Tantrum

Benjamin will be 20 months old tomorrow. That seems very close to two for me, which seems crazy! As if to try and prove to me that he is in fact almost 2, Benjamin threw the biggest tantrum ever today. In total, I think it lasted almost 40 minutes. I was in the kitchen making him breakfast and he started demanding to be picked up. I told him no, that I had to finish making his food so he could eat. I finished and brought the food into the living room for him so he could eat his pancakes and watch cartoons (seems like a nice mommy to me) and things just got worse. He wouldn't stop crying (errr screaming) and everything I did seemed to make him madder. If I picked him up he wanted down, if I put the fork down in between bites he screamed louder, I didn't sit in the right place next to him, etc. After about 20 minutes of him doing this, I decided this was getting a tad ridiculous. I got up and sat in the rocking chair next to him. I continued to offer food and to let him sit in my lap. He just continued to scream, cry, and demand things. He would throw himself all around on the ground and when he needed a break, he would lie flat on the ground on his belly, face down that way he could take a break from crying but continue to show me how unhappy he was. You can see this in the picture below........ (he's naked by the way because I had taken his jammies off and he hadn't let me put his clothes on yet)



More screaming. After another 10 minutes or so and he continued to turn down all my offers, I decided to move to the couch. After he had a wriggled around on the floor and gotten closer to me, I finally decided to pick him up against his will and forced him to put his head down while I rubbed his back. He slowly calmed down and stopped screaming. After about 5 minutes of cuddling, he got down, walked over to his food and ate all of his pancakes by himself (which he's never done before) and acted like the past 40 minutes hadn't happened!

I called Dave during all this so he could hear Benjamin and he said that it was a good thing that I did, because he wouldn't have believed me otherwise on how big a fit he was throwing and screaming like he was. He's never done this before and I hope he doesn't again for a long time!!!!!

Because these photos aren't the easiest to see, I thought I'd end with something happier. Yesterday Benjamin fell asleep flat on his back in the living room in the middle of all his toys for the first time ever. I had asked him if he was ready for his nap (to go night, night) and usually once he's sleepy he agrees but he kept denying me, so I let him keep playing. Eventually, I guess he just got too tired! It was pretty funny and I wanted to take a picture, but couldn't find the camera. When Dave got home he remembered that he had left it outside (BIG oops!!!) and to make it up to me made Benjamin give me some good smiles for some pictures! Here's one of him upside down, smiling, hair all fluffed out! Much cuter than the ones above, don' t you think?!?!?!?!

Cincinnati

We went to Cincinnati today and took Benjamin to the Newport Aquarium for the first time. I asked him this morning if he wanted to go see the fish and he preceded to say fish the rest of the day and rush us to get him dressed, shoes on, and out the door like I've never seen before! It was extremely cute and he really had a wonderful time. He looked at all the tanks and pointed to all the fish and said "issshhh!" (the f is silent for Benjamin!) He was even trying to say shark by the end. His favorite were the tunnels that you walk under where the aquarium is all around you and the fish, sharks, sting rays, etc. swim right over your head! We had a great time together!


This diver was in one of the tunnel tanks and she waved to Benjamin. He then preceded to blow her about a million kisses! Pretty cute! He would also say bye and blow kisses as we left each tank! Such a sweetie!


Up close and personal....that's my son!


After the aquarium we went to a mall that had one of my all time favorite restaurants, Maggiano's. It was delicious!!!! Benjamin especially liked the ice cream that came with his kid's meal!

This is the expression he made when I asked him to smile for me! Needless to say, we had a great trip!

Zoe the Toddler

Sometimes I feel like I have two toddlers in the house! I give Zoe a greenie bone sometimes in the evening after Benjamin goes to bed. If I give it to her when he's up, Benjamin will more than likely take it away from her. Usually she is very excited and eats it in 5 minutes or so. Last night, for some reason she didn't want to eat it. However, she didn't want anyone else to have it either. She was lying about a foot away from it and every time one of our cats would walk past, she would slowly creep up to it as if to not give away what she was guarding and still make sure the cats didn't get it. She did this about 4 times and then I looked over and she was laying practically on top of it (picture above). Apparently, its a lot easier to sleep and keep guard of her bone that way. By the way, the cats have absolutely no interest in it!

