to my almost one year old

these are just many of the many pictures from his cake smash photo shoot with his little girl friend elliette jane. she was born just 3 days before him! thanks maddie for the awesome pictures!

wow. i didn't plan on letting 4 months go by without blogging.. but here we are. i have been thinking all week about this post. it has been such a nostalgic week for me. exactly one year ago from this exact time we decided to head to the hospital because my contractions were 3-4 minutes apart. the pain had started to become unbearable. that last week of pregnancy felt like months. i know that sounds dramatic, but when you spend 9 months with a certain date in your head, and then that day goes by and nothing has happened yet? well time decides to slow down and every hour feels like a week.

anyway. yes. 1 year ago today i was in labor with my sweet benny blue. we didn't really know yet if that was going to be his name. but we knew we wanted to use blue somehow since that's what he had been called from the first weeks of my pregnancy. we got to the hospital around 9 pm and they would not admit me until i had dilated higher than a 2 even though my contractions were 1-2 minutes apart at that point. i don't ever remember being in so much pain. walking those hospital halls in a gown while holding on to sean trying to not scream through every contraction. it was without a doubt the most painful night of my life. i remember when they finally decided to admit me at midnight and how relieved i was. i was still in so much pain but so happy that i could finally get an epidural. my water broke on its own right after i got the epidural and we didn't expect to have a baby 4 hours later but we did.

at 4:26 am benjamin blue ashby made his entrance into the world and into our lives. and what a year it has been for us. i don't really even know how to explain how much he rocked our world. i feel like it will be best to just write him a letter so i will do that below.


dear benjamin blue,

i can't believe that tonight was the last night i gave a bath and put my sweet little 11 month old baby to bed. tomorrow when you wake up you will be one year old. you will basically be a toddler. not my little baby anymore. i can't even seem to find the words to explain how this makes me feel. there are so many emotions going through my heart right now.

benny, you are the best thing that has ever happened to your dad and i. you have done more for us than you will ever understand. at 1 years old you are walking and talking. you took your first steps on the day that you turned 11 months old. i wish you could have seen the look on your dads face when you took them. we were both so not prepared but both so excited that we both got to experience that "first" with you. we were so proud of you.

you still only have 2 teeth right now. your bottom front two. you are about 21 lbs. you have dark dark brown eyes. they look like chocolate almost and your hair matches them perfectly. your eyes twinkle when you smile. you are so busy. always on the go and you never sit still. you like to keep us on our toes but we wouldn't trade it for anything. you are a curious little boy and love to get into everything. i can see your little brain trying to figure out how everything works. you just have to know so you like to take things apart and put them back together. i can already tell that you are going to be very smart. you love to learn.

your favorite things to eat right now are hashbrowns and cinnamon graham crackers. you don't like vegetables that much so i have to sneak that in with your fruit. you are still drinking soy formula and doing so well on it. i have tried to give you some foods with dairy in it and you haven't had too bad of a reaction so i am hoping you are outgrowing that allergy.

you finally started to sleep good at night around 10 months old. you still have some bad nights but you are sleeping much better than you were, so we are too. and we love that and thank you for it.

you are quite the momma's boy. like.... a lot. it can be exhausting for me at times but i love it. you love your dad so much and moses is your absolute favorite thing in the world. you light up every time you see him. i am so glad that he is hear to watch you grow up and to play with you. he is so good to you and it makes me so happy.

benny, i didn't just write this letter to talk about your milestones. i want you to know how much you changed our lives. please don't take this the wrong way... but this last year with you? it has been the hardest year of our lives. there were nights when i honestly thought that i could not last another day. tears were shed from every member of this family on multiple occasions. there was a lot of guilt on my part when i made the decision to stop nursing you. you hated it and we both cried through it every time. there were even more tears shed when i decided to stop pumping. i can't even tell you how much guilt i felt and how i still feel guilty that i stopped. but then i see your happy smiling face now, and i know i made the right choice. you were happier when i was happier. i was happier when you felt better.

