Fish!

Not only does Benjamin love to eat fish…gold fish that is… he loves to swim like a fish too!

I couldn’t get any water shots, because we went without Jeremy. So, it meant chasing after a very determined little boy, who wanted nothing more than to dive in the pool head first!

We played with shadows… Benjamin then flirted with the lifeguards for a while. And, then we went home for dinner. These are not from the same dinner, but you can see how he likes to help in the kitchen!

Benjamin loves standing at the counter on his learning tower.

One more full day of work to go, and then only a few hours on Friday. It is bittersweet. I will miss it, but I won’t miss the long hours away from my precious baby boy, who is growing way too quickly!

18 months and some change

Our little guy is growing up so fast! Where has the time gone? Please forgive the lapses in posts. We have had so much going on, I have been collapsing in bed at night without any energy to spare. But, here is an update on Mr. Benjamin.

At his 18 month visit last week, Benjamin weighed 24 pounds and was 33 inches long. So, that puts him in the 25th percentile for weight and the 75th percentile for height. The doctor said she would normally be concerned about weight, but since Jeremy and I aren’t big people, she wasn’t too concerned. Plus, he has plenty of rolls on him to last a while.

Benjamin has been up to quite a bit lately. He says about 25 words, though rarely puts two together. I think I heard him say up block today as he was building towers, but it is tough to say. He loves to stack blocks, and he says “Go, go, go!” as they get higher and higher. He also loves to “VROOOM” his cars all over the house. He took home two matchbox cars from Nana and Papa’s house, and he carries them everywhere along with his red car from Grandpa Hilty.

Benjamin is going through a stage where he hates getting dressed or getting his diaper changed. Sometimes it takes two of us to battle him in the morning. But, this morning we let him choose an outfit, and he was much more cooperative.

Benjamin still loves to charm a crowd. He could be in the worst mood ever at home, but if I take him out around people, he puts on the biggest grim and starts working the room. He has everyone at the church nursery wrapped around his finger. He blows lots of kisses, but he has saved his three (yes, only three) real kisses for Mommy. He also chooses to bite mommy too when he is mad, so we are trying to curb this.

For the most part, Benjamin is still a good eater. He has his favorite foods, and then he has foods that he will or won’t eat depending on his mood. He finally started to eat bread…something he didn’t like for a long time. We still can’t get him to eat eggs, but I haven’t found a fruit or bean he won’t eat. The only foods he asks for by name are ice cream cone, cookie and cracker.

Outside is his favorite place to be, and rarely does Benjamin run out of energy. We went to a picnic for the VA residents, and Benjamin ran around non-stop for three hours straight. We were exhausted, and I think the guests were exhausted watching us. But, we got to meet Jeremy’s new coworkers, so that was nice.

Benjamin is getting his two-year molars very SLOWLY and painfully, and it has been brutal this past week or so. He has woken up nearly every day at 4 a.m. or 5 a.m. and has refused to go back to sleep. He also has boycotted naps quite a bit. But, we are sure this too is a phase!

I loaded some photos on the wrong computer, or I would post them here, but we took Benjamin swimming the other night. He LOVED floating in the big pool with me, but refused to wade in the baby pool. I guess it is all or nothing with him. The water was cold, and his teeth were chattering, but he was the happiest baby on the block!

Finally, I will close with a few photos from Father’s Day. We had a wonderful visit with family. Jeremy got to hang out with his dad and grandparents one night. He played golf with his brother, and we managed to surprise him with a little graduation dinner party another night. For Father’s Day, Benjamin and I got him a new case for his itouch… it is bright green, so it is easier to find when Benjamin hides it. He is quite good and hiding things, throwing things away and moving items to new locations. Busy, busy busy!

You will notice he is wearing the same shirt. That is because he picks it out when we give him a choice. I guess he takes after his Uncle Mike in his appreciation for wild shirts. Give him a pair of flip flops, and they could be Twinkies.

They opened the gift together, and Benjamin pointed out each sticker he put on the card…and then tried to rip them all off to take them back.

Here he is lining up all his cars.

 

And… can you believe this was my idea?

Everyone knows I am not fond of dogs. But, Daisy and Benjamin are two peas in a pod, and I figured they both were stinky and needed a bath… so…

Sorry I don’t have photos from anything else that weekend. We forgot our camera! But, if I would have had photos, you would have seen Benjamin splashing away in Great Grandma Hilty’s pool, hanging out with GG and Bob for a steak dinner, jumping on a trampoline with his buddies Toby and Toby, inhaling Daddy’s graduation ice cream cake and wandering around a car show with Papa…oh and taking a peddle boat ride with Mommy and Daddy.

Benjamin’s first play “date”

Remember Claire from the Zoo? Well, she and her mom Emily came over for dinner tonight, and Benjamin had so much fun. He showed Claire his toys, shared them like a perfect gentleman and then sat like a big boy at his table and ate an entire meal. We caught him mid-reach as he tried to snatch up the food on Claire’s plate that she wasn’t eating, since he cleaned his own plate.

Claire is quite dainty… just about the opposite of our energetic and squirmy Benjamin. But, together, they helped each other…Claire was more outgoing and Benjamin did his best to appear a very big boy who could do everything she could do. So precious!

Here they are cooking together. When Claire first arrived, Benjamin ran right up to her. She was feeling a little shy, so he picked some grass to give her. I think she is returning the favor here.

Claire kept saying “That’s Claire’s” and taking objects. Benjamin tried once to object…

And was put in his place.

The two were best buddies, though, and were sad to say “Bye bye.”

On a side note, Benjamin has been HILARIOUS, mimicking everything we do. At dinner the other night, I dropped something and threw up my arms with panicked look on my face. Benjamin made this bug eyed face and threw his hands into the air. Little stinker! The other day at Kohls, I waved to a car to say thanks for letting us pass. He promptly waved his hand. When we shake hands with people, he sticks out his hand too.

But, the best of all was this morning when he noticed a gnat flying in our bathroom. Jeremy was holding Benjamin, so I clapped my hands together to kill it. All day long, Benjamin has been raising his arms up high and then clapping his hands together dramatically.

My precious little guy is heading to Findlay/Bluffton without me tomorrow, so I am especially sad to see him go. But, he and his Daddy have some great adventures planned and I will join them this weekend.

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!