Ben had his first serious fall today. Scared the shit out of me and his father and nearly killed his great-grandma.

We were going into Sweet Tomatoes for Eric’s early birthday dinner. Eric jumped a puddle. Grandma, never to be outdone at 82, even when holding Ben, decided to try herself, too. She missed the step and went face first into the concrete. She managed to land on her knee first and block Ben from the ground with her arm but she did fall on top of him.

Talk about a “What the hell do I do” moment. Do you grab the baby or worry about the old lady on the ground? Eric grabbed Ben, I asked grandma if she was okay. I actually think I yelled it at her because I was freaking out. Grabbed a screaming Ben away from Eric and took him a few feet away to make sure he was okay and kill him with hugs if the fall didn’t do it first.

And here is where I see blood and my heart stops. “He’s bleeding!” Grandma is still on the floor. Dad and grandpa and some passerbys are trying to help her up. Mom scurries over, takes one look and says, “He bit his lip. It’s okay!” Me? Pale as a ghost, Eric says, and I was trying not to cry. “He hit his head! Check his head!” grandma tells me from the ground. I check his head, it’s fine but I’m convinced there’s internal bleeding or something horrific.

Grandma gets up but is sick to her stomach and her knee & neck hurt. I want to leave and go home. Mom makes us go in and eat. Well, everyone else ate. I just sat there trying not to puke as I looked at his perfect little lip swell to the size of a marble.

Grandma was worried everyone hated her but we got past that. She’s got neck & knee pain while Ben’s a happy camper. His lip swelling went down but he does have a little red spot on the back of his head that’s worrying me. It’s not swollen but it’s definitely there. I’m now not going to sleep tonight for fear that he may just stop breathing at any moment and I’m really not even kidding about that.

New Rule for this family: No one carries Ben outside of the house except us.

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…