the first 6 months of your life were very hard. we didn't know what was wrong with you and we spent a lot of time trying to figure it out. we finally found out at 6 months that you were allergic to cows milk protein and once we figured that out you were an entirely different baby. i am so sorry it took us so long to find out. i promise i tried everything and did so much research. i took you to so many doctors and so many tests were ran. please know that i tried everything. i just wanted to see you happy. i knew there was a happy baby in there somewhere. and boy was i right.

you have the power to light up a room, ben. your personality is so much fun. your laugh is infectious and it honestly makes me so happy. it makes me forget any pain or sadness i am feeling. i love to hear it more than anything. you are a very special little boy. you are going to change the world. i just know it. you are so strong and i know that you are going to be a leader. just like your daddy. i hope you end up just like him. he is a smart, kind, loyal man. he is such a hardworker. and i can already tell that you are going to be a lot like him.

you have taught us a lot this past year benny. you have taught me a lot about myself. you forced me to see parts of myself that i did not like. parts that i needed to change. you taught me how to grow up. you taught me how to depend on people more, but to also trust myself and depend on myself more. you taught me that i was stronger than i realized. but also weaker than i realized. you taught me to see the world in a different way. a way that i needed to start seeing it.

so yes, this last year was hard. so hard. people warned us how hard it would be. and we believed them... and we knew it. but we didn't realize that it was going to be way harder than we expected. people also told us that it would be amazing. but we didn't realize that it was going to be way more amazing than we expected. it was way better than we ever could have imagined. you are the best thing that ever happened to us. and i can't believe it has only been a year. we look forward to so many more amazing years with you. we are so happy you are in our family.

just as i was typing this up, you started to cry in your sleep. you didn't finish your bottle before bed, so i had a feeling you would wake up hungry shortly after going to bed. i am actually glad that you did, because i got to go up there and hold you one last time before you turn one year. i got to feed you one last time and kiss you one last time before you are not my little baby anymore. don't get me wrong, you will always be my baby obviously. but it's just a bittersweet feeling that i am feeling. as i sat there in the chair, feeding you, kissing your head.. i started to cry. i realized that the reason this is a sad time for me is because the older you get, the more you will see how scary this world is. the world is such a scary place right now. and i know it is only going to get harder to live in the older that you get. i wish i could protect you from all the evil and scary stuff in this world. i know that i can't. but i wish that i could.

i know the world is a scary place. and i hope that you will always be smart and make wise choices. but i also hope you know that there are good people out there. people that want to make the world better. i hope that you try to seek out those people. i know that you will be one of them. you can be a stubborn, feisty little boy.. but i hope you use that for good. i have always felt like those people are the strongest. they change the world. i am already so proud of the man that i know you are going to become. please know that your mom can be a little dramatic and emotional. i give you permission to laugh at me when you read this and actually understand it.

i guess i better wrap this up here. benny, i hope you never ever forget how loved you are. your parents are no where near perfect. not even close. but we love you. we love you so much that it physically hurts. i hope you never forget that. thank you for the hardest, but by far the best year of our lives. i hope we can spend the rest of your life making you as happy as you have made us.

i think one of the reasons that I'm so emotional is that today marks 1 year that we made it through one of the hardest years we have ever had. we did it even though it was hard. one of our family mottos since your dad and I's engagement is that we can do hard things. I hope you never forget that you can do hard things. they will make you stronger in the end. they will give your life purpose. they will make your life worth it.

happy birthday my sweet little benny bear.

love mom

| Benny Blue | months 6-8

i am really sad that i got so behind on benny's monthly updates. life has just been crazy the past few months and it never seems to slow down. i figured i better just get on here real quick and post about the past few months with ben before i forget. sadly, these past few months have been the most exciting and i have failed to document it!

so i will just start with what i can think of!

- i think i last mentioned that benny was for sure allergic to cows milk protein. he is on a soy formula now and doing great. he rarely spits up now. i mean maybe once or twice a week now? it's amazing. we had him on enfamil prosobee because it was the lightest color and didn't stain. once we realized that he wasn't spitting up at all we tried the target up & up brand and he has been doing amazing. it is A LOT cheaper and we get a lot more per can. so that has been amazing.

-he is on no reflux meds. wahoo!

-he had to go to instacare today. he weighs 19 lbs 5 oz. we also found out he has croup and another ear infection. which is another thing i missed in his monthly updates, but this is now his 2nd ear infection.

