happy (belated) birthday, ben!

Poor Ben... his first birthday (which fell on Mother's Day) was overshadowed by a stomach virus that started with Daniel earlier that week and was shared throughout the family. Ben was barely well enough to eat a birthday cupcake, I was not well enough at all, and we hardly have any photos. Thankfully he's too young to have been bothered by the haphazard nature of the festivities. In fact, if it hadn't been for Alyssa, he wouldn't have had cake at all that day.

Also as a result, I also didn't finish his birthday slideshow on time, and once I was already late with finishing it, I lacked the motivation of a deadline. Poor second child! I finally told myself I would get it done by the end of May... and I did! I just didn't get it posted until today. So anyway, without further ado, here's a retrospective of Ben's first year. Enjoy!

Ben - One Year from jennifer on Vimeo.

then and now

These pictures were taken a couple of months ago, but I just ran across them and they made me laugh so I thought I'd share. We were reorganizing Daniel's closet and pulled out his old infant carseat. He thought it would be fun to climb in, and it was.


And for the sake of comparison, here's Daniel in the very same seat in November 2007. What a difference a year makes! It's hard to believe he's growing up so fast (sniff).

one year ago today

Daniel's due date was one year ago today - August 1, 2007. I was still at work, since Daniel hadn't made any attempts to leave his comfy home yet. Mike and I decided to meet up for lunch, under the pretense of celebrating Daniel's "hypothetical" birthday. We met at a little Asian restaurant a couple of blocks from my office, and sat down to a nice lunch of Thai food. About halfway through my Chicken Masaman, I felt something. Something warm and wet. Yes, that's right, my water broke as I sat there eating my lunch.

I must have gotten a pretty funny look on my face, because Mike immediately said, "what is it? Are you okay?" I replied, "I think my water just broke" and we realized that we were about to have a baby! Luckily, there was no embarrassing gush when I stood up - I don't think anyone in the restaurant realized what had happened. We left our meals half-eaten, and Mike ran the two blocks to my office to get the car, while I sat on a bench outside and waited (I wasn't about to walk that far). Apparently, Daniel had realized the party was for him and decided to try to make an appearance. We thought for awhile that he might actually arrive on his due date, but he ended up missing it by an hour and 52 minutes.

So, jumping back to the present from that little trip down memory lane, we decided to commemorate the anniversary of his almost-birthday with a trip back to the same restaurant for lunch. Boy, was it different this year! We did manage to sit at the same table, but this time we needed a highchair for the amazing little boy who's grown so much in a year I can hardly believe it.

Here are a few photos. As you can see, Daniel really wanted to eat with chopsticks. Daddy tried to help him, and that satisifed him for a little while.
But he really wanted to try it himself. He made a valiant attempt, but I don't think his hand-eye coordination is quite up to the task of chopsticks yet.
We also re-visited the bench where I waited for Mike to get the car. Hard to believe that Daniel fit inside me a year ago!