Apparently, Ben has decided that today is a book kind of day. He's been bringing me books nonstop since he woke up this morning. Some days (like today) he really likes to be read to, some days he likes to sit beside me on the couch and he'll read his own book and I get to read my own book (I like those days). He's doing a little of that today. Other days though, he wants nothing to do with books. The idea of sitting still is apparently repulsive to him and so we'll only read at naptime and bedtime. Luckily, those days aren't very often.

Today we have read:

Kitten (affectionately called by Ben the "titty book" ...the "kk" sound is a little hard... ), My Big Truck Book (2x), The Eensy Weensy Spider, Once Upon a Potty, The Truck book, Noni Touches, Under the Sea, Spot Plays Hide & Seek, Philadelphia Chickens (not all of it, but a lot of it), Sheep in a Jeep, A Ride in a Fire Truck, Funny Bunnies, One Fish Two Fish Red Fi ...

I had to go to the pharmacy the other week on a Saturday. I generally try to avoid this like the plague, because they only have a few windows open, they're notoriously slow, and the place is filled with retirees.

We show up at 9:30 with the optimistic plan that we'll just run in and grab my prescription quickly, and then we'll take Andrew so coffee at work as a surprise. I take my number, which to my dismay, is THIRTY numbers away from the one they're currently serving. They have three windows open out of nine and like I feared the place is running at the speed of retirees. In fact, when we walk in I think we were the only people in the lobby who didn't remember the Titanic sinking.

Ben stands quietly and holds my hand for about half a second and then is bored. The good news is that old people have to sit down while they wait (and I NEVER get to sit down and wait) so there was plenty of hallway space available for Ben to run around in. So he did. Up the hallway ...

Since I'm not yet keeping any kind of baby book (I know, bad mom) I figure that I'll keep track of some of these momentos on here and at least when I finally get around to making one (maybe before the next baby is born...) I'll at least have all the info I need.  HEY....That said, if anyone has any of the emails that I was mass-emailing during Ben's infancy left over in their inbox, if you wanted to mail it back to me so I could have a copy of it that would be great. Mine are gone...

Anyway...

I gave up counting how many words Ben knows. I counted before his 18 month check up because I knew the doctor would ask and I came up with around 70. Since that time, he's hit 100 and I've quit counting. Just today he pointed out and named a picture of an owl with the accompanying "hoo hoo" and I've never heard him do that before. He's also recently started saying the names of several aunts, though sorry girls, he can't pick you out of a lineup ...

So Andrew leaves in five days. He'll be gone Monday through Friday until mid-July-ish. I can pick him up on Fridays and bring him home for the weekend, but will have to take him back on Sundays. We're also trying to save money for our (presumed) trip to California this summer and this is going to be even harder to do since all this driving will be monstrous to our budget. Such is life.

Here is what scares me: I'm afraid I'm going to go crazy again. Logically, I know this is not going to happen, but emotionally I'm having a hard time moving past that. Here is the convulted way that this works in my brain.

First, it assumes that having a baby was stressful and that I wasn't able to "handle" the stress and the result of that was my postpartum depression. (Again, I know that's not how it really works, but somehow this is where my brain is taking it.) Having Andrew gone will be a stressful situation too (topped off by all the normal financial woes ...

Three steps to giving a baby a nap (ideally):

1. Fill the baby's tummy.

2. Kiss the baby.

3. Put the baby in bed.

Our Sunday nap experience:

1. Give Ben a bottle.

2. Kiss Ben

3. Put Ben in his crib.

4. Listen to Ben babble in his crib. Ignore babbling for  20 minutes.

5. Go upstairs when babbling turns to crying.

6. Get his foot unstuck from between the rails.

7. Realize that he is also laying in a puddle of wet.

8. Try and figure out exactly HOW he got wet. It wasn't spitup, his diaper was totally dry on the inside, and he didn't have a drink in his bed.

