Eric and I took Ben out to dinner by ourselves for the first time ever yesterday and he did wonderfully! He sat in the high chair, tossed around his rings, ripped apart napkins, and interacted with other kids. Yes, you heard me right, he interacted. There may be hope afterall.

On either side of us there were kids. One side had a 10-12 month old in a high chair, smiling and yelling at him. On the other, two little girls who kept giggling. Ben looks at the smiling little boy and stares. Just stares. The other little boy, unperturbed, talks. Ben stares for a moment more then turns his attention back to ripping the napkin. It may not have been a perfect interaction, but at least he made eye contact.

Nearing the end of the dinner, Ben starts getting fussy. A slight cry comes out of his mouth, so one of the girls from the other table comes up and giggles at him. Here is where you’d expect him to either A) continue crying or b) stare. What did he do? He turns pink, looks down and thumbs* the table.

REALLY? I have to deal with this already?!? Seriously? He’s only 7 months old! I am in so much trouble.

*Thumbing: Placing his thumb on something, stretching out his other fingers out and either poking the object with his thumb or rubbing the object by twisting his hand back and forth. The latter being the “look how cute I am” action, the former being the “what the heck is this thing” action. He did the latter. THE LATTER!

14lbs 8oz
25 5/8″

My dear, sweet little man. This has been one of the strangest months yet. Between the puking, the food allergies, the realization that you need to be socialized before you become an anti-social unibomer, it’s all been new.

Every month, you have a million new accomplishments that just don’t seem like they should’ve come so quickly. You sit in shopping carts, you sit in the “big boy” seat at the restaurant, you don’t even nurse until you fall asleep anymore. You nurse , roll over onto your back and fall asleep. That’s not to say you can do it by yourself, though. You still keep at least one hand on me to make sure I haven’t moved. It’s a very sweet way of saying, “I don’t NEED you here but I do need you here.”

You’ve also started opening your own books and, to my surprise, turning the pages one at a time. If that weren’t enough, you point (with the left hand, because “one finger at a time” hasn’t quite been figured out by the right hand yet) to things on the page.
“That’s a doughnut…and that’s a duck-dog.”
“Geeeeeth…rah rah raaaaaah rah raaaah.” You remind me that there is no such thing as a duck-dog.
“May I have the book please?” I’ll put out my hand.
You throw it at my head. At least you kind of get the concept.

I’m so proud of you, little guy. You’re so smart, so lovely and you manage to fill the universe with more joy than I thought was possible. 7 months has gone by like 5 minutes. I cherish every moment I have with you because I just know tomorrow I’m going to wake up and you’re going to be grown.

Happy 7 months, little man. I love you, dearly.
Yer Ma’

Remember that face I was talking about? Well, Ben’s now decided the face isn’t enough to properly convey how much he hates solid foods.

After the whole banana debacle, we decided we’d try apples again. Yesterday, we bought 3 gala and 3 fuji, not remembering which were sweeter. I cooked and pureed him a gala apple once we got to my folks’. Eric remarked, “Wow. This is really good applesauce.” I thought so, too. Leave it to Ben to, so vehemently, prove us wrong.

I will say, he’s quite a trooper. The first spoonful got the look. The second, a worse look. The third, a gag. And the forth? A gag that induced more gags that induced a near vomit all over my mother’s lap.

Well then, on to pears we go! At this rate, this kid’s going to be breastfeeding until he’s 30.

My son made it quite…

((As I begin to type this my son topples head first onto the floor, slamming his head hard enough that the sound resonates through the entire house. His father and I got there before he even let out a tiny cry, and then he plays it up when he notices we’re worried. You can tell they’re growing up when they begin to get manipulation. We’ve got ourselves a big boy! A big boy with a huge red spot on his head. Yowch.

Back to our program already in progress…))

clear that he much preferred adults over babies this weekend. On Saturday, we had our usual hours long conversation about politics and fiat currency with Eric’s friend. That evening, however, we had a dinner and get together at the Children’s Museum with other kids from the TEDDY study.

“What the hell is a 7 6.75 month old going to do at the Children’s Museum?” you ask. “You just went for the free food, didn’t you?” you accuse.

Jerk. While the free food was intriguing, I was hoping we might be able to socialize Ben a little. Maybe with some babies his own age or a bit older. Getting him into interacting with someone other than his parents and other aged individuals, I thought, might be a good thing. Now don’t you feel bad?

Immediately after signing in we beeline for the food line. (Come on! It was Olive Garden!) In front of us was a very uptight and pissy mother, an obviously nice but nervous father, and an adorable, pissed off baby girl probably about 10 months old. The mom is grumbling something at the dad, the dad is trying desperately to point out fun things for his daughter to look at and the daughter? She’s SCREAMING at the top of her lungs. Not crying. She’s doing the, “YOU PEOPLE ARE PISSING ME OFF!” sort of scream. Ben cranes his neck to look around me and her daddy so he can give her one of my favorite looks. The “what-the-heck-is-your-issue” look. This is the look he proceeded to give every child thoughout the entire museum.

I suppose I’m not surprised. My mom’s always said that, as a baby, I would look at my peers as if they were aliens. Not just aliens, but stupid aliens. Eric’s said that, when he was a child, he always thought other kids were idiots. We seem to have another anti-social child on our hands.

He did, however, enjoy the time he spent with just us; rocking on the lily pad, playing with the gear wall, playing with the giant legos, sliding on the slide. No so much sliding on the slide. He cried. No matter how slow you went or how tightly you held, he cried. I was scared of the slide, too, when I was little. Who says nuerosis aren’t genetic?

