A Journey to Love

So yesterday was the big 3! Our little boy is a full-fledged preschooler now! He has been so excited about his birthday and we kicked off the day with breakfast at the beach with Grandma Barbi and the family. Next was his favorite dinner (pizza of course!), followed by ice cream sundaes and cake...sort of. I discovered a new treat called "cake pops," which are balls of cake fashioned into just about anything you can imagine. These particular ones were made to look like ice cream cones. Benjamin was blessed with some great gifts, which he took great delight in opening! Grandpa Jack got Benjamin his very first set of golf clubs. He was quite excited and can't wait to hit the course! Benjamin received his very first backpack from Uncle Ray & Aunt Laura. He had to put it on right away, of course! High on Benjamin's list was Tow Mater, from the movie "Cars," which Grandma & Grandpa happily provided him with! High on my list were child-s...

After a year of riding his Strider bike (a two wheel bike without pedals), Nathan and I decided Benjamin was ready for a pedal bike. Before buying him his own, however, we thought it would be a good idea to test him out on Cousin Weston's two wheeler. I figured it would take a couple days and many, many falls to teach Ben how to pedal and balance the bike, but I was wrong. A few words of instruction and five minutes later the boy was off and riding. What impressed me the most about this experience was not that he picked it up so fast (though I am quite proud of that), but rather the quiet determination and persistence that I saw in my first born son. He listened to Nathan's simple instructions and for the next hour practiced his new found skill until he had it down. Each time he fell, he simply brushed himself off and got right back on the bike to try again. What an amazing little boy we have.

"Benjamin, slow down!" "Honey, use your brakes!" "Ben, stop...STOP... STOP!!" "Wait for Mommy!" "Slow DOWN!" Poor Benjamin. This is all he heard during his last bike ride on our camping trip last month. Following behind him on foot through the campground, I was a nervous wreck trying to keep up with him. There were some pretty good hills around the loop and I was terrified that he would get going too fast and either 1) totally eat it and die or 2) get hit by an oncoming car and die.Yes, I actually was worried that he would die. It hit me during that bike ride just how paranoid I was. What should have been an enjoyable stroll with my family was fraught with fear... my fear. My heart was literally racing and my palms would start sweating when Ben approached a hill or picked up speed. I kept envisioning him flying over the handlbars and landing on the pavement, unable to move. When he would round a curve, I would hold my breat...

It's time. I can't take it anymore. The lack of sleep is killing me. Today officially marks Day One of Operation Pacifier. When Benjamin was born, I was adamant about not giving him a pacifier. Instead, I encouraged him to soothe himself with his thumb. My reason was simple: I did not want to be tied to an object that could be dropped, lost, or soiled. His thumb would always be there and always accessible. (Yes, I know this lends itself to problems of breaking the sucking habit later, but I will deal with that when the time comes.) Happily, by two months old he had mastered the art of thumb sucking. Of course, I hoped for the same thing with Brayden, but was less stringent. I figured that the first couple months would be easier for all of us if I let him have a pacifier until he figured out how to hold his thumb in his mouth. Unfortunately, my plan backfired and he became reliant on the binky for sleep and soothing. The very thing I dreaded happened. I became a slave to the...

I can't believe that Brayden is already six months old. How did this happen? Wasn't it just last week that we were bringing him home from the hospital? I had him weighed yesterday so I could record that particular fact in his baby book. He came in at a whopping 18 pounds, so I know that he is getting plenty enough to eat. Speaking of food, we officially started the not-so-little man on solid food this month. So far he is chowing down on rice cereal, applesauce, and carrots. I gave him an apricot picked right off our own tree and he tore into that like it was a chocolate chip cookie. By the end of that particular snack (the apricot, not a cookie!) he was an orange, sticky mess, but boy, was he happy! Some other milestones he has reached thus far is rolling over, grabbing everything , purposefully reaching for toys and/or people, and scooting around in a 360 degree circle on his tummy, which is an important skill, you know. Brayden is such a joy to be around these days...

We made it. We survived the month of June. This past month was totally insane. Every weekend was filled with birthday parties, graduation ceremonies and celebrations, class reunions, and baby showers. The weekdays were spent preparing for all those events and sometimes even more parties or family dinners were held on the week nights. Of course we wanted to add to the chaos, so we threw in a camping trip up to Hume for a week as well, coming home the night before I hosted a large baby shower and family birthday dinner for Ray & Laura and their boys. Finally, to cap off the month, I attended a week-long Montessori class in SLO, requiring me to find childcare every day and get myself and both boys up and out of the house by 8 each morningYep, total madness. Oh, and did I mention that we decided to redo the front planters and while we were at it, go ahead and finally put some plants in along our driveway? Of course, I wanted it done before the party, so by the time I got my act t...