Story Time Again!

Today we went to story time, this time at another library. Benjamin loved it - he kept looking around very intently. There was a moment when another Mommy was taking her crying baby out of the room and Benjamin followed her and her baby out of the room. He is not used to hearing other baby cries! When we got home we read a little bit more from Benjamin's library (as anyone who has seen Steve and my collection of books, you know that we love books and are working on amassing quite a collection for Benjamin too!).

Here Benjamin is exploring one of his books. He is becoming more and more intrigued by things that make noise. I have included a video of him 'reading' his book from this morning.

As a quick note - Benjamin is still sleeping in his crib at night and for his naps. It has not been easy, though. I think it took us about 3 1/2 to 4 hours to get him down for the night last night. However, better now than later! Also, we weighed him a couple of days ago and he weighs around 13.6 lbs now!

Grandpa Zusman and Grandma Jane

We had a wonderful weekend with Grandpa Zusman and Grandma Jane. It was so nice to see them again! Here they are at their house with our little man. I like how similarly dressed little Benjamin and his Grandpa are.

Benjamin loved being held by Grandma Jane, who was very happy to oblige the little boy.

Here is Grandpa and Benjamin on Friday evening. Grandpa had a little activity that just thrilled Benjamin. You can see the video of this below at the bottom of this post!

Saturday morning was Notre Dame football time! Here Benjamin and I have our appropriate apparel for the game. We found this little ND outfit at the mega consignment sale we went to last month - it was $2.50! What a deal for such an adorable outfit!

The back of his outfit says 'Fighting Irish'.

Here is Steve, ready for the game, with Benjamin.

Before we left for the game, it was such a beautiful Fall morning that we went down to the St. Joe river (Grandpa Zusman's house is on this river) to get some pictures.

Once we got to campus, we walked around a little to see the sights of the beautiful campus. Here we are in front of the Golden Dome. We would have loved to take Benjamin, but I did have his picture as my wallpaper on my cellphone so that he could be with us. You can see that in this picture of me and Steve, I am holding up the cellphone so Benjamin could be in it, too! One of these times, we will have a proper family picture on the ND campus! Grandpa and Grandma very kindly took care of Benjamin during the game. I did miss him, but I could look at his picture on my cellphone.

Here is a little game action of ND versus Stanford. That Stanford team was a little rowdy today, there were two near fights that the refs had to break up. ND won, for those who do not track Notre Dame football. That was definitely me, pre-Steve. I had no idea where ND even was! Now I really enjoy watching and going to the games, especially since Steve just loves ND.

To end today's post, check out this cute video of Grandpa and Benjamin. Of course, I missed video-recording the first couple of times that Grandpa did this and Benjamin was just smiling and squealing the whole time, but you can see he continued to enjoy it immensely several more times!

HUGE achievement

Here is a picture of Benjamin from this morning after he woke up. What is so exciting about this moment is that he slept the whole night in his crib!! In order to help you understand why this is so exciting, I must admit that he has up to now been spending his nights in his swing. Of course, this was not ideal and I was working on getting him transferred to his crib, but he seemed to sleep so much better in his swing. This past week, though, he seemed more frustrated with his swing (i.e. wanting to stretch out more, more frustrated because it was harder to hold his hand up to his mouth to suck on it, etc.), so when we were heading to Grandpa Zusman and Grandma Jane's house for Friday night we thought it might be a good time to wean him off his swing. I was bracing myself for a long night, though. So Friday night started out well, after I fed him at 8 p.m. he slept in his pack'n'play for two hours until we were in the room getting ready for bed. He woke up, but did not seem ready to fall back asleep in the pack'n'play, so he came in the bed with us. He slept quite well that way, so I was pretty pleased overall. Then we decided that we should fight the urge to throw him in the swing when we got home at midnight on Saturday (although we were quite exhausted!), and much to our happy surprise he was able to fall asleep in his crib (with some self-soothing on his own part) and then sleep for 6 hours! He has continued to sleep in his crib for his naps today, too! I feel so much more successful as a Mommy now.