-and that leads me to us finding out that benny is allergic to amoxicillin just like his momma! he got hives all over on the last day of taking it. poor guy.

-benny has 2 teeth now! the first one came on the bottom right 1 week after his ear infection and the one right next it came about a week later.

-benny drinks about 4, 6-7 oz bottles a day. about every 4 hours.

-he has 2-3 servings of solids a day.. whether that be fruit, veggie, oatmeal etc. he also snacks on multigrain cheerios and puffs. he loves multigrain cheerios! and tortillas. i wish he didn't have his milk allergy because i am sure he would love dairy.

-he takes 2 naps a day. usually one around 9-10 and one around 2-3. they usually last anywhere from an hour to 2 1/2 hours.

-he takes a bath around 7 and usually is in bed by 8.

-he has not slept great at all these last few months. he slept better as a newborn. in fact i can't even remember the last time he slept through the night without making a peep. i took him to the dr. 2 weeks ago to make sure he didn't have another ear infection and they said he looked great and that we were probably okay to just let him cry it out. so we have been doing that. well, he still wakes up. we can't prevent that.. but he is crying for shorter periods of time and seems to do it less. we also aren't feeding him anymore when he does and now he is eating more in the day which is good. now that he is sick again sleep has gone out the window.. but oh well :)

-benny is crawling! he started to sit on his own at 5 and a half months and at 7 months he started to scoot! he started crawling at about 7 and a half and is now all over the place. he pulls himself up to stand and gets into everything. he has knocked over moe's water bowl several times.

-he is wearing anything from 6m-12m in clothes, size 3 diapers in the day and size 4 at night.

-he loves to watch mickey mouse clubhouse. the hotdog song is his favorite. he also likes jake and the neverland pirates.

-he is way more interested in cords and things he shouldn't be playing with vs. his toys.

-he has had quite a few haircuts. one professional and the rest by me. it's a disaster right now and he needs another one!

-he went to lagoon last week for his first time! it was freezing and late but he was such a trooper. he has gotten so much easier to take places. we also went to gardner village and it was a blast. he is so much fun.

-since it is not halloween yet, i won't post his costume yet, but we have some pictures. i want to take some with my real camera on halloween! he is so cute.

-benny is quite the momma's boy. he sure loves his dad but he is getting separation anxiety when i am not holding him. i really don't mind it though. he is my little buddy. he also doesn't love it when i hold other babies. funny boy.

-benny loves fruit. not so much a fan of veggies so we usually have to mix them with fruit but he will eat sweet potatoes, pumpkin, and squash. not so much the green stuff. bananas are his favorite. or at least i think.

-we got a new car after chuck (the honda) got totalled. benny now seems to like driving in the car a lot more. and so do i!

-he still loves animals so much. moses is his best buddy. they are so cute together.

we sure love our benny blue. i can't even seem to find the words to express how much i love him. he has changed our lives in every way possible. it is so much harder. but it is a million times better. i love being his mom. i love seeing the world through his eyes. it has changed me for the better. he is such a happy boy and such a sweetheart. he means the world to me. also, i know it seems like i don't post much, but i upload everything that i post on instagram to tumblr, so i feel like in a way i am still documenting A LOT of his life. i am going to try and not beat myself up about it that i don't blog about it as much. my tumblr is like a daily blog in a way. so yeah. :)

i have a lot to catch up on, like my trip to D.C. and some other things. i will someday get to that. maybe. but for now i am just enjoying spending my days with benny.

5 months

wow. 5 months already. i know i am going to say that every month, but i still can't believe it. it's been a hard month. ben has been through a lot. we have all been through a lot. last week sean went to wyoming with his dad and i honestly felt like it was the first week all over again. for some reason ben decided he didn't want to sleep good anymore. or so i thought. now i see that he had been getting sick this whole time and we were bundling him too tightly at night and he was too hot. he kept waking up. also i am sure his throat hurt and laying flat was causing him sinus pressure. anyway, now that we know he has a cold and has been feverish, we have dressed him in a onesie and a light swaddle and put him at an incline with a fan right next to him. thank goodness for the rock and play. i kind of feel like we back tracked since he has been in his crib for a couple of months now, but maybe when he starts feeling better we will try the crib again. i could ramble on forever so i will try to just give some 5 month stats:

