The Latest with Jesse and Bens

Jesse
Jesse just turned 3 and oh boys does it seem like things have changed from the little boy he was 6 months ago. He can still be extremely sweet and well behaved but oh man is he giving us a run for our money as he tests out his sour side. He’s just a very intense kid. Every emotion seems over-the-top with him. When he’s happy he’s huge smile jumping up and down. When he’s sad he’s a mess and it usually takes a while to get him to calm down. He’s always been this way but he’s recently discovered a new emotion…ANGER. And ya…Watch out! I guess you’ve got to take the good along with the bad but I’m very ready for him to stop testing his limits…well…my limits. We’re having the classic battle over “who’s in charge” and I think I’m losing. It makes me laugh some times. The other morning he’d been playing in the other room while I was on the computer. I knew he was in a bad mood because I could hear him getting mad at his toys. (Should I worry about this child)? He came storming in the office, slammed the door open and demanded “Get Me Cereal!!!” I tried to keep a straight face as I proceeded to tell him to go to time out for talking to me like that. Sheesh! It’s like I’ve got a teenager.

The other week we got home and Jesse wanted a drink of chocolate milk. We didn’t have chocolate milk so I mixed some chocolate syrup in with his milk. He immediately started a melt down, crying to me that it was “too big.” I put too much milk in his cup. What kid cries over having too much chocolate milk? I offered to drink some for him but that just got him more frustrated. He wanted me to dump it down the sink but I refused telling him that wasted it. Then he wanted me to poor it back in the carton and I again refused to mix his chocolate milk with the other milk in the carton. He was just beside himself and of course bens was crying for me by now too because he was hungry. I just left Jesse after a while to deal with it…we’d reaching an impasse so to speak. Big Mistake! While I was feeding the baby in the family room Jesse came in with the milk jug and his chocolate milk and proceeded to show me how he was going to pour the his milk back into the gallon container only in his anger inspired haste he didn’t bother to take the cap off the gallon and the chocolate milk spilled everywhere. At that moment I’d reached a threshold of anger towards Jesse that I didn’t know I was capable of and just about threw Benson off my lap in order to grab that kid and get him to time-out. I immediately called Dave to vent. When he answered I told him that whatever it was in our brains that helped us to rationalize and think reason was missing from Jesse’s.

Ok time to write some positive things about Jesse. Ummm….just kidding. I still love the kid! What’s funny is that he’s only acts up for his Dad and I. His nursery leaders tell me that he’s so well behaved in nursery and that they never have a problem with him. He’s actually been a lot of fun lately. He’s been on another basketball kick and loves to shoot on his little hoop. He’s a really good shot and actually has good form. He just started shooting it one handed… like the real deal. He still loves to sing and lately it’s been the songs from High School Musical 3. I let him watch it when it came on TV a couple months ago and recorded it just in case he liked it. I’d tried other musicals with him before and he just didn’t take, so boy I was not expecting the obsession that would follow showing him this one. Yep, he’s totally obsessed. It was cute at first but now…not so much. It just wears on you. But if you haven’t already seen him do it couple thousand times it’s pretty cute to listen to him sing the songs and dance around. There’s a song where they waltz called “Can I Have This Dance” and he’ll always come sing that one to me and want to waltz around with me. Gotta love him! He’s still a really kind big brother to Benson although he’s still a little more rough than I would like him to be when he plays with Bens. He’s a really good helper and is always helping me to get a burp cloth or binki for Bens. Lately he’s wanted to help me cook and bake and get’s frustrated when I don’t let him do something all by himself like mix something with the beaters or stir something on the hot stove. I’ve been having to tell him that, “you can use scissors when you’re 5,” or “you can crack the eggs when you’re 8.” He’s actually satisfied with that response………for now.

Oh!! Jesse’s Potty trained!!! YAY!!! Well for the most part. But I couldn’t be happier to have him potty trained before 3. He just decided it was something he wanted to do, so it happened. If I had decided it was something I wanted him to do, ya….that wouldn’t have worked. So I’m just grateful he wanted it. We’re so proud of him!

