Thanksgiving

How is it mid-November already? I don't understand. Time has certainly flown by, it totally wigs me out that Ben will be turning one in 1.5 months. WOW. More on that in another post. In the spirit of Thanksgiving I wanted to dedicate this blog to my wonderful little Ben. Since there are 30 days in November, I wanted to give you 30 reasons why I am thankful for him... even though I could probably name 30,000.

1. Ben has introduced me to a totally different and wonderful kind of love. I thought I loved my husband, parents, siblings, friends, etc... and then Ben was born. The love you have for your child is unlike any other. It totally transforms you. You love your husband in a totally different way too. You see your parents through new eyes, and your love for them changes. Your siblings, who become your child's aunts/uncles, are now different (better!) people. The birth of your first baby opens the floodgates, and the love you share for those closest to you now is multiplied by 300. It is a wonderfully awesome feeling. And the best part is, as each day goes by I love Ben even more.

2. I have learned to prioritize what's really important. New moms can be kind of psycho (me, most definitely, included) but once you step back, and take a deep breath, you realize whats important. Ben has showed me that laughter, love, and hugs outweigh clothes, hair, shoes, etc.. Material things mean so much less to me  now, and I am so very thankful for that.

3. I am thankful that Ben's smile can change a bad mood into a very good mood.

4. I am thankful that Ben has made me a better person. I live a little more cautiously now, drive slower, think more about what I say before I say it, and countless other little things. But, overall Ben has made me a better person. I am happier. I am more fulfilled. Since Ben is going to be a reflection of those around him, I want that behavior to be positive, loving, and happy. Therefore, I am a more positive, loving and happy person.

5. Even though at first I worried more, now I worry less. I am SO thankful for this. Babies are so unpredictable. You never know what they are going to do next. This makes it pretty impossible to plan your day 100%... I have (slowly) learned that all of my worries are out of my control. I now know that God is in charge, therefore I'm learning to worry less and just enjoy the ride. It's much more fun this way.

6. I am thankful that I have a wonderful husband.

7. I am thankful that Ben has a wonderful father.

8. I am thankful that holidays are SO much fun with a child. You get to relive being a kid all over again. Halloween was a blast. I can't wait to see Ben's face on Christmas morning. I know he's still so young, but I still think it will be so much fun to see him rip the wrapping paper off of his presents.

9. I am thankful for Ben's grandparents, who all love him so much.

10. I am thankful for Ben's aunts and uncles, who all love him so much.

11. I am thankful that Ben is healthy.

12. Ben is really funny. I am so thankful for this. His laughter creates laughter. There is much more goofiness in our house. Evan and I will do ANYTHING to make him laugh, this includes crawling around, climbing in boxes, dancing like a nut, making silly sounds, and the list goes on...

13. I am thankful for Ben's sweet hugs. Now when he hugs me he pats me on the back, it seriously melts my heart.

14. I am thankful that Ben lets Evan put him to bed at night. I get to spend all afternoon with Ben, but Evan doesn't get home from work until late, sometimes 7:00. So, he doesn't get much time each day to play with him. Luckily, Ben lets Evan rock him to sleep. Evan enjoys this time and so do I. It gives me a break at night while letting Evan sneak in some quality daddy/son time. Win/Win for both all of us.

15. I am thankful for Ben's little toes.

16. I am thankful that Ben can high-five me. This is another one of my faves. Whenever I say "high-five" Ben slaps my hand and squeals in delight. It's so fun and funny. He's so proud of himself, and I'm so proud of him.

17. I am thankful for the huge grin Ben gives me when I walk in the door.

18. I am thankful for the huge grin Ben gives Evan when he gets home from work.

19. I am thankful that Ben was OK when we had to take him to the ER a few weeks ago. (We thought he swallowed something.. he gagged a little, and screamed a lot..after an x-ray he was totally fine!)

20. I am thankful that we've found a church we like that Ben can grow up in.

21. I am thankful that lots of our friends have babies around the same age. We can all be sounding boards for each other. In the beginning this was especially important, because there are LOTS of questions when you have a new baby. I am also thankful for the friends who don't have babies (yet ;) We don't know what we would do without yall!

22. I am thankful that Ben has an aunt who lives in Raleigh. Rebecca is a BLESSING. Her love for Ben is amazing. I don't know what I would do without her.

23. I am thankful that I've had much more patience than I would have expected in dealing with Ben's sleeping issues.

24. I am thankful that when we need to catch up on sleep Ben has grandparents who are MORE than willing to come and take him for a night or two. It's good for everyone. Evan and I get to catch up on sleep, and Ben gets some QT with his grandparents. It's very important to me that Ben spends as much time with them as possible. They love it, and so does Ben.

25. I am thankful that Ben was a surprise. God has perfect timing.

26. I am thankful that my parents have taught me how to do the right thing. I still and will make mistakes, but I hope to instill "the right thing" in Ben's brain.