- these pictures are blurry because ben officially does not hold still and he grabs anything he can get his hands on. hence the first picture that looks like he took it of himself haha. he is always grabbing anything i am holding.
- he weighs 15lbs 12 oz.
- not sure how long he is right now but i know he is tall for his age still. he is quite a bit taller than my friends babies that are the same age.
- not sleeping as good as he was but before all the sleep problems started a week ago he was occasionally sleeping through the night. i will never ever take those nights for granted again. even him sleeping til 4 am now makes me giddy inside. it's the little things haha.
- he goes to bed around 8. he takes 3 naps a day. has to be swaddled for them but he goes right down as long as he also has his lumineers playing on the ipad and a fan near his face. he naps in the morning around 8-9, again around 12-1, and 3-4. it depends on the day when those start because he always wakes up at different times. he sleeps for about an hour and a half each. sometime his morning nap is longer though and then he takes shorter naps the rest of the day.
- i think another reason he wasn't sleeping good in his crib is because he can roll over now.. and since he is swaddled he gets stuck and can't turn back over. he can't roll over in the rock and play so i do think that is why he is sleeping better these past few nights. i don't know how i am going to wean him from the swaddle. i have tried to stop but he just sobs. it is the saddest thing. it's not his normal, screaming cry. it's like a sad, quiet, sob. like he is so scared and doesn't feel safe. it broke my heart. i have heard of this pajama outfit called the zipadee that supposedly was invented to help wean from swaddling. i will have to try that. funny how the only thing that could get him to sleep when he was a newborn is now becoming the reason he keeps waking up at night? sigh.
- he is drinking about 5 oz every 3-4 hours. since he has been sick though he only wants 3-4oz. if even that. i hope he gets his appetite back soon.
- this leads me to a whole other thing... but i will put that story at the end because it will be long and i am sure no one cares to read all this anyway. it's for my own personal record.
- he loves moses more than anything in this world. i am not even joking. he gets so excited every time that he sees him. the other night he was screaming during his bath. since he has been sick and had a cold he has hated bath time. he screams through the whole thing. i got him out last night and called for moe. ben immediately lit up. got the biggest smile on his face and started laughing. we chased moe around the house and ben was giggling harder than he ever has. it immediately made him stop crying. he loves to pet him and be near him. i think he loves all animals but none so far have made him light up the way moses does. i love it.
- has been swimming and loves it. i think he mostly just loves watching all the other kids.
- loves his jumparoo.
- always wants to be standing. i think this kid will walk before he crawls. he gets angry if you don't let him stand. which makes it a lot messier when he pukes. lets just say a lot of laps have been soiled because of him.
- he is now on 1 full tablet of prevacid a day and 1.5 mL of zantac twice a day. prevacid is not cheap. sadly our insurance only covers like $100 of it and it retails at $313. yeah. its like $10 a pill and more than half the time he vomits right after taking it. it's awful. we thought once we hit ben's prescription deductible of $500 that they would pay 80%. but prevacid is a tier 3 drug and so they only pay half. so i guess yeah.. it's less now. but still $150 a month. and it doesn't seem to be working.. but i will once again talk about this at the end.
- hates, hates, hates the car now. it's sad. he used to like it but i think it is just too hot right now in utah for him to enjoy being in the car. i have hooked up my ipad so he can watch movies but it only helps for so long. poor kid. i constantly have to reach my hand back there and hold his so he will calm down.
- still hates church. but we did have a week or two that we made it for all 3 hours and he wasn't too bad.
- has tried peaches and sweet potatoes. loved them both but puked them up. we decided orange puke wasn't that fun and so we are going to hold off a little longer on solids since he has so many issues already.
- scratches himself all the time. we can't keep his nails short enough.

we sure do love our benny. it has not been the easiest 5 months. i know i probably sound like i am miserable. and to be honest? a lot of times i am. but benny's smile makes it all worth it. i love being his mom. he isn't happy a lot.. but when he is? gosh.. it's amazing. he is such a sweet heart. and i know if he felt better he would be so much happier. which leads me to what happened today and why i left out some info in his stats...be prepared for a long post. stop now if you don't care about baby puke! just had to warn you..

