Birthday Party

On Saturday, Ben had a birthday party. His friends Julia (age 2 1/2) and Sonia (age 13 months) came with their parents, and his adult friend Mary. There was much playing, cake and ice cream, and wonderful new presents, great books and a wooden train. After a couple of hours, everyone was happy and exhausted.

More presents!

Presents keep coming. Ben particularly loves the toy he got from his Grandpa Bill and Grandma Jan. It has a ramp that you roll balls down (or a very cute penguin) and a chute that a frog goes down and makes a funny sound. He figured it out very quickly and he spends forever playing with it.

Birthday presents

After cake (and handwashing) came presents, notably a baby doll. Unwrapping was lots of fun.

Birthday cake

After a bit of a nap and some dinner, Ben had his first cupcake.

Boston Common

Ben loved exploring all around in Boston Common. There was a monument he tried to climb (he loves to climb) and lots of walking to be done. He got rather annoyed those times he was picked up to move him to a cleaner area to play in. He also listened to musicians playing bebop and amused everyone by dancing to them (it was not easy music to dance to). It was a fun adventure, and he was asleep before we left the parking lot.

Happy Birthday, Ben!

On Wednesday, the 22nd, Ben turned 1! He started the day with a balloon, which made him amazingly happy. He pulls it around and bounces it up and down. He spent the whole day with both his parents. After playing in his park, taking a good nap, and eating lunch, he went on a trip to Boston Common and Garden and went for a ride on the Swan Boats.

Pull toy

As Ben gets better and better at walking, he is using toys in new ways. In particular, he has become very interested in his giraffe pull toy, a present from Katherine, and a favorite of her son Ben's (we refer to him as Big Ben). The string sometimes gets wrapped around his legs, but it doesn't slow him down. Sometimes he pulls the giraffe and pushes his mailbox walker (which he no longer uses for support, but just to push around) at the same time.

Turkeys

Surprisingly, there is a large family of wild turkeys living in our neighborhood. There's a mom and 9 babies, all getting very big now. They regularly show up to eat our front lawn or other local lawns. We're not quite sure what they are doing in our dense early (railroad) suburb. Ben thinks they are curious, as do the cats, but we don't get too close.

Old friends

Recently, Ben went to a picnic with a couple of his oldest friends, Annie and Claire, who were in the new moms/new babies group together. It was fun getting them back together now that they are interacting. Ben had a great time, and is looking forward to getting to see more of his old friends some day soon.

Walking!

Ben has transformed himself from a baby to a toddler, much to our amazement. On July 22, he took 23 steps in a row (before the max had been about 3, and never just in the middle of a room). Every day since then he's been walking more and more, until now he only crawls if he falls down first. He starts with walking, even first thing in the morning. We got him some shoes, which he hates, and he also has a pair of Robees from Tanya that he's OK with, for walking on rough surfaces. He's getting so comfortable with standing and walking that he now even dances without holding onto anything.

A future in the circus?

Ben continues to love swinging, and likes to go higher and higher. (This is quite mysterious to his mother, who can barely swing at all without getting nauseous.) He and his father have invented a game that involves passing objects (a plastic ring, a stick) back and forth from father to son. With his mother Ben prefers to get the ring and then drop it for her to pick up at the highest point of his swinging. He has also started holding his toes -- maybe he's practicing for a future on the trapeze.

Playing with Ilan

For the last few weeks, Ben has had a standing playdate with Ilan, who is a couple of months older than he is, and thus fascinating. Ilan also has lots of great toys, including the water table where he learned how much fun it is to splash. Ilan and Ben look like they could be brothers; they have the same coloring, including curly blond hair.

Things in mouth

As you can tell from the last post, Ben loves to put things in his mouth. Pens, chapsticks, his kazoo, the breastshields from his mother's breast pump, bolts, anything that sticks out. His absolute favorite is his mom's bobbins for her loom, which he breathes through and uses like a kazoo. It is also fun to take all the bobbins out of the loom bench, and sometimes put a few back.

Toddler Bed

Ben hasn't been sleeping in his crib for a while, which we regret. So Andy decided that maybe we should do the next transformation and turn it into a toddler bed (with Ben's help), which means taking off one side panel. It has now become very interesting to Ben, who climbs on and off it (he also climbed off our bed a couple of times, which is amazing and a little scary, since he has to hold onto the covers to lower his legs down). He's not sleeping in it yet, but it's a good first step.