dove into the chips with enthusiasm.

And, he played with his new pots and pans from Ikea. I guess Jeremy didn’t take a full shot of it, so I will have to post something more later. Essentially, it has four sides to make sure he doesn’t fall out. It lowers as he gets taller. Eventually, it can turn into a fort or puppet show stage. It also has an easel you can buy, but we thought that might make a good Christmas gift.

Back to my random selection of photos from the other post, here are some hot weather photos from the 90 degree plus weather we have been having.

I got Benjamin a bathing suit outfit from Old Navy, and he looks so cute in it. The only problem was that when we got to the pool, it was way too cold. Benjamin said “Cold! All done!” and he ran away. So, that was the end of that. Instead, we just played outside. When Daddy was home the next day, we helped hang up a tomato planter, and then we got out Benjamin’s pool!

Benjamin helped by holding Daddy’s tools.

Then, we changed and went swimming!

He made sure it was not cold first.

And, he made friends with the alligator.

I have never seen Benjamin drink so much water…and you can see why…

It’s his very own drinking fountain!

All done!

Good times!

Benjamin has been having one fun week after another! I can’t even begin to post all the photos we have taken, so I will do my best to summarize.

We went through a wet spell where it seemed like we would never see sun again. Benjamin got tired of being inside, and wanted so badly to go “ahsigh” even though it was raining quite heavily. So, I let him stand outside and get soaked, since I am such a good mom. He just held his hands up to catch the rain until I brought him back inside out of the thunderstorm.

We had a pretty bad tornado hit last week just a mile or so from our house. So, we are feeling blessed that we only had a short time with no power and no damage.

Benjamin continues to love his coloring projects. Jeremy had a big poster presentation last week, and he found a good way to reuse it.

I took a short break from work the other day to snap a few photos of Benjamin and Jeremy at Pump it Up. I think Jeremy has even more fun than Benjamin!

Every chance we get we go to the playgrounds in our area. Benjamin calls them rockers. Not sure why, except that he knows his rocker at home goes back and forth, and maybe that is what he thinks of the swings and rocking bridges. Who knows!

Drinking fountains often are the highlight of the trip.

Benjamin always reminds us that the slides are hot. .We have to coax him to go down them now.

I didn’t get a photo of it, but he loves to go to these roses and smell them. He fell into them the other day and still has a scratch on his face. Now, he sits on his knees to smell flowers, just to be safe.

On with my very random post, here are some photos we took of Benjamin and Jeremy’s mom and step dad. They stopped by to visit on their way back from a Memorial Day weekend get together with Joe’s family. Benjamin thought it was great fun to run around with them outside. He definitely wore Grandma out!

 

Benjamin’s Grandpa Hilty gave him a red car for his birthday, and Benjamin carries it EVERYWHERE with him.

Benjamin was so sweaty by the time he finished running around and laughing.

Second wind!

Grandma Jan was on a roll taking photos! When we got inside, Benjamin double fisted his sippie cups!