since i stopped nursing ben because his reflux was out of control, he has only been on gentle formulas. he was so sensitive to everything that i ate, and was colicky, so we knew we had to put him on something sensitive. he started out on enfamil gentlease, which he did pretty good on but still spit up a ton. i know people say all babies spit up..  and everyone always tells me their kid spit up all the time too.. but i promise you if you spend a day with Ben you would be surprised at the amount he vomits.

anyway, enfamil is pretty expensive so we tried a Sam's Club generic of the enfamil gentlease. he did pretty good on that but it had a more yellow tint to the formula and was pretty foamy. with him spitting up all the time it stained everything more. it was so much cheaper but it still didn't solve any of his problems. we tried enfamil AR because it has added rice starch that is supposed to be thicker and help them keep more down. it just seemed like too much for him since you have to use faster flow nipples with that and he would gag and choke on it. we tried a generic similac sensitive and he puked more than ever and it was yellow and stained stuff and was chunky. we also tried similac alimentum which is for cow protein sensitivity but he absolutely hates the taste and won't drink more than an ounce. i was talking with my cousin about this who is a newborn dietician. she told me to try gerber good start gentle, because it digests quicker and supposedly they keep more down. i had a can that was given to me, so we tried it and he did pretty good on it. he started to gain more weight and seemed to really like the taste. he still spit up a ton though. this seemed to be the most sensitive on his tummy though as far as gas and other things go. other formulas seemed to make him more constipated and this one keeps him pretty regular.

anyway, he had been on this for a while and we just learned to deal with his reflux. we went to visit my grandparents in torrey and didn't have time to get ben's prevacid refilled. we decided since it didn't really work anyway, to just try and see how he did without it and just on the zantac. he did awful. he spit up more than ever and his spit up was way more acidic and chunky and he was miserable. we immediately came back and refilled his prescription but it seems like we could never get on top of things again and his reflux was worse than ever. he was having less wet and dirty diapers and i started to worry. i made an appointment with the doctor and just sitting in the waiting room he vomited 11 times in 15 minutes. this was a regular thing for me though. she told us to increase his prevacid to a full tablet and increase his zantac. also she wanted us to go in for an ultrasound to check for pyloric stenosis. turns out he doesn't have that and the ultrasound tech could even see his gerber formula digesting during the ultrasound. so we know it was going to his stomach.

not that we wanted him to have this problem, but a quick surgery would have fixed it and he would have immediately been better. so we toughed it out and just decided we had to wait this out. we did take him into the chiropractor twice and his back was out of alignment. he got adjusted and the first time it didn't seem to make a difference but the second time seemed to help a little more. he now has periods of the day where he hardly spits up but then some periods through out the day are still incredibly bad. like he throws up 10-15 times an hour.

it's been so frustrating. we aren't really being taken that seriously because he is gaining weight. he is not the biggest baby in the world but he also isn't the happiest. i just know something isn't right but we can't  get into a pediatric gastroentologist for 4 months. thats how long the wait is. it's super frustrating.

anyway, let me get to the point of this. since his medicine is so expensive and he isn't really a newborn anymore and his stomach has probably matured a little, we thought we might just try to switch him to a generic regular formula. we just kind of thought that maybe he didn't need to be on the gentle stuff because he will puke it up anyway. costco sells tubs of it for $16. we got a membership at sam's club just so we could purchase the gerber good start gentle there. it's the place that you get the biggest amount for the cheapest. it is still $28 for 36 oz though.

my friend juli had a baby girl 3 days before me. her baby is on the costco brand and does great. it's just a regular formula, similar to Similac Advance or Enfamil Premium. i told her that i was thinking of just trying it out and she told me i could try some of hers before buying it. we have tried so many formulas that we didn't want to waste our money again. i gave ben 4 oz today and he drank it really fast. he seemed to enjoy it. it was a bit foamier than the gerber but he drank it fine. and then a few minutes after he drank it i noticed that his skin was splotchy around his mouth. suddenly it moved all down his neck and chest and then was all over his back. then he broke out in full on fully body hives. he projectile vomited all of it up. i felt so bad but at the same time it all the sudden clicked. every single formula he has tried has been gentle, or sensitive... and all of those formulas have broken down proteins in them that are easier for lactose intolerant babies to digest. i had just given ben regular formula with full on cows milk protein and his body totally rejected it.