9. Take off his clothes.

10. Put on a new diaper.

11. Change his sheets.

12. Kiss Ben.

Everyone remembers the Folgers jingle right, "The best part of waking upppp is Folger's in your cup..." I totally agree with that. I need coffee in the morning, preferably first thing in the morning. Now, as a mother I don't usually get it FIRST thing, but it's pretty darn close. However, even as a mother NO ONE should have to wake up to what I did this morning...

I heard Ben fussing this morning. Now, because I live such a life of leisure and because Andrew works nights and gets home in the morning just before Ben wakes up he usually gets him up and they have some bonding time in the morning. So when I heard him I waited for a minute to hear if Andrew was home yet and to hear him clomp up the steps in his boots.

No Andrew. I roll over and look at the clock. It's 7:45. That's pretty good. Usually Ben is up at 7:00:01. So he slept late this morning. My alarm was set for 8:00 so I would have been getting up pretty soon anyway. All that to say I ...

This was a moment more of frustration than the first entry in this blog.  Not that I'm under the delusion that anyone who knows me is under the delusion that I am a perfect parent, but just so we're all clear about that I'm posting this story.

I've been sick for about five days so that knocks about 50 percent of parenting energy out right off the bat every time that I open my eyes. This morning Ben was really fussy and clingy. He wanted down, no up, no down, no up...and on and on this went. It didn't help that I was sitting at the computer and so I was really trying to do my own thing and wishing that he would do his own thing as well. As it turns out 15 month old babies aren't really into "their own thing".

So I'm sitting at the computer and Ben wants up and so I pick him up and he's fussy and wants down so I put him down and he's fussy and wants held again and so on and so forth. After about five minutes of this I've had enough on a ...

I hate our library on post. They have the worst fiction section I've ever seen, unfriendly librarians, and no board books in the children's section. In fact I have not found a library within thirty minutes of us that does have board books. Can you believe that?

Anyway, the library is not my favorite place to take Ben. He doesn't like his stroller, he's loud, and it's just not a child-friendly place. That said, I've found it easier to go once or twice a week and just stay for a very short period of time instead of trying to keep him occupied for a lengthy browsing.

I was there yesterday and within moments of being buckled in he was unhappy. So I'm hurrying along giving him various non-toy items to play with and picking them up after he has flung them to the floor. When I was in the last aisle I set him free by one of those round wheelie step stools thinking he'd just bang on it or push the stroller up and down the aisle.

He bangs on it. Once. ...

So this blog is going to function mostly as a dumping ground for information so that I don't forget to write this stuff down about Ben. This is actually the first time that I've written anything down so he's going to have a pretty sparse baby book. On that note, if anyone you don't clean out your email inboxes very often and you happen to have any of the updates I sent out when he was little and you want to send it back to me I'd really appreciate it. I thought that I had them saved, but can't find them.

This is Ben's list of words at almost 15 months:

Uh-oh: I threw something down and now I can't reach it

Tada: I am an amazing baby

Mama: You are an amazing mother

Dada: You are an amazing father

Ba: Book

Baba: Bottle

Wa-hoo: Man that was fun

Shh: Fish or crash

Kkkk: Kitty< ...

I find myself in this position a lot so I might turn this into it's own mini-blog. I say something to Ben and then wince and have to backtrack..."what I meant to say was...." Luckily, he doesn't pick up on these things yet so maybe I can get myself under control.

Today I had left my Bible on the couch and Ben had found it and was flipping through the pages. Then he started flipping...with great enthusiasm. The binding on my Bible is not great (unfortunately, since it was a gift from Mom and Dad and has my name on it) and so I didn't want to lose any more pages. So far I've got all the books I'm just missing some maps and reference material. :) Anyway. I didn't want Ben to break my Bible. So I said, "Ben, Bibles are not for babies."

OPPS!!!! What I MEANT to say was, "Ben, let's trade. Here's a book for you and please give me my Bible."