Sunday we had our weekly family visit with my grandparents and then, dinner with my parents. He cooed, he talked, he had a great time interacting with all the old folks. The only time anyone would get one of “those” looks was when they baby talked to him or tried to get him to play with anything other than a remote control. God forbid you should hand him a toy!

I have a feeling my son’s going to be a lot like me as a kid. I have a feeling he’ll be a bit of a loner with a great mind and a little disgust for the “vroom-vroom” of the kids around him. I just hope it won’t keep him from having friends. I mean, he’s already got a mama with piercings and tattoos (which is enough to keep most moms away), but if he keeps looking at kids like he does now, I’m going to end up being his date to the prom. Oh my, the therapy bills…

Also known as, “My endless food, poop, puke rant” or “Note to self: Beware the wet burp”.

I’ve given Ben organic carrots (not homemade). I’ve made and pureed him sweet potatoes. I’ve made fresh applesauce from both red and green organic apples. I always get the same face. The squished up, “what the hell was that” face. It’s, of course, to varying degrees depending upon what it is I’ve just fed him but it’s always the same face.

Then, we tried bananas. His eyes got big, his mouth got wide and he squeeled, “He-yeaaaaaaahah!” He loved them. First day, he got a little gas but I thought it may have been from my over-indulgence in Lactaid that week. I cut back. Second day, he got horrible gas. I was still trying to blame it on the Lactaid and had made no connection to the bananas. I cut back even more. Third day, he ate an entire banana and proceeded to have a diarrhea so massive that it shot out of the back of his diaper and all over my shirt.

And, yet, I still didn’t get it. I avoided all solids for a couple of days in case maybe, just maybe, it was the bananas. I also didn’t drink any Lactaid.

When we tried it again, we were at my parents’ house. We pureed an entire banana and he ate it all. I followed it up with Gas X and he had very little gas that night. I thought, “Huh. Maybe the bananas just give him gas.”

But, wait! I get stupider!

He finished about 3/4 of a banana today with 4T of rice cereal & 2T of breastmilk and took his mid-afternoon nap immediately afterwards. He woke up, he played, and then got sleepy again. I tried to nurse him back to sleep and he refused. He never refuses. I stood him up and put him close to my face, “Sweetheart, are you sleepy?”
*burp*
“Awww, was that a…”
*Blauhhhggghhh – he projectile vomits down my shirt, my pants, on the couch, on the floor*
“ERIC! He just puked all over me! Take him so I can change, please!”
Eric proceeds to go for a wash cloth sitting on the couch. “Why don’t you use this…”

He, apparently, did not understand the urgency of the situation. He didn’t seem to get that there was vomit running down my chest and belly and it needed to be remedied immediately. Clearly, he was worried about the couch and not that I was going to have to kill him if he didn’t take Ben so I could clean off the vomit.

“TAKE HIM NOW!”
I changed and wiped down while Eric changed Ben’s outfit. I took Ben back and walked him back to the couch while Eric threw in a load of laundry. I sat down.

“Poor baby! Are you…”
*Blauhhhggghhh*
Another change of shirt for me, outfit for Ben. Another 2 things to go into the laundry. I take back the boy and, by this point, he’s quite pale with no fever and a fierce habit of rubbing his eyes over and over. I start walking him back and forth in hopes of getting him to go to sleep.

“Sleepy boy, you’re not feeling….”
*Blauhhhggghhh*
I’m beginning to think that it’s my voice that’s making my child vomit and am afraid to speak again. While this was a much less prolific vomit (never thought I’d ever type those words), it still required a change on my part. Ben, for his part, managed to miss his outfit entirely. Another shirt for the wash. I, thinking I am being intelligent, put a prefold on my chest between Ben and I to avoid another change.

“Hush little baby…”
*Blauhhhggghhh – misses the prefold, hits my arm – Blauhhhggghhh – hits the prefold, proceeds to wipe face in it*
I know very well I did NOT feed him this much. Where the hell this child is getting his reserves from, I have no idea, but it was really quite impressive. Especially that this particular iteration was more than the first 3 combined. I’m beginning to think he might win an award and am almost sad that Eric was washing all the proof of super puke proliferation down the drain.

“He PUKED AGAIN!” I screamed at Eric, who was downstairs washing away our hopes and dreams for the Best Vomiting Baby award.
“What?!?”
“HE PUKED!” I scream louder.
“WHAT?!?”
“HE PUKED!!” I scream like an angry construction worker with a 2 pack a day habit.
“WHAT??”
“Oh screw you.” I hate being whated when I’ve got puke running down my arms. Our house is not that big. I just didn’t understand why he couldn’t hear me when I’m standing immediately above his head and yelling at the top of my lungs. Of course, he heard that part.

Up he comes, saying something about creaking floors, can’t hear, and takes Ben. I change. Again. Eric changes Ben, I wash off his face. Ben plays with my “Baby 411″ book that tells me, “This is a food allergy, you raging fucktard. What did you think it was? Lactaid?”

I get Ben back on my shoulder and resign myself to being covered in puke. He’s not feeling well and I felt awful for having poisoned him. I sing, “Hush little baby” and he begins to fall asleep on my shoulder. I cringe with every burp. As his eyes flutter shut and I’m hit with the effervecent scent of banana vomit seeping out of my baby’s lips, I think of how very lucky I am to be a mom and how, the moment he wakes up, I’m going to call my own mother so she can say, “HAH! GOT YOU BACK!”