Then when it was time for bed and I asked Zoe if she was ready to get in bed like I always do, instead of her usually jumping up and running excitedly into the bedroom for this beloved time of day, she got up and looked at me, then down at her bone again and back at me. You could practically see what she was thinking....."I want to go to bed, but I can't leave my bone out here where those cats could steal it!" After about 5 minutes of much though (and me giving up and going on into the bedroom without her) she came running in with her bone in her mouth. Apparently, it would be much safer in there!!!! So silly! I couldn't help but laugh!

babybabybabybabybabybabybaby

We had our first doctor's appointment for the new little one and everything was great. The baby is growing right on schedule and everything looked good in the ultrasound, including the heart beat which was wonderful to hear for the first time! We had fun getting to see this little one for the first time and to get to share it with Benjamin. My appointment was supposed to be at 10:30 but got delayed until 2:30 because my doctor was in a delivery. So Benjamin was super primed for the apt. when it was finally time and probably said the word baby a couple hundred times. Very cute!

My due date is March 3, but the baby will be born sometime at the end of February because my doctor says I really need to have another C-section and wouldn't feel comfortable with me having a normal birth because I pushed with Benjamin for so long (5 hours) and still required a c-section. He does c-sections around 10 days before the due date so you can avoid going into labor on your own. So, I'm a little bummed about that, but mostly just happy to see my baby and to know everything is okay!

We tried scanning the pictures from the ultrasound at Dave's work, but it didn't work......so I had to just take pictures of the pictures they gave us. It worked fairly good, but there's some glare from the flash (sorry)! I was really surprised and excited by how cute the baby was and that he/she actually looked like a baby this early (11 weeks). You can see the body and head and even the little hands making fists and the legs and a little bit of the feet. So cute already!

(You can click on the images to enlarge them and see the baby better!)

Week in Review: New Shoes, Chocolate Milk, State Fair (including baby cows!!!!), etc.

Here are some pictures of what we've been up to the last couple of weeks.

Benjamin slips in his new kiddie pool, so we go him some new water shoes. (which he brings to me every 30 minutes some days!) I just love the expression he's making in this picture!


We went to Bob Evan's a couple days ago for breakfast and got Benjamin chocolate milk for the first time. Needless to say, he enjoyed it.........


"Aaahhhhh!" I taught him to do this after he has a drink of diet coke and he was doing it with the chocolate milk too!


We went to the Indiana State Fair in Indianapolis yesterday and had a whole lot of fun. It was pretty hot out. but thankfully there was a nice steady breeze. Benjamin was really good and really enjoyed all the food and seeing all the animals. Here he is on a huge chair. He was very excited to climb up into it, but it made his daddy super nervous!!!!

The best part of the fair was the cow nursery they had. All the cows were either pregnant or had just had babies (including two that had been born that day!) They were super cute and Benjamin really liked them a lot. He even said cow for the first time. He made us stay there for almost a half hour while he just sat there pointing and saying cow and baby over and over again! It was so cute!

Benjamin pointing to the mommy and baby cow!

He really loved sitting here on the ground with me and looking at the cows and saying baby over and over again! He is so sweet! We actually had to make him leave!

In case I don't post any more before Tuesday, I have my first doctor's appointment for the new baby that morning and my new doctor does an ultrasound at your first visit so hopefully, we'll be able to scan it in and post a picture of our new little one. We're really excited to see him/her and especially for Benjamin to see the baby. He already points to my belly and says baby and lifts my shirt and kisses his baby! At the fair they had a pro-life booth and we got to hold a model of our baby at this age. It was so neat to see how big the baby already is and that he/she already looks like a little baby! 10 weeks down......30 to go!!!! :)

2:00 AM Musings

Benjamin decided it would be fun to wake up after only a few hours of sleeping last night and then stay up until three in the morning! I told Dave that my normally great sleeper has been waking up in the night occasionally because he's helping me practice and get ready for the new baby! He was quite the little character last night and so I had to get the camera and get some great shots!

He kept doing his bye/wave that I mentioned in an earlier post which was super cute! I finally was able to get some pictures of it and you can see him waving and see that he's saying bye! If only you could hear how cute he says it!

He also kept putting his hand up and saying "uh??" over and over again! He does that all the time now and I think its very funny and am very proud to have taught it to him

We also just had some plain silly time too!

Pretty good times considering it was two in the morning, huh?

The only bad part of him keeping us up last night is that today was Dave and my anniversary! (4 years, yea!) I had spent over an hour looking up recipes and making a grocery list last night so I could make us a big romantic dinner since we hadn't really come up with anything fun to do. When I called Dave at 2:30 last night to tell him Benjamin was still up, he was really sweet and told me not to worry about making dinner, that we would just go out. So instead we just decided to go on the fly to a restaurant in one of the cities south of Indy and see if we would like living there. We had a great time together exploring and really liked one of the cities, so who knows!?!?!

Happy Anniversary Dave! You're everything to me and I can't imagine spending a better 4 years than the last four we have had together! Thank you for loving me, for taking care of me and Benjamin, and always being there for us. I'm so excited to have our family grow and to share another beautiful child with you!