Jamison at 8 months

Jamison, you’re quite the little monker right now.  You’re a huge piglet!  We cannot eat or drink in front of you without you screaming your unhappiness that you’re not shoving food into your mouth also.  I still nurse you first thing in the morning and before your morning nap and afternoon nap and then before or after dinner and before bed.  So 4-6 times a day usually, with 1-2 bottles of formula also.  And for meals you are eating a lot of what we are.  So far you’ve had all the puffs and yogurt melts for babies, Cheerios, cheese, peas, green beans, noodles, Mac n Cheese, chicken, mashed potatoes, sauteed mushrooms, baby yogurt and lots of different breads.  You will pretty much eat anything we put in front of you and so far you haven’t really disliked anything, except for plain pureed meats.

You’re mostly sleeping well too now.  You still nap about an hour or two in the morning and 1-3 hrs in the afternoon and you go to bed around 7:30/8pm and you get up between 7-8am.  Lately in the mornings you just hang out in your crib and talk to yourself until I wake up and come get you.  I’ve started putting wubbanubs in your crib with you and you play with them sometimes.

You are pretty fascinated with dogs and always get excited when you see them when we’re out and about.  You like to watch our dogs too.  Birds flying around catch your attention too along with cars driving by.  You will sit on the rug for a good 20-30 mins and play by yourself or watch the big kids run around.  Some of the funniest things get you really belly laughing, which makes us all laugh.
We switched you to size 9-12 months just after you turned 7 months and when I had you with me at Ben’s 4 year appointment you weighed over 20.5 lbs.  I’m not sure what you weigh now but I would guess around 21-22lbs.  You are our little porker.  You’re still in size 3 diapers and wear size 3 shoes.  This month we also switched you in to the convertible car seat this month because we felt you are safer in it and you’re getting too heavy to haul around in the infant carrier.  You still just have your two bottom toophers.

You do a lot of babbling now too, and you say “dada” all the time, although I’m not 100% sure it’s in correlation to daddy being near or not yet.  Lots of ah-ah’s and ah-da’s and ba-ba’s.  No ma-ma’s yet enough though I try to get you to say it all the time.  You can sit up great now and roll around, but you’re not even close to crawling yet or pulling up on anything, but Ben and Abbie didn’t this early either.

In general, you’re a pretty happy baby and if you’re not, there’s a reason.  You’re at one of my favorite ages and I go between wanting you to meet more milestones and wanting you to stay like this forever.  You’re so much fun!

Christmas 2015

Christmas was pretty low key here this year.  It was just the 5 of us, which kind of stinks, but is also kind of nice.  I feel bad that my kids don’t get the experience of having a big family get together for the holidays, and it makes them seem a bit lonely at times for Mark and me, but it’s also nice to have it quiet and not have to entertain company.

We got our tree up late this year.  The house renovations and camping two weekends after Thanksgiving made it tough to get it up at the beginning of December.  So we put our old fake tree up, which works, but the thing is like 10 years old and the fake leaves are falling off of it.  It works for now.

We took the kids to the train depot downtown for pictures with Santa.  It was nice that they let me take them with my own camera, instead of paying for their pictures.  They had a cute little set up and it was our first time in the train depot.  We’ll have to go back and check it out again sometime.

Getting a decent picture of multiple young kids is tough!  It takes about 70 pictures to get 3 good ones!  Here are some of my favorites!

Christmas day was really low key.  We ate breakfast and opened presents and then had crab legs for dinner and Mark and I packed the trailer for our camping adventure!  Hopefully some day we’ll live near family to be able to spend holidays with them, but in the meantime, we’re creating our own traditions and memories.

To my 4 year old.

Dear my little Benji boy,
Four years old already!  I can’t believe it!  It seems like just yesterday I was terrified about having you because they told me you were huge and could get stuck.  And now you’re this rambunctous, sweet boy who keeps me on my toes!  I had your whole birthday letter written out last year and some how it got deleted before I posted it and I never got around to writing a new one, which I’m still kicking myself for.  So this years is getting posted!

You’ve matured a lot this past year.  You’re starting to be a little bit more independent (a little bit) and you’re starting to figure things out on your own.  You still get frustrated very easily, which brings on the screaming, but I’ve seen a decrease in that the past few months.  Thank God.  I have to say that it drives me absolutely batty when you scream out of frustration.  Your favorite words this year have been “I cay-unt!!” and you say them ALL the time!  I finally drew arrows in your shoes so you would know which foot to put them on and that seems to be working well.  You just recently started getting dressed by yourself, although you still get your shirts on backwards or upside down occasionally.  And then you scream until I make you come to me so I can help.  Silly boy.

You are an EXCELLENT big brother and Jamison just adores you.  You spend a good portion of every day trying to get J to laugh and you succeed quite often.  He is always watching you and what you’re doing and he gets so excited when you come over to him.  Again, you scream bloody murder if you’re trying to play with Jamison and Abbie gets anywhere near you, but we’re working on that.  I never once worried about you being bad with Jamison, and you proved me right.  You’re very gentle with him and you ask to hold him a few times a week now, even though you were afraid to touch him when he was brand new.  You and Abbie have a love/hate relationship.  Sometimes you play great together and other times you get tired of her bossing you around so you throw a fit.  But overall you guys are pretty good buds.  She was in tears because she didn’t buy you a plane she’s getting talking about getting you before your birthday.

We finally got you potty trained this year (aka – to poop in the potty).  That was a big hurdle for you but daddy bribed you with your very own Gator and I did some major pep talking and it worked.  Once you did it once and realized it didn’t hurt and wasn’t scary, then you were fine.  I hope with Jamison daddy picks a much cheaper bribe as yours was $400….  But you do love your Gator, and so do all the neighbor kids.

You’re a pretty picky eater right now but you could live on hot dogs and mac n cheese and ranch with a few chicken nuggets.  You go through bucket fulls of Ranch.  You are your daddy’s biggest fan.  You ask us every single night if daddy has to go to work in the morning and one of your first questions in the morning once you’re awake is “Is daddy at work?’.  And you usually ask at least 10 times a day when daddy is coming home.  He’s a great daddy and role model for you and if you turn out as half of a good guy as your daddy, I’ll be happy.

We love you little dude.  You are such a cute little bugger and you definitely keep this household loud and active.  Don’t ever change.
Love,
Your mommy