27. I am thankful that Evan and I have jobs and we can support Ben.

28. I am thankful that my job is so flexible, so I can spend my afternoons playing with Ben.

29. I am thankful that I get to relive my childhood over again through Ben. It's so exciting to watch him learn/see/do new things.

30. I am thankful that God decided it was my turn to be a mom and it was Evan's turn to be a dad. It has changed everything... for the (much) better.

Get Your Read On

At a whopping 10.5 months of age, Ben has become quite the literary whiz kid. He LOVES to read. He loves flipping through the pages, looking at pictures, and sitting my lap while I read him stories. I love this. I hope he never grows out of this, because reading is such a wonderful hobby. I want to remember what his first favorite books are, so what better way than to write a post on it. Here are his top five reads:

Oh how Ben loves his "Elmer". This book has seen better days. Ben loves it so much that he has ripped pages out. I've tried to tape back together what I can, but I still find bits and pieces all over the house. This was one of the first books I received for Ben, from one of my mom's good friends, at a baby shower she threw for me. We even have the little stuffed Elmer for Ben to play with.

I love the book "If Jesus Lived Inside My Heart". It's so sweet, all about being good and doing the right thing. It teaches kids how to always make friends with the kid who doesn't have many friends, to share your cookie with your brother/sister, and to be nice to your parents. It's not a corny book either. Just a straight-shooting read on how to do the right thing. I hope Ben takes these words to heart.



"Goodnight Moon" is one of my all time faves. I read it when I was little, and Ben loves it now. My dad even recorded it for him, which is so sweet! It's a classic for sure.

10 Months, Whaaat up

I know I say this all of the time, but how is Ben already 10 months old? He is too cute right now. First of all, he's hilarious. I know every mom says this about their kid, but seriously, he's really funny. He gets this look in his eye like he's getting ready to do something crazy/bad/dangerous and then will turn and grin as if to say "you know you can't get mad at me, I'm too damn cute". Of course he would never say damn, because he's too damn cute for that. 

 

Everyday I feel like he's about a second away from just standing up and walking around by himself. He's cruising everywhere. For those of you who don't know, (I, for one, had to google "cruising") cruising apparently means pulling up and walking around by holding on to furniture. He can stand alone for brief seconds at a time, but (is it OK that I am kind of excited this happened??) there was a major set back about 3 weeks ago. He got a little too ambitious in his skills, and let go of his trusty table, and fell straight sideways directly onto his shoulder. That threw him for a quite a loop. He screamed for about (what seemed like) 20 minutes- it was probably like all of 90 seconds. I honestly thought he had hurt himself, but after a little bit he was back to playing. Since then he's been a little more careful and cautious about letting go of things. To tell the truth, I am pretty excited about this little accident, because, quite frankly, I am not at all ready for him to start walking. I am still getting used to the fact that he can crawl around our house in a matter of 15 seconds, so I can't even imagine what it's going to be when he's walking all over the place. Going by the speed that he crawls, there probably won't be much walking anyway, it will more than likely be running, meaning I am going to be even more tired than I already am...But, whatever, I'm excited either way! I think it will be great AND hilarious when he starts running/walking all over the place. New adventures everyday, I'm sure! 

Speaking of tired (I did mention that earlier, right?) Ben doesn't sleep. Ever. For almost 6 weeks he's been a teeerrrrible sleeper. It's insanity. Like, literally, I think I'm going insane sometimes. He's been better the last week or so, so I finally feel like a human being again, but up until then it was really hard. He was waking up every 2 hours, wanting to eat, and screaming. At first I thought it was his teeth, or a growth spurt, or something short-term, but when it continued for over a month I started to get a little bit concerned  (Evan and I need to sleep!!!!) Not to mention that Ben needed his sleep too! At Ben's 9 month check-up, which was in early October, my doctor recommended we give him Tylenol + Ibuprofen one time, right before bed, for a week. He felt like his teeth were hurting him and the medicine would get him back into a rhythm of sleeping longer than 15 minutes at a time. Of course medicine wasn't his first option, but we had done the whole "cry-it-out" Ferber thing for THREE weeks, by the book, and it wasn't working at ALL. So, our doc knew we needed sleep, and knew Ben needed sleep too. He assured me this would work. The doses were pretty high, so for a 20 lb baby this should knock him right out..right?? .... WRONG. Ben is apparently some kind of super baby with the ability to tolerate doses of medicine that would normally knock out a 30lb baby. Ben was still waking up 2 hours after we put him in his crib, and then every 1-2 hours after that. After doing this for 3 days I stopped giving him the meds, because they obviously weren't working, and I didn't want to give him medicine for no reason. We were back to square one. So the following week I contacted the dr's office again. About 24 hours later I finally convinced the nurse that I needed the dr to call me back directly.  After a 45-minute heart to heart with Dr. K that night (yes, he called me directly, which was awesome!) we decided that maybe some of the food he was eating is hurting his stomach. So we cut out all solid foods for a week, to see if that made a difference. After the first 24 hours of no solids Ben slept from 11-6!!!!!!!!!! OMG. Waking up after more than 2 hours of consecutive sleep made me feel like I could run a marathon. A-mazing. The last week or so have been a little easier. Last night he slept from 8p to 1, then from 1:30 to 7a. I'll take it! We are slowly starting to reintroduce solids back into his diet, to see if there's something we're feeding him that's making his belly hurt. It's frustrating at times because it's so much trial and error. But, listen, when it comes to sleep I'll try about anything. Sleep deprivation is a total b-word, which, in turn, makes me a total b-word ;)

