4th in a Series of 12

Before this calendar month disappears and February dawns, I really must finish something: Benjamin's four-month blog post.  After I turn around two times, fix a few meals, and lie down for three or four sleeps, it will be time to do his five-month one, I think!  :)

I usually intersperse my observations about his development between the pictures I choose for his monthly posts; but in this case, I want to do things a little differently.  Here is a series of pictures; and if you scroll down through them and focus on his face, it will give you a sense of what I often see when I look at him.  Ready?  Go!

Did you see it?  Those smiles of his are kind of like waves that roll in and break and then recede.  These days, when I catch his eye, he often gives me a huge grin, the kind that makes his entire body wiggle a little.  For a four-month-old, smiling can be a whole-body sport.  :)

Wanna see another one?  :)

I melt.

Who knew a fifteen and a half pound lump of boy could have such an effect on me, just by smiling?  :)

Well, now that we've got the smiling issue out of the way, let's see what else we can talk about.  :)

On the good side, Benjamin has much less spit-up now than he used to.  Occasionally he still spits up a little bit, but it's insignificant enough that I don't even carry/wear the burp cloth I always used to have with me when I was holding him.  Burping, as well, is not a big issue anymore.  After he nurses, he does not routinely have a burp--oh, once in a while, he does, but usually not.  I can lay him down after he nurses without fearing that he'll get a great big gas bubble in his tummy and fuss as a result.

On the...well...not-so-good side, Benjamin is not a fan of tummy time.  His tolerance for it is very short, despite our efforts to entertain him with all the bells and whistles we can conjure up.  Oh well, he's not the first of my kids to disdain tummy time; and so far, they've all turned out OK.  ;-)

Benjamin's eyes are beautifully blue; and despite appearances, he really does have some hair growing in on his head.  It's just that it's so light!  David was hoping that we would have another blondie in the family, and I do believe he got his wish.  Benjamin's dark hair that he had at birth has nearly all fallen out, and it's being replaced by a light peach fuzz that's almost indiscernible.  But someday it will actually be visible to all!  :)

When our other boys learned that we would name this son Benjamin, they started talking about nicknames and were quite opposed to certain ones.  We didn't plan to use any particular nickname with him, but so far this is what has developed.  I call him "Benjaboy," Jeff calls him "Benji-menji," and our pastor sometimes calls him "Ben-jammin'," which always makes a Bill Withers song start playing in my head.  :)  There's another man at church who sometimes calls him by his first and middle names, and I delight to hear "How's Benjamin Caleb today?" because I love both of those names so very much.

One big thing that occurred during this month was the need for some sleep training.  Because of Benjamin's easy-going, sleep-pretty-much-anywhere nature and because of a busy family schedule that did not make it easy to prioritize his naps, I had not done much sleep training with him during the first three months of his life outside the womb.  But then as he grew older, he did not naturally fall asleep in the swing or wherever he happened to be.  Plus there were a few nights when I would feed him, he would fall asleep in my arms, I would lay him down in his crib, he would wake up and cry, I would pick him up, and the whole cycle would start over again.  That gets old fast, and spending the hours from roughly 10-midnight (and sometimes longer) every evening doing that was not appealing in the least.  So, it was time for Sleep Training 101.

I started during the daytime when I have more stamina and clarity of thought and paid more attention to the eat-wake-sleep cycle that I wanted Benjamin to be able to follow.  For once, I looked at the clock when I fed him and then calculated when he would likely be ready for sleep.  Then it was a simple matter to put him in bed while he was still awake and let him learn to go to sleep by himself.

In my head, it always feels like SUCH A BIG DEAL to do sleep training; but when I actually do it, I am amazed at how quickly my babies pick up on the notion that they can put themselves to sleep if I place them in the crib when they're awake.  And then I wonder, "Why did I wait until month 4 to start this?"  ;-)

I will confess though that, aside for the sleep training that naturally bleeds over from the daytime to the night, I haven't done any training with Benjamin in the middle of the night.  If he cries, I still get up to feed him and don't let him cry it out--part of my rationale being that Jeff needs his sleep, too, and I don't want a crying baby to interrupt Jeff's slumber.  :)  Plus, Benjamin got pretty good at going for six or so hours of straight sleep and, although that is not as long as my other kids at that age, it's decent, and I can live with it.  Besides, he's the youngest, and everybody knows the baby of the family gets away with anything.  ;-)

