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.

turtle taw

A conversation a few weeks ago between me, Daniel, and Alyssa, while playing in Daniel's room just before lunchtime.

Jen: Daniel, what do you want for lunch?
Daniel: Turtle.
Jen: Turtle? Hmmm, I'm pretty sure we're fresh out of turtle today.
Alyssa: I really don't think we have any turtle! What else do you want?
Daniel: Turtle taw!

He was pretty insistent, so we headed downstairs to the kitchen. I was hoping I would be able to find him a suitable subsitute for the "turtle" he was craving. But he dragged me to the pantry and pointed at an upper shelf, insisting, "turtle taw!" Finally I lifted him up so he could show me what he wanted. Turns out "turtle taw" is Daniel-speak for "apple sauce".

I pulled out the video camera while he was eating lunch that day so he could tell us about the "turtle taw".



As we have since discovered, "turtle" has a lot of meanings to Daniel, among them apple, potato, and play-dough, as well as other green animals like frogs and lizards. I love trying to figure out how his mind works! It's also amazing just how far his language skills have come since we took this video.

motormouth

Little Benjamin sure has a lot to say these days! Here's a sampling of his chatter - he can go on... and on... and on. He's also demonstrating the newly acquired skill of grabbing his feet. And just so you know, he didn't start out right on the edge of the rug - he's a pro at scooting around the room on his back. I believe he was originally in the middle of the blanket. The kid can really cover some ground!

the joy of cooking

Daniel loves to help me cook, and recently he discovered the best part of baking - licking the bowl! I'm pretty sure he enjoyed it.

go duke!

In honor of tonight's game...

Go Duke!

snow!

We had a big event in Atlanta on Sunday - snow!! It was the first real accumulation of the white stuff since Mike and I have lived here, and we were so excited to take Daniel out to experience it. We got about 2 inches, most of which fell while he was napping. When he got up, we bundled him up in lots of layers (I guess if we lived in the north, he would probably own snowpants, but alas, he does not). He was a little skeptical at first, but once we started throwing snowballs he got into the winter spirit!

happy birthday!!!

he's walking!

Daniel has started walking! A few steps at a time, and he tends to face-plant if no one catches him, but at least he thinks the falls are funny. Oh, and apparently I annoyingly shriek, "Good job! Good job!" every time he walks. I'm going to have to work on that...

if this doesn't make you smile then you are made of stone

There's nothing better than a baby laughing. Daniel thinks sneezes are hilarious. Even fake sneezes (or maybe I should say, especially fake sneezes). Please forgive our messy office.

In other news, Daniel had a nasty cold which morphed into an ear infection over the weekend. He is now recovering thanks to antibiotics. I'm starting to think that most children's first introduction to the taste of candy is really in the form of medicine, with the cherry-flavored Tylenol, grape-flavored Motrin, and whatever this amoxicillin is supposed to taste like (apparently it is quite yummy, he slurps it down). But it does the trick, I guess that's what counts.

crawling

Sorry for not posting sooner - we've been trying to figure out how to get video up here. Which also involved trying to figure out how to get the video from the video camera to the computer... which also involved finding the CD to install the video camera software on the computer. At long last, we were able to locate the necessary CD and get it all worked out.

So as I mentioned in the last post, Daniel has just learned to crawl! Here's a video of one of his early attempts (taken on Saturday). It's amazing how quickly he learns - now, just days later, he is much better at it than he is here. As you can see, he is very motivated by the idea of grabbing the video camera. This kid is enthralled with electronics - cameras, remotes, cell phones, you name it, if it's shiny and silver and has buttons, he wants it!