Ever since Jesse turned 18 months he’s gotten sick every month or so. Sometimes worse than others but I’m talking fever, cough, runny nose. He basically has a chronic cough. He’s had tonsillitis and 3 episodes of pneumonia all in the last year or so. His tonsils are always huge when we see the Doc so we’ve decided to have them taken out. The Doctor said having them out could help him not get sick so much, help him sleep better, eat better, and behave better. Sounds a little too good to be true to me but I don’t think it could hurt. I’m not going to get my hopes up on the behave better aspect but that would really be nice. So ya, Jesse’s going to have his first surgery next month. Poor guy! I know it’ll be good for him but I just get knots in my stomach thinking about it.

Benson

Wow, a lot happens with the little babies in 4 months

So at my last post Benson had started rolling from his back to his tummy. It worried me because I thought he was going to cruise along through all the developmental milestones and be mobile way before I wanted him to be. Thank goodness, however, he plateaued for about 3 months and all he did was roll from his back to his tummy. At almost 7 months he finally got the rolling thing and has sense been able to roll all over the place. Not crawling yet……I’m definitely grateful.

Bens started being able to sit up just before 7 months as well and at almost 8 months has gotten very good at it. We used to pile the pillows around him so that when he fell he would have a soft landing, but now he can hold his own. Of course he still needs help getting to sitting position but it’s been nice to have him sitting so that he can see what’s going on around him better and play with toys easier.

He’s at the stage where everything, EVERYTHING goes right to his mouth. When I read the board books to him that have the different textures they can touch, he could care less about touching and dives in head first with his mouth wide open….tongue usually lazily hanging out. My last post I wrote that I thought he was getting his 2 front teeth…I still do but he hasn’t had any teeth poke through yet.

Benson LOVES to eat! He loves his cereal, veggies, and the little dissolvable cereals. Sometimes I think he could eat forever. I always have to just stop with this little one. He’s liked everything we’ve given to him so far except for the Beechnut brand peas and green beans. It’s funny because he’ll eat the Gerber brand??? Even when I’m feeding him something he doesn’t like he’ll give me faces of disgust and whine a little as it coming to his mouth, but he’ll still eat it. It’s been fun to introduce the little dissolvable puffs to him. He loves those so much and I love watching him attempt to eat them. For some reason I think it’s so funny to watch a baby working on his dexterity and hand-eye coordination.

I was very surprised, at his 6 month well check, to learn that he was only in the 11% for his weight. This kid loves to eat and I swear he is always hungry. He must be all cheeks. He definitely doesn’t look tiny but he’s not a huge chunk either. He was 65 % for his height.

One of his latests is he’s learned how to shake his head – No. I doubt that he’s associated it with saying “NO” but sometimes I wonder. When I’m changing him and I’ve got his little body folded in half with his feet by his head…he’ll start shaking his head. Also, this is funny, recently when Jesse starts playing too rough with him he’ll start shaking his head as if to say…please stop. Who knows…maybe he’s figured it out. We’ll have to start the sign language thing with this kid.

As far as babbling he’s gone through little kicks of sounds that he’ll just keep repeating. I was a little worried when he was about 5 months because he hadn’t done much babbling but he has definitely found his voice and he is a loud little bugger. He first discovered a little raspy scream that we’d wake up to in the early morning. He wasn’t sad, just experimenting. Then he discovered how to do a “guh” sound. Then it was a little trumpet sound blowing air between his pursed lips. Now he mostly babbles “Buh buh buh.” I’m hoping that turns into Mamma. Especially since Jesse was 18 months before he could say Mamma.

This guy is still very social and will whine if we’re home and no ones paying attention to him. This has gotten a little better now that he can sit up and play with toys but he only has so much of an attention span for that. He’s definitely a Momma’s boy and will usually try to keep his eyes on me if someone else holds him. I think he might just by whiny for me because he knows if he has a need I’m usually the one that meets it. Bens is definitely more of a snuggler than Jesse ever was. He wrap his little arms around you and snuggle into your shoulder when you’re holding him. It’s awesome.

Bens has done really well at sleeping through the night. He started at two months, kind of regressed at 6 mos. for a couple weeks but is back sleeping through the night. He’s done so well that we moved him into Jesse’s room…well…the boys room about a month ago and it’s gone really well. All my worrying about whether it was going to work for the boys to share a room was in vain. And now we get to keep our other bedroom as on office. YES!

I love our little Benson. He’s such a good baby. He has the greatest smile that just lights up his entire face…especially his eyes. He has very expressive eyes. You can often find him kicking his little feet together much a like dog would wag his tail when he’s pleased. He already has such an excitement for life and his fun and inquisitive personality make us smile. He lights up all of our lives and I can’t imagine life without him.