Research

So, I know that I have a lot better things to post about, but I really can't help myself, and posting about this is a lot easier than uploading all the adorable videos and pictures of my amazing kids. I promise to try and post something about them later today or tomorrow. That being said, I don't very often muse on my blog, so I'm going to go ahead and do it. I hope your interest is piqued. Or not, maybe nobody ever reads the text on here and you completely ignored this post when there were no pictures.

Now, let me just say, that I think that Psychiatry plays an important role in health and well-being and there are a lot of really good Psychiatrists and other mental health professionals out there, including my sister. Unfortunately, Psychiatrists and Psychologists often get a bum rap for not being real medical professionals or scientists. Luckily, there are some Psychiatrists who are willing to go above and beyond to give their profession more credibility. Check out this article on TVguide.com or this one on Wired

REALLY!! Can you possibly read that and still think that the mental health field doesn't study anything "real". Awesome. Who loves the fact that they talk about what kind of treatment would have benefited Anakin Skywalker, like maybe that would have made some difference? My favorite part is that it's being published in an academic journal and was presented at the meeting for the American Psychiatric Association. I'm not sure if this is more telling of what's wrong with Psychiatry or how crazy Star Wars fans are.

One last note. This really is all in fun. I'm in no place to judge people for over-analyzing fictional characters.

Cute Older Brother

So Ben is kind of hit or miss when it comes to his baby sister.  Most of the time he ignores her or tolerates her.  He's never really mean to her, which is good.  But once in a while, it strikes him to be really sweet with her.  Tonight, as in just a few minutes ago, Ben was in his highchair eating some chocolate cake after eating a good dinner.  I was sitting in front of his highchair with Penny on my lap and Ben was kind of playing footsie with Penny and she was laughing because a)her little feet are ticklish and 2) she LOVES her big brother and smiles so big for him any time he looks at her.  Anyway, Ben was getting a kick out of this and laughing when she would laugh and he promptly put down his fork, put out his arms and said "hug".  I said "You want to hug Penny".  He replied that he did.  So I took him out of his highchair and took him in the family room and put him on the couch and set Penny on his lap.  The results were adorable.  Unfortunately, I didn't have time to pull out the video camera as Ben's sweet brother moments are generally fleeting.  I did capture it on my cell phone.  I didn’t edit it, because I thought it all was pretty cute, but it is long.  Check it out.

Also, expect an update about Penny’s blessing on Sunday.  I’m just waiting until I can get the pictures from my mom.

Benjamin Danvers Willes: Age 2

I promised an update on our little man, so here goes.  At his two year checkup today he measured in at 34 1/4 inches and 29 pounds.  That puts him at about 50th percentile height and 75th percentile weight, so he’s not nearly as big (relatively) as he used to be.  This doesn’t surprise me at all as he’s much too busy to be bothered to eat as much as he used to.

Ben is a little adventurer and a delight to everyone around him.  Even today, when we had a WIC appointment and a doctor’s visit for him, he made friends with everyone.  He didn’t even flinch when they pricked his finger to test his iron. 

At the doctor’s office, he had a really good time.  He was pretty excited that he got to use the big boy measuring stuff and got to walk out in the hall to the measuring stick and stand on the scale.  He didn’t even mind when the nurse had to try four times to get a blood pressure.  Then the doctor came in with a nursing student and was telling her/me that 2 is a really hard visit and that he would scream through the whole thing.  Not so.  Ben was pretty quiet for most of the exam and only seemed bothered at all when they looked in his ears.  Then they laid him down to check him out and the doctor kind of tickled him and Ben started laughing hysterically.  The doctor looked surprised and said it was the most pleasant 2 year checkup he’d ever done (I’m sure he tells that to a lot of people, but Ben was pleasant, also of note, Penny was a champ through all of this too).  Then, the doctor left and left the door open while I had Ben on the exam table to dress him.  Every time a nurse would walk by he would say hi.  When they would stop and say hi he would point at the wallpaper and say “Wha't’s dat?”, “Train” (there was a train full of animals on the wall).  It was super cute.  He didn’t want to leave; I had to drag him out.

Anyway, so that’s just an example of the kind of little boy Ben is.  He’s sweet and friendly and curious.  He goes a mile a minute all day.  He loves, cars, trucks, trains, and Toy Story and running around outside.  He likes to read and knows most of his animals and some of his shapes.  I swear he picks up a new word at least once a day, so it’s hard to keep track of everything he’s saying.  He says several phrases now and is starting to put together little sentences.  His favorites: “What’s happeen?” (what’s happening, he says this a lot when he’s watching a movie or playing with his daddy), “Eer oo go" "(here you go, when he gives you something), "Puu pazon (put pants on, this one is funny as he didn’t used to want pants on, but he now knows he only get to go outside when he has pants on, so as soon as he has a new diaper on he says this and grabs his pants). He’s sweet to his sister when he slows down for long enough to pay attention to her.  And boy does Penny love her brother.  Any time he is in her line of sight, she follows him with her eyes and just smiles at him.  Ben is such a joyful little soul and I am so grateful to have him in my life.  He makes me smile every day (even on days like today when he screamed for 15 minutes when I brought him inside because he kept running into the street to go play with the big kids across the street, he just always wants to be socializing). 