This month, I particularly loved...
~ watching him discover his toes.  Such fascinating objects waving around at the ends of his feet!
~ dancing with him to "Secrets" by Jennifer Thomas (and remembering dancing with Josiah when we lived in Israel and Josiah was just a baby...in one particular memory, I held him in my arms and danced in the kitchen of our Tel Aviv apartment to the music of a lullaby CD...and now here I was 13 years later, dancing with Josiah's littlest brother...so poignant).
~ all his smiles.  He's at such a smiley age; all I have to do is look at him, it seems, and out pops his grin.  Those pictures I shared at the beginning of this post?  Well, I get the incredible privilege of seeing that happen on a daily basis.  :)
~ hearing him laugh one day when I gently rubbed his neck.  Jeff is still the pro at tickling Benjamin and getting the most laughs out of him; but on that day, I did it, too...and felt on top of the world.  :)

Oh, Benjamin, you are a joy!  Thank you for these four fantastic months together!!

Recipe Box - Baked Apples

When the season is fall and the apples are plentiful, juicy, and cheap at our local orchard, I always like to stock up with a bushel or two.  We eat them raw when they're firm and crisp; but as they start to soften as the weeks go by, they're no less appreciated.  That is the time to cook with them.  :)

One of the simplest, yummiest ways to prepare slightly-less-than-ideal apples (or perfectly-ideal apples, for that matter) is by making Baked Apples.

There's no fancy recipe for this.  All you do is cut the apples in half, core them, peel them, and lay them in your baking dish.  Then in the center of each apple half, dab a little bit of butter, put a small pile of brown sugar, and sprinkle cinnamon over all of that.  Bake them at 350 degrees until they reach your desired level of softness--45 minutes or so might be enough, although this can vary widely depending on preference.

Who first made apples like this for me?  My mother, of course.

So many wonderful things--foods, memories, and traditions--come from the kitchens of our mothers.  :)

So This Was Jonas

I don't know who decided that snowstorms needed names, too.  Maybe the poor little ol' snowstorms got their feelings hurt when they realized that hurricanes got names and they didn't.  Well, now they can all be equal.  Is that better, Overly-Sensitive Snowstorms?  ;-)

Jonas hit us about 10:38 a.m. on Friday morning, January 22; and 20 minutes or so later, I took this picture out the front window.

About two hours later, I took this one.

The kids were so excited to have a big snowfall--FINALLY!--so they (minus my oldest and my youngest) hustled into their snow things and were out the door while it was still snowing pretty hard.

They had fun doing the things kids think are fun to do in the snow.  :)

Eating it, slipping and sliding in it, laying down in it, running in it, throwing it.

You know.  The fun stuff.  :)

A little over an hour later, this was the view out the front window.  Of course, it's hard to tell how deep the snow was here; but it had covered the grass more and accumulated on the holly bush more.

A couple hours later, I tried to take some pictures to show that the snow...

...had gotten deeper around Shav's legs.  Kind of an imprecise measurement, isn't it?  ;-)

An hour and a half later, as evening fell, I snapped one last picture from the front window that day--not to show the depth of the snow as much as to show the changing light reflected on it.  That blue evening light when snow lays on the ground is beautiful--almost magical--to me.  This picture doesn't do it justice (especially with the lights reflected from the inside of my house--oops!).

 The next morning, Saturday, the kids were back at it again; but this time the snow was considerably deeper and made the simple act of walking quite a challenge for my short-legged folks.

 I suppose that added to the fun for them however.  :)

 It's kind of funny to me now that I happened to take these pictures of Willow.

 Little did I know that in just a short while, she would be giving birth; and this would be the latest wow-look-at-her-big-belly picture of her.  She doesn't look very energetic, does she?  Makes you wonder how much animals know is coming, but she was definitely acting different the night before and the morning pictured here.

 Before they came in to warm up, I asked Tobin and Shav (aka The Masked Man) to stand out front and let me snap a few more pictures.

And then they came in, and it was as we were eating lunch that I went upstairs and discovered that Willow had given birth to her first puppy.  Well!!!

There went all my plans to continue to take pictures during the day on Saturday as the snow continued to fall.  There went my desire to go outside and play in the snow with the kids.  There went my idea to take a yardstick out to measure the deepest part.  There went everything!

Except Willow and those puppies.

And someday I'll do a post about them.  :)

Wordless Wednesday {The Four Musketeers}