Regardless of our sleeping "issues" Ben is an absolute joy. He is learning new things every single day. Now he can point, hug, laugh, babble (on and on and on..) wave bye-bye, cruise, stand for brief seconds at a time, entertain himself while I'm cooking dinner or cleaning.. and the list goes on. What is cracking me up the most right now is his ability to laugh hysterically when he gets excited. This isn't the laugh he had when he was 3 months old, this is the mama-im-so-excited-right-now laugh that comes deep from his belly. He will start doing this when we are playing or I chase him around the house while he's crawling. He thinks it's so funny when I crawl around with him. I'll have to get a video and post it on here, because it's hilarious.

Another thing he does now is crawl into his room and sit right by the door and say "bye-bye" and close the door (like he needs some alone time). Meanwhile, I'm outside of his room, I'll knock, and say "Ben, can I come in?" and then I open the door ever so slightly. He will then peak his little head around the smile real big and then scream "BYE-BYE" and close the door again. This is so funny to him. When he closes the door I can hear him laughing on the other side, and when I knock he breaks out in hysterics. We do this for about 10-15 every.single.day. I LOVE it. I guess it's his version of hide-and-seek.

He still loves pretty much any food, and now when we go to restaurants we can order him noodles with olive oil and he can eat that! He seems to really enjoy them. The more texture the better! Avocados, bananas, carrots, sweet potatoes, anything green, and yogurt top his list of fave foods. And when I feed him, he likes to hold his own spoon, and "feed" me while I feed him with a separate spoon. It's pretty darn cute!

That's my ten month update! If I think of anything else, I'll post!

Monday Night Victory

So... Yay! 1 of 6 recipes completed. Tonight I made my version of chicken tostadas. PS, I did not go by the recipe I posted at all. Here's my version:

Ingredients:

6 chicken breasts 

1 red onion

1 red pepper

1 green pepper

1 or 2 tomatoes (I just had one, so I just used one)

2 small cans of green chiles

3/4 cup cream cheese

1 packet of Old El Paso original taco seasoning 

10 Mission white corn tortillas (cut into quarters)

1 cup Smart Balance veggie oil

1 cup of water

Sour Cream and Mexican cheese for topping 

**optional: Black beans or refried beans for sides (I used both and mixed them together)

Prep Work:
Dice 1 red pepper + 1 green pepper + 1 red onion + 1 tomato
Cut Mission white corn tortillas into quarters (I used about 10, which yielded 40 chips and we have leftovers).  
Start cooking your side dish over low/med heat and set aside while doing everything else 
...prep work complete ;)

Instructions:

1. 6 small chicken breasts + 1/2 coarsely chopped red onion dumped into a pot of boiling water for about 20 minutes (or until chicken is cooked through) set aside to cool

2. Sweat out peppers, tomato and 1/2 red onion in a saute pan for about 10 minutes

3. While veggies are cooking, chop up your chicken 

4. Heat 1/2 veggie oil in separate frying pan (I started on high heat, then backed off to med-high)

5. Add shredded chicken to veggie mix

6. Add green chiles to chicken/veggie mix

7. Let cook for about 5 minutes over med heat

8. Add 1 cup of water to chicken/veggie mix

9. Add packet of taco season to chicken/veggie mix. 

10.  Add cream cheese, stir well, and let simmer for about 20 minutes over low/med heat

Now.. start making your tortillas

1. Add corn tortilla triangles to the veggie oil you had heating up 

2. Once golden brown transfer them to a paper towel lined baking sheet (be sure to keep an eye on these, otherwise they will burn!)

3. Repeat these steps until all pieces are cooked, then sprinkle with a touch of kosher salt! Enjoy!! 

I served this with the chicken mixture as the main dish, and beans and chips as the side- adding a healthy dollop of sour cream and cheese after plating. Here is the finished product:

It was delish- I will admit, not the healthiest meals I've ever made, but I felt better frying the chips using the Smart Balance (that evened things out, right??)