Reflections

Ben is fascinated by mirrors at the moment. His favorite reflection is
the tiny, warped one he sees every night in the bathtub. Such fun!


I never go in Ben's room while he's asleep because the sound of the door
nearly always wakes him up. On Friday he had a doctor appointment at
8am and it was of course the one day he wanted to sleep in, so I had to
go in and wake him. First I had to laugh and take pictures of his
sleeping position, though!
Ben has learned to shake his head "no", mostly at dinnertime, but other
times he thinks it's funny. I was trying to get it on video and while
he wouldn't do it for me he thought the whole process was pretty
amusing.

Orchid Garden

Ben has been taking lots of walks with Daddy. Now he will walk all the way to the pool and back now, a quick walk for an adult but pretty long for a little guy that wants to explore every leaf and path.


We all checked out the orchid garden at the botanic garden last weekend.




I see you!!


Ben was in a great mood after his nap today. He loves to chew on his right sleeve when he's going to sleep, so he's usually a little soggy on that side when he wakes up. I can tell he's been sleeping all squished into the corner of his crib lately because of the drool spots. As long as he's happily asleep, I won't complain!

Almost Walking

Ben is really getting interested in walking now. He still needs one
hand to hold on to but I don't think it will be long before he takes
off on his own.




Silly guy...


Getting ready for bathtime

Mid-Autumn Festival

Matt finally got Ben to walk holding only one hand and he did a great job! He's just scared to let go but he's steady enough to walk a few steps when he puts his mind to it.


Matt and I went to the Mid-Autumn festival in Chinatown last weekend. It's a Chinese celebration of the brightest full moon in the fall when families gather to eat mooncakes. We tried a few of these and while they're really pretty to look at, they're not exactly what we would describe as cakes. They are tasty as long as you're not expecting a light, sweet treat!


The streets in Chinatown are full of lights and lanterns this time of year.


Even schoolkids get in on the decorating by hanging their own handmade lanterns.


We saw a lot of huge lanterns lighting up the streets.


Ben would have loved these but anything after dark is way past his bedtime!

Everywhere

Ben is all over the place!

In things...


Under things...


Through things...(well, not quite)


He goes into the spare bedroom for his favorite new teether (mom's swim goggles)...


...and he found this interesting new toy in the study today. Now I have to figure out where TWO Kirkham men are leaving things all over the house!


And after all that work in a day, he still has a smile on his face.

Home for a Year!

One year ago...

On September 13th, 2006, we finally brought our baby boy home. Ben spent 116 days in the NICU and came home with supplemental oxygen while he was feeding, an oxygen monitor, preventative antibiotics, diuretics, reflux medication, and iron supplements. Within a month or so, he was off nearly all the medications and the oxygen. We are just now weaning him off the reflux medication since he seems to have mostly outgrown the problem.

Today...

We have a beautiful, healthy baby. It's still hard to answer the "how old is he?" question, since he doesn't exactly look or act like a 16-month old, but he's catching up quickly. In a few years the lost gestational months won't make much difference anymore. We thank the Lord every day for our little miracle baby!
(and concerned moms - don't worry, that's not the carseat he uses anymore!)

Crawling in Everything

One of the deciding factors in our move was that I would be able to
stay home with Ben. While I loved my job and it was really hard to say
goodbye to all my friends there, I love watching Ben grow day by day.
He keeps me so entertained with his antics and explorations! Who knew
the space under the bathroom counter could be so interesting? Lately
he's been searching for anything he can crawl under, whether he
actually fits or not, and he has the bumps on his head to prove it.
This morning he noticed that his music table has space beneath it...



And the high chair has become a playground.



Singapore has a great transportation system but my biggest complaint here is that
I've encountered so many places where stairs are the only option. There
is nothing fun about hauling a baby in his stroller up 4 flights of
stairs in a parking garage or down 2 stories into the subway. I have no
idea what handicapped people do...I guess they stay home because you
never see anyone in a wheelchair on the street here. Thank goodness I
replaced the 20-pound Graco stroller with a 5-pound Combi. Ben had no
complaints about letting Mom lug him into the subway yesterday!


Ben loves to dance! Nearly all of his toys play music so he and I dance a lot during the day and he just cracks me up.

More Good Checkups

I've had some computer issues lately so I'm a little behind on the
updates. Ben is so active now that I find I've been getting more videos
and fewer pictures because it's so hard to capture a baby crawling
turbo speed in a still picture. Thank goodness for the technology to
share this sort of thing with friends and family 10,000 miles away!

