Sideways

We think this is a prequel to the real stuff. Ben has been working really hard to crawl. He's getting places these days....by slithering sideways! It's kind of fun to watch and the technique improves day by day. We'll see..he may be able to figure it out soon.

8 months old!

Little Big Ben turned eight months with little birthday fuss. Who knows if he’s been exposed to any traditional birthday rituals by now? Perhaps, while accompanying his parents on shopping trips, he’s overheard conversations about things like birthday cakes, candles, and playful spankings. But, even if so, he’s uttered not a word about them. What he did do was treat himself to sleeping in more than he normally does. Normally he’s up sharp between 6:15-6:30am. But on his eight-month birthday, he luxuriously slept to 7:30am! By college, Ben, you’ll know that extra time can be much more valuable than cake and ice cream! Don’t worry, though, I’m sure MAD will be offering you birthday sweets long after you are a big fan of them.

While Ben displayed little birthday fuss on May 5^th, his recent developmental milestones have been attention grabbing. By who, you ask? By his parents, of course! They are (surprise, surprise) smitten. Call it overreaching. Call it ridiculous, but we can’t stop parents from projecting the world and extrapolating what they want. So we should not tease Dad about his belief that Ben may actually already be taking positions on classical questions of destiny versus fate. Yes, we might recall that even before he’d started listening to his parents read Dr. Seuss’s, Ben noted that other people’s laughter made him happy. For several months, he’s picked up on and emulated other people’s laughter and joy. But do good things make people happy or do happy people create good things? Perhaps because he recalled Mae’s OB doctor, Dr. Kim, announcing her belief that good things happen to happy people, he recently decided to test it out.

Mind you that this Voltairian questioning continues, in Dad’s view, as Ben continues to learn some basics. Ben has managed to move around by circling until he gets to where he wants to be. He does a 360 degrees movement in just a few seconds when motivated. He loves playing with anything that's not a toy such as pieces of paper, slippers, remote controls, etc. He eats solid food really well and has progressed to chicken, beef, turkey, egg yolk and a variety of veggies. He sits by himself quite well for several minutes. Ben still wakes up once at night to eat but, to Mae and Dad's joy, he generally sleeps longer now (6-7 hrs). And, on birthdays, an extra whopping 1.5 hours!

So on a visit to Grandma and Grandpa, with his aunt, his great-aunt and great-uncle and his second cousins all present, Ben decided to reverse the chain reaction. Out of the blue, he looked at Grandpa who had been minding his own business and began to laugh. It had the clear tone of “follow me,” “try it out,” you’ll like it.” And sure enough, none of us could resist. An experiment is valid only upon replication, so Ben decided to try repeating things later that evening. He looked at Aunt Amie and, again out of nowhere, burst out with a near flirtatious smile and laugh! There was again a clear tone of “follow me.” Once again, we could not resist.

Now, not only does Ben laugh when we laugh, now he laughs when he wants us to get things started. Wow, little Big Ben, perhaps Dad will remind you of this milestone when you get acquainted with “Candide”. Don’t get there too quick, though, Mae and Dad are not even ready for you to crawl!