Another exciting milestone is Benjamin's ability to sit in his Bumbo (see picture above). He can sit in it for a little bit while supporting his head, but he still needs a little time to be able to enjoy this chair fully. I'm sure it will be a nice change for him not to be laying on his back while Mommy cooks dinner or does other household chores.

8 Hours!!

Three nights ago, Benjamin slept for 8 hours in a row (and then an additional 3)!! I was hoping it was not a fluke, especially since two nights ago he slept for 5, then 2, then 3 hour intervals. His ability to sleep for 8 hours in a row, however, was confirmed last night. Yeah!!!

Tomorrow we are heading to South Bend to go to the Notre Dame game against Stanford. As I mentioned before, Benjamin would have needed to buy his own ticket (at full price!), so he will not be joining us. Instead, he will have fun with Grandpa Zusman and Grandma Jane. It will be the longest time I have been away from Benjamin so far - we will see how I will do. I find that when I do leave the house by myself even for an hour, I miss Benjamin, especially when I see other babies. I miss Steve, too, of course. :)

Baby Story Time

Yesterday I took Benjamin to the Champaign Public Library for 'O Baby!' storytime. It was very cute and Benjamin really seemed enthralled by his surroundings. He was the youngest there, but not by too much - there was a 3 1/2 month old there as well. I can't wait for him to be able to play with the other kids! Until then, we will enjoy snuggling while listening to tales and songs. You can see video of this at the bottom of the post. I apologize for the lack of organization to this post - I still haven't figured out how to rearrange photos once they are uploaded (it seems that you have to upload pics in the order you want them to appear - and I accidently uploaded two out of sequence) and, in addition, Benjamin decided only to sleep in half hour intervals today!

Here we are during play time, which was after story time. I had him in my lap during story time, but it made it difficult to take a picture (and believe me, I tried).

Before we left, Benjamin caught the eye of an older girl named Jooha. She loved seeing the baby and Benjamin would just stare at her as she talked to him.

Later in the day, we took some pictures of our family, including a self-portrait taken by Steve, who became a master at taking self-portraits while we were in Hawaii.

Below are some pictures of Ben taken today - it is a nice Fall-like day! A good day for a hoodie.

Did you notice a little bit of drool? He is starting to drool a little - and it can sometimes be quite gooey.

Benjamin does enjoy his rocking chair - it brings out lots of smiles and cooing!

Here Benjamin is before bath time last night. I had Benjamin play with his hippo while I got things ready. He really likes to hug him tight!

Benjamin continues to enjoy his baths. We even play with some bath toys and he likes to kick his legs.

He has also started to enjoy the post-bath ritual as well. He used to cry, but now we like to talk and smile. He looks a bit like a boxer in his froggie bathrobe.

Finally, after several videos of Ben with my voice, I thought it was only fair to share a video of Ben and Steve.

Hurrah!

Last night, Benjamin went to bed at 9:45 p.m., which seems to be his standard bedtime these days. As I mentioned in a previous blog entry, he has been sleeping 4 or 5 hours at night in a row lately. However, last night he didn't stir until 4:15 a.m.! 6 1/2 hours - hurrah! During the first two months, where I was waking every 2 to 3 hours with Ben, I kept telling myself that someday Ben would sleep 'through the night'.

Here is Benjamin during tummy time this morning. He is still not quite into his tummy time and he is supposed to get a lot more of it now that he is getting closer to three months!

Steve thought it would be funny to put his glasses on Benjamin. How professor-like Benjamin looks!

Fall Colors and New Developments

Benjamin is growing and developing so quickly! In this blog entry you will see how much more interactive he is with his world. He loves to have conversations with you and we are starting to see that he has much more control over his movements.

On our walk yesterday, Benjamin got a glimpse of his first Fall colors. It is just beginning here in Urbana-Champaign and we all are very excited - Fall is our favorite season. I can't wait for the (consistently) cooler weather and to take Benjamin to Curtis Orchard for some apple and pumpkin picking!

In the video above, Benjamin is kicking the yellow block. I am sure he is often kicking just for the sake of moving around, but he seems to understand that there is a yellow block that he is kicking.

In this video, Benjamin is grabbing and touching the yellow block. He definitely shows intention in his movements!

This final video shows Benjamin yesterday morning having a conversation with me. He is so cute!