Ben had his third kidney ultrasound this morning and it was great
news - he has no more problems and no long-term issues from being on a
diuretic for so long. It was our last scheduled follow-up relating to
his prematurity, so he's hopefully in the clear from here on out. New doctors are always amazed at his success after being born so early and small - no brain bleeds, no retinopathy, no infections (when he had about a 99.9% chance of developing one from being hospitalized for so long), no serious lung disease (although it may be an issue as he grows and starts playing sports), and no surgeries. We attribute it all to his great doctors, of course, and answers to thousands of prayers.

He weighed in at 21 lbs and 31 inches today. For a normal 12-month old, Ben would be in the 15th percentile for weight and 85th percentile for height! He looks to be a tall and skinny guy! For a 15-month old (closer to his real age), he's in the 5th percentile for weight and the 40th for height, so he still has a little catching up to do. It hasn't slowed him down though! Check him out with his "walker":

Would've Been One Day

Such a cutie!


Since Ben never had a real birthday celebration, we had some gifts and
a cupcake for him last weekend to celebrate his "would have been 1"
day! Unfortunately, he was not in a very good mood so it was hard to
get him excited about it.


I bet next year he's tearing into these!


He was at least interested in the new things although he didn't show it.

The birthday candle definitely got his attention!


We're so thankful to have a healthy little boy to celebrate!


What is this gooey stuff?


Hmmm....let's see how it fares in the most important test - the mouth.


Wow, it's pretty good!


Will it pass the second test? Yep, it makes a huge mess...love it!

Books

Ben has become fascinated with books lately. We read several each day before naps and bedtime and I'm starting to get help turning the pages and choosing the titles. Ben carried this one in the bathroom with him and sat down to flip through it. Well, I use the word carry loosely - I should say he pushed it along the floor with him as he crawled, one of his hobbies with anything within reach.


Like probably every kid his age, he's really into feeling everything, so these touch and feel books are high on his list of favorites!


Since we moved to Singapore, I've been really surprised by the number of insects here...surprisingly there are barely any! I thought for sure our bathroom would be crawling with all kinds of bugs since we leave the window open (there's no a/c in there) but all we get is a gnat every once in a while. So the longer we've been here, the move obvious the reason has become - they spray like maniacs around here, mostly to kill the mosquitoes and keep dengue fever from spreading. Look at how thick this chemical fog is outside our window!


It's hard to even see the tennis court after they spray. Thank goodness the guy doing it is wearing a gas mask.


So instead of bugs in the house, we get geckos. They come in the cracks under the doors and scare us to death when they suddenly dash across the ceiling or around the floor. Luckily they're terrified of people and run back out pretty quickly, but they're ugly little fellows and I don't really like sharing my house with them!

Froggy

Remember froggy? This was from August 15, 2006, when Ben was nearly 3
months old. Someone in the hospital popped froggy in Ben's mouth and
that little guy went everywhere with us for months.


This was two months later and Ben is obviously growing compared to his
little friend. As attached as he was to the pacifier, for whatever
reason he weaned himself from it one day. I thought for sure it would
be a fight years from now but Ben took care of it himself and just
suddenly lost interest. I have the feeling it won't be that easy to get
him off the bottle!


So here Ben is today with froggy...just a little difference! This might
have actually been his first birthday because Ben's original due date
was September 4, 2006, however he had other plans in mind. A year ago
today we were still waiting and praying for Ben to take all of his
feedings by bottle (and not turn blue!) so that he could come home.


I had no idea the washing machine could be so fascinating...I would have let Ben play on the porch a lot sooner!


Even though everyone keeps calling this the "dry" season, it sure has rained
a lot. I hate to know what the rainy season will be like! Yesterday Ben
and I walked down the street for lunch and got caught in a downpour.
Thank goodness I bought this stroller cover back in the states because
it sure did come in handy. The second it rains here taxis become hard
to book and impossible to flag down on the street.


Here's a cute one from a hide and seek game...I wasn't too hard to find with the camera sticking out around the corner but he was happy just the same!

Dancing and Playing

Ben loves walking around with some help, but hasn't shown much interest in doing it on his own yet. We're encouraging him to take steps away from the couch or at least reach a little farther to cruise along the furniture and he always decides it's easier to crawl from one place to the other, even if it's just a matter of squatting down and standing up against the next piece of furniture. Stubborn boy! I have no idea where he could get that...


He's beginning to dance when he hears a song he likes. It's so cute!




Already working on the white boy overbite when he dances...


Ben discovered the little boy in the oven today and has been checking on him regularly. They've had a great time playing.