i honestly think ben is allergic to cows milk protein. not just an intolerance. there is a difference. when i was breastfeeding him i tried to cut out dairy but it didn't seem to make much of a difference. i truly believe he still has acid reflux because his spit up is very acidic, and i notice a huge difference when he is not on prevacid. however, his pediatrician said that the amount of prevacid and zantac he is on should almost be completely eliminating his spit up. which clearly it had not been.

now don't get me wrong, we have questioned this being the issue before, but he still fits all the symptoms of reflux and he absolutely hates the formulas that we tried to give him that aren't lactose based. so really we just kind of assumed it was really bad acid reflux and we just had to deal with it. but  after today happened, i did some research on this allergy and he has practically every symptom, but since he has been on those gentle formulas his symptoms weren't as severe as they were today.

he fits all the criteria.. he hates eating. seriously. he eats less than his 7 week old cousin. you can tell he only eats because he is absolutely starving and when he gets enough he stops. he is never comfortable. he is almost always stuffed up. he always has these mysterious rashes that we were told was normal but now it all makes sense.

sadly though, he will not drink the alimentum formula. which is also insanely expensive. but sometimes you can get these formulas covered on insurance. i am waiting on a call back from my doctor to see what our other options are though. i still believe he has acid reflux, but i also think he has this and i hope that now that we know we can try and make him more comfortable, and maybe cut back on the amount of medications he is on. poor kid is on way too many for his age and for them not to helping it just isn't worth it. we would rather pay more for hypoallergenic formula than for this medicine that does nothing.

anyway, that is the latest on ben. it has been an interesting 5th month. but i truly think we are on to something and have hopefully figured out how we can help him more. it is so heartbreaking to see your child so sad and sick. i don't know how these poor moms and dads out there who have kids with major illnesses survive. my hearts seriously go out to all of them. ben's problems are so minor to all of those.. and it still breaks my heart everyday. i knew this was more than just a baby who spits up a lot. i know people think i am crazy but oh well. i hope we can help ben more now that we now! hopefully this will be something he grows out of too sooner than later. this is a lot more common issue than people realize!

if you got this far i would be impressed. and i am sure there are a million typo's.. but i don't even care.

p.s. i was planning to write a post on how sean and i are doing and some other things, but this took me longer than i thought.. i will try to get to that soon.

four months

how is this possible? i have a 4 month old? he is 1/3 of a year old? so crazy to me. it's been somewhat of a rough month with ben. who am i kidding, his whole life has been a little rough. poor kid has the worst acid reflux. i feel so bad for him. it has gotten worse the last little bit, so he hasn't been too happy. but you better believe anytime he gets a smile on that face i whip out my camera. i know i take a lot of pictures of ben.. but i have my reasons. my little brother had a twin sister named bailey. she passed away when she was 2 months old. the film that had all the pictures of them from their first 2 months of life was completely ruined when it got developed. also, my grandma had some pictures of them but i believe her camera got stolen. there is only one picture of my sister. it makes me sad. so i may go a little overboard on the pictures.. but how lucky are we to have so many opportunities these days to take pictures? you better believe i am taking advantage of it.

here are some 4 month stats on ben:

-somehow weighs 14lbs 5oz. he is 25.5 inches long and has a head circumference of 17 inches. 75% for weight, 90% for height, and 93% for head. haha. so basically he is above average in all areas. everyone always comments on his tiny and skinny he is but he is in the 75th percentile but i think he just looks even skinnier because he is so long. and his head is ginormous. i don't think he seems that little.
-he was sleeping really well for a bit, about 8-10 hours straight a night, but the past little while he went back to waking up after 5-6 hours and then every hour after that. he would go back to sleep with his binky but would wake up an hour later. last night he finally slept 10 hours straight again and didn't wake up once. i am hoping he will do it again tonight. i really needed it last night. last week was really rough. he cried... a lot. also he goes to bed between 8-9.
-still drinking about 4 oz every 3-4 hours. sometimes he will drink 5-6 oz. still on gerber gentle. we have tried everything. he pukes it up no matter what so we stuck with this one because he seems to be the most comfortable on it and it digests faster. i think that is why he has gained weight. he is also still ridiculously hard to feed. but the last week he has been a little better.
-kind of turned back into a fussy baby but that's okay. i know it will eventually pass.
-he hates church. every time we go, he throws the biggest fit. we always take turns outside with him and sometimes he is so loud we actually have to go outside the building. we have to leave early a lot. he throws a screaming fit every time.
-he needs his naps. he takes about 3-4 a day still. he has started to take a really long morning nap. usually 2-2.5 hours. it's nice! i can get ready and get some stuff done usually. if he is awake for more than 1.5-2 hours he gets really fussy. he still needs to be swaddled to sleep. he still likes to nap in his swing but he will take his morning nap in his room in either his crib or rock and play.
-speaking of swings.. we went through 4 swings already. ughh. ben loves his swing.. and we had this awesome travel swing that i could take anywhere with me. i took it to work with me, grandparents... etc. it's a fool proof way for him to take a nap. well the crappy thing about that swing is that it's crappy. the motor dies after a couple weeks. i just kept taking it back to get replaced but finally decided to just splurge and use the money from the old one to get the nice swing since he loves it so much. we got the monkey one that matches his bouncer and rock and play. it's super cute but really big and doesn't travel. oh well. also, he is about too long for it. great.
- occasionally he will laugh and giggle. it's the cutest thing ever.
-he sucks his thumb and his pointer and middle finger.
-has discovered his feet. it's so stinkin cute.
-needs a lot of attention lately. if i leave his sight he starts to cry.
-in size 1-2 diapers still
-wearing 0-3 month clothes
-still has a bald spot on the back of his head from laying in his crib! his head is a little flat too but the doctor said it wasn't bad and it's even so it wasn't anything to be worried about.
-we got him a jumparoo. the more he is in it, the more he likes it. i think he will really like it soon. he is so active and it's the perfect toy for him.
-his favorite thing to do is sit in his bumbo outside with moses. it always calms him down.
-still puking like crazy. it got even worse so i took him back to the doctor. we got an ultrasound done on him to make sure it wasn't pyloric stenosis. he screamed the entire time. it was so sad. he couldn't eat for 4 hours before it so he was not happy about that. also he just doesn't like unfamiliar things and so he wasn't a fan of having gel and the ultrasound stuff on him. he didn't like the sugar water they needed him to drink so we had to end up giving him milk to see it go through his stomach. he doesn't have pyloric stenosis so basically he just has really sever acid reflux. hopefully he grows out of it soon. we have increased his very very expensive medication. he now takes a full tablet of prevacid instead of half and is still on zantac at an increased amount. he still pukes like crazy and is still fussy but i think he is a little bit more comfortable.
-his hair is getting so long. i don't ever want to cut it though!
-his eyes still seem brownish greenish. i am interested to see how they turn out!
-loves being thrown up in the air. loves being tickled. loves when moses licks his face.
-likes to watch curious george and mickey mouse clubhouse.
-went on his first vacation last month. we went to torrey, utah to visit my grandparents. he did better than i thought he would but it was still kind of hard!
-i think he might be teething a little. i haven't seen any teeth coming through but he has been drooling like crazy and tries to suck on anything he can get his hands on.
-went to the splashpad for the first time today. he didn't really love getting wet but he loved watching all the kids play.
-he really is a sweetheart. he isn't the easiest, most calm baby in the world.. but i don't blame him. if i spit up and threw up that many times a day i would be unhappy too. he can barely keep his medicine down so we don't even know how much it helps him. i can't wait until he grows out of this. feeding him wrapped in a full length towel (both of us) is getting old.

anyway, we really love this little guy! he is so cute! he also welcomed a new cousin a few weeks ago! my brother sam and his wife had a little boy! Jack Evan Thomas! he is so cute and so tiny! ben looks ginormous compared to him!