Long Time No Blog

Yes, yes, yes, I know it's been a while since my last new post, but there has just been too much going on lately! Here are some of the things that have happened within the last five days:

1. We celebrated Nolan's first birthday;
2. Benjamin reached cruising speeds of 3 mph;
3. Benjamin figured out how to climb stairs;
4. I reconnected with two friends whom I hadn't seen in fifteen years;
5. Benjamin got his first cold;
6. We made a few trips to the doctor's office;
7. Benjamin started pulling up on everything in sight in an attempt to walk/break his neck/scare the living crap out of me;
8. I chopped all of my hair off; and
9. Vince got Benjamin's cold.

As you can probably guess, #2, #3, and #7 have kept me the busiest. And as a result of #5, Benjamin hasn't been sleeping very well at night, napping much at all during the day, or going in his potty consistently. On the flip side, #8 has actually been a timesaver, but I would have eventually pulled out all of my hair anyway dealing with #9. Men can be such babies.

I'll expound on some of the above in a later post, but for now I think the following clip will sum up my past week quite nicely:

It's a sample of the bedlam that has overtaken my home: a half-naked baby cruising past the makeshift barricade (and against a backdrop of utter chaos) I had futilely erected to keep him out of the kitchen while I was cooking dinner to say "hi" to Daddy. But that little smile at the end of the video? Yeah... That makes it all worth it. :)

Point and Schtick

One of the sweetest experiences of parenthood is the simple act of gazing into your child's face. I remember the first time I saw Benjamin's scrunched-up, angry little tomato face and thought to myself, "Wow. That's my son." The Angry Tomato Face was soon replaced by the Crying Tomato Face. As he got older, we came to know more of Benjamin's faces: the Give-Me-Boobies Face, the I'm-Crying-So-Hard-My-Face-Is-Going-To-Turn-Inside-Out Face, and the I-Want-More-Cheerios Face. And let's not forget the Pooping Face, which is often confused with the Deep-in-Thought Face. Then this week, a new Benjamin Face unveiled itself: the Maniacally Happy Face.

Vince is the one who should be credited with "discovering" this particular face. Vince realized that if he made a maniacally happy face and then pointed at Benjamin, Benjamin would respond by making a similarly maniacal right back at him. They went back and forth like this several times until Vince's cheek muscles started cramping up. Later on, I gave it a shot myself, and found that Benjamin would reward my facial acrobatics in the same way.
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If there's one thing I've learned from this whole exercise, it's that nothing escapes Benjamin's attention. Baby see, baby do. I suppose this means I should be careful about how I behave when I'm around him. Especially in the car while I'm driving. As funny as it might be, I don't think it would good to have a baby who flips the bird and curses.

Never Too Young to Rock the Vote

Benjamin may be 18 years away from being able to cast a ballot, but that didn't stop him from coming with me to cast mine yesterday. At 7:30 am, we headed to the polls along with neighbors Julie and Nolan. We figured that since that it was so early, there wouldn't be too much of a wait.
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Two hours later, Nolan and Benjamin were over-tired and on the verge of a meltdown. Julie and I let them crawl around to expend some energy to the amusement of some and the irritation of others. Oh, well. Can't win 'em all. The important thing is that both babies hung in there just long enough for us cast our ballots.

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Later that evening, my friend Yvonne and her pup Girl came over to wait for the results. We cracked open a bottle of bubbly and, with tears in our eyes, watched history being made.
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Though you and I may have cast our ballots for different candidates, I think that we can both agree that our nation has forever been changed. Here's to the future.

The Horror, The Horror

I promised in my very first post that my blog would not contain any deep thoughts on politics. I have to break that promise for a moment here, but it's for a very good reason: in the past few days, some pro-Prop. 8 ads wound up on my blog through Google Adsense. I have to take a moment to just clarify that I am against Proposition 8. Let me say that again: I am voting no on Prop. 8. I apologize to anyone who may have visited my site in the past few days and seen ads that may have suggested anything to the contrary. Unfortunately, I'm not technologically savvy enough to figure out how to block those ads, and until I do, I won't be running any Adsense ads on my blog.

On a lighter note, here are some pictures from Halloween:

All of these pictures were taken during our Parent Education Class at Emerson. Clockwise from the top left: Gemma, Lisa's daughter; Avery, Jackie's son; Mr. T; Mr. T with Auntie Debbie, who couldn't resist an invitation to hang out with adorable babies for an hour; and Mr. T and his buddy Luke the Sushi Chef.

Hope everyone had a fun and safe Halloween!