Lastly, and of note, Ben is currently sleeping in a big boy bed for the first time (at least I’m pretty sure he’s a sleep, I haven’t heard a peep from him since I put him down an hour ago). 

I let him pick the bedding out at the store for his birthday.  Jon and I put the bed together today when Jon had a break.  While Ben was in the bath tonight I got the bedding all ready.  I got Ben out of the bath and in his pajamas and set him down so he could help me put his toys away.  I no sooner set him down than he ran straight to the bed, climbed in and pulled the comforter over himself.  I had to coax him out to help me clean up (which he actually did), then we had to brush teeth, read books, and say prayers.  When it was time to get in bed he climbed right in, asked for his fleece blanky which he put under his head and pulled the covers over himself.  I sang him a song, tucked his stuffed animals under his arms (he loves his stuffed animals, it’s really cute) and kissed him goodnight.  He still hasn’t made a sound.  We’ll see if he lasts the whole night.  Here are some pictures:

The bed all made up for him:

All tucked in for the night

So that’s my very lengthy update on the little man.  I also got the crib  set with Penny’s bedding, and it looks great.  I’ll take a picture of that tomorrow.  We probably won’t put her in it until Ben is in a routine with his new bed and she is sleeping a little bit longer cycles at night.

Ben’s Birthday

So yesterday was Ben’s second birthday. It was a really good day. Crazy, but good. I think Ben really enjoyed himself. I made some french toast out of homemade cinnamon bread for breakfast with a strawberry topping. Ben loved it, as evidenced by this picture when he was shoving pretty much a whole piece into his mouth.

I spent the rest of the morning assembling his cake while Jon played with him. Here’s a few pictures of the finished product (and I was pretty pleased with how it turned out. It was A LOT of work):

Jon did a good job of keeping Ben out of the kitchen until I was just about done. Once Ben saw the cake, though, he was way too excited to do anything else but look at it and point at it (just a note, none of these videos are edited. Sorry they are so long, but I wanted to get them posted and don't really have time to edit them).

Then we went to church. We came home and Ben took a nap while we got ready for Ben’s little party. We had over two families from church with kids around Ben’s age and one of Jon’s friends. Ben was so pumped when everyone got here. He was just running around screaming and laughing. Then he saw his presents and had to open one. He picked the one from the stack that was from my mom. Here he is opening it:

He really loved the train. Jon got it all set up for him, and he was pumped.

When it was time for cake and ice cream, we lit the candle and tried to get Ben to blow it out. See for yourself (thanks to Cori for the film-work):

Turns out we’ve apparently taught him too well that fire is hot and he shouldn’t touch it because he didn’t want anything to do with it. Not only that, but when we gave him the cake, he refused to eat it, saying it was hot. The only way I eventually got him to eat any cake was by cutting up a piece of the unfrosted stuff I had leftover.

Ben opened the rest of his presents after cake. I do need to edit the video of that, unless everyone wants to watch about 20 minutes of video of that. Jon and I gave him a couple of activity books about trucks, which he liked. The Thomases gave him a Hot Wheels car with the cutest little homemade pouch to put 5 cars in with a little road on it that folds up and velcros shut. It’s a perfect little thing for putting cars in and sticking in a purse or diaper back when we’re out. The Delavans gave him an action figure set of Buzz Lightyear, Woody, and the rocket from the first Toy Story. He loved it. He was flying Buzz around all night. All in all, I would say Ben really liked all of his gifts and had a great time opening them and playing with them with his friends. I’ll post and abridged version of it when I get a chance to edit the video on the other computer.

One of my favorite parts of the night was Ben saying goodbye to his guests. Sorry his shirt was still off from eating cake.

All in all, it was a great day, at the end of which I needed a really long nap. So did the kids. They both zonked out pretty much as soon as the guests left. Poor Penny had been needing to sleep for a while, but it was just too loud. She was a really good sport, though. Turns out she likes having people around, too.

That’s all. Later today or tomorrow, I’m going to do a little tribute to Ben to catch people up on what our little man is up to these days.

Easter and Beyond

So, we celebrated Easter a week late as Jon was on call for actual Easter and was at the hospital all day.  Here’s a video of Ben on Easter morning doing his little Easter egg hunt.  It’s a long video, but I didn’t really have time to trim it.  All of the videos in today’s posts will be uncut for the time being.  Sorry about that.  It’s probably a lot more of us than anybody needs to see.  Also, sorry that Penny is screaming for the first half of this video.

And here is a quick little video of us in our Easter clothes on our way to church. We couldn’t find the still camera, so we just took a video.

I also discovered recently that Penny loves it when you tell her stories.  It doesn’t really matter what you tell her, just that you do it in an animated voice and look at her.  She gets a kick out of it.  Here’s a video of it. 

We put both kids in the crib.  Ben is actually pretty sweet with Penelope these days.  And Penny loves her big brother.  She always watches him whenever she can, and just smiles anytime he pays attention to her.  She’s also pretty tough and even likes it when Ben is a little bit aggressive in his affection.