6 months

6 month stats:

Weight: 16 lbs 14 oz - 32%

Height: 26.5" - 46%

Head Circumference: 17.25'' - 47%

For fun here's a comparison of me, Jason, and Dan at 6 months:

(remember Dan was 2 months premature so he might look a big younger than the other two) Jason does look cute in his red overalls though

He's growing just right. The 46% on height makes more sense than the 78% at the 4 month check-up. Jason's eating a fair amount of baby food now. He's getting half a container of fruit with 2 T of either oatmeal or barley cereal for lunch and half a container of veggies and 2 T of rice cereal for dinner. Eventually I'm going to have to give him more food. I've been producing less milk when I pump at work which is making me think that he's been eating less at night. It's hard to say for sure since Jason is so much better than the pump at getting the milk. I've probably only got about another month or two of freezer stash left so he might have to get a bottle of formula when I'm at work since I'm only pumping 2 bottles and he's getting 3 - or maybe he'll take one less bottle....this stuff is hard, I'm not really sure what to do. I wish my breasts had a meter on them so I would know how much milk he takes in, it's the only downside to breastfeeding that I can see. I love doing it and totally plan on continuing for the whole year, maybe more. By that point it would mostly be comfort nursing so we'll just see how things are when we get there.

Jason is sitting really well now. I can be pretty confident that he won't fall over so I can sit in front of him and play with him more instead of behind him in case he falls back. We've been working on crawling but he hasn't quite figured out how to move his knees under himself. He can kind of creep in a circle or maybe a bit backwards or forwards but not really going anywhere yet. He loves jumping still and the Johnny Jump-up has proven to be a good investment. We (well, Grandma) also got him a pool this past weekend and he loves to splash in it. I fear bathtime will never be the same again. It's getting to be a pretty wet business for me!

Grandma Bender came for a visit this past weekend and they had fun hanging out while Dan and I went to see Daughtry and Lifehouse at the Arena. It was a great show and having Jason with his grandma took the stress of leaving him with someone else away.

Jason is such a happy baby. He smiles and laughs quite a lot and is just such a joy.

Lions and tigers and bears....

OH MY!....I did not just do that ::hangs head in shame::

anywho, We took Jason to his first trip to the zoo on April 30th. My work had their annual family outing and for once I didn't have to work so I could enjoy. We got free rein of the zoo but since I work at a really big hosptial so there were still tons of people there but no more than the usual zoo crowd. We also got a free dinner out of the deal, which was nice. I've never been to the zoo in the evening before. I usually go in the summer during the hottest part of the day and basically watch animals sleeping in the shade. It was a beautiful day when we were there, probably upper 60s and the animals were awake and interractive! It was really cool. We got some good pictures and really had a nice time. I hope the hospital does this every year so Jason can eventually remember the experience.

Just being a mommy-lion

It's good parenting to let a tiger hold your baby, right?

How cool is this peacock?!

Riding the lizard...in a non-euphamism sense...

Fun weekends in April

No posts then two in a row - Crazy!

We had some fun weekends here in April so I thought I would recap in pictures:

On April 11th we went over to our friends Krissy and Nicole's house. Krissy has a son named Matthew who is a year and a half so Jason had a lot of fun playing with his toys

nananananananana.....BATMAN!

here's a super-cute rocking horse Jason did pretty well with playing on

He loved this water toy and got us both soaked
Here's Matthew and Jason on his first wagon ride

Then on April 16th we embarked on our first big trip. We flew up to Chicago and drove down to Valparaiso, IN for Abby's wedding. Jason did really well on the plane. I nursed him on take off and landing so hopefully his ears wouldn't bother him. He slept most of the way up to Chicago. We rented a car with a carseat from Hertz. The carseat was pretty cheap and Jason didn't like it very much. Plus I had a hard time getting the angle right and when he would fall asleep his head would fall forward. We made due though. The wedding was at a beautiful bed and breakfast and our family and the groom's family pretty much took the place over. It made for a real family feeling. The wedding was lovely and although a bit on the cool side, the weather was nice. Jason was very good during it, although with it being outside it was a little more forgiving. They had a great photographer and I'm still going through all the pictures. She got some really cute shots of Jason (oh yeah, and the bride and groom...) We got to visit with everyone and Jason got to meet his Great-Grandpas. My parents even drove up to visit us on Sunday and it was nice to see them. Jason did well on the trip back too. He got a bit bored on the plane ride back so we had to entertain him with cups and whatnot so he wouldn't be too fussy. Life sure is more complicated with a baby, but it's totally worth it!

5 months!

Top of the mornin' to ya!

I am such a bad blogger! Sorry about not posting. I've had plenty of cute things to share but finding time to share them is another thing. I recommend friending me on Facebook if you haven't already so you can see the updated pictures with more regularity. It only takes a couple minutes to upload pictures there as opposed to this stupid thing (for some reason it inserts the pictures at the beginning of the post and I have to move it to where I want it to go so it takes forever).

Jason is 5 months old now. He's about 15lbs or so and he's getting so tall (not sure how tall because it's hard to measure him...I guess you'll have to wait until his 6 month well-baby appointment). He did great with the cereal so we started him on veggies. He's had about every flavor they make: sweet potatoes, squash, carrots, peas, and green beans. I think I'm going to get a baby food grinder soon so he can try different stuff - and what we're having for dinner. He's still eating in his Bumbo chair with the tray so I'm glad we have that. He's not sitting steady enough yet to eat in the highchair but we've bought some straps and hopefully can figure out how to put them on so he can use the highchair. He sure is a messy eater! We didn't notice it as much with the cereal but now that he's eating veggies we pretty much have to strip him down to his diaper. Good thing the weather has warmed up just in time!

He's starting to tolerate tummy time a bit better now and we can get him to do at least 10 minute stretches, sometimes more. I think he gets frustrated that he can't move around...I know he really wants to chase Bonnie around. He loves to watch her play and we even have him laughing at her on video. Just the cutest sound ever! He's also very close to being able to sit by himself. He can do it for a few seconds then he either folds forward or falls to one side.

It helps to hold onto a ball or something and of course that makes Bonnie excited. He's still a super-great baby. He's been sleeping pretty well. He usually nurses to sleep around midnight (mommy works second shift, what can you do?) and doesn't wake up until 8:30 at which point I change his diaper, take off his sleep sack and bring him into bed with me for morning nursing and cuddle time (and falling back to sleep). We usually get up at 10 or so after he nurses for breakfast. The Exersaucer is his favorite toy. He has all those toys to play with plus he can really jump around a lot in there which is always fun.

4 months old!

It's hard to believe it's been 4 months! Jason has changed so much. He's playing with toys pretty regularly now, growing like a weed and really starting to grab onto stuff (yeah, watch your hair!).

When I cleaned the house a couple weeks ago I decided to occupy Jason by putting him in front of the fishtank. Appearently, I really enjoyed this when I was a baby. Jason seemed to too, so that was nice.

We had his 4 month doctors appointment last week and here are his stats:

Weight: 14lbs 2 oz (32%)

Height: 25.75 inches (78%)

Head circumference: 16.75 (56%)

looks like he's a tall one....a tall Bender! Who'd a thunk it?

We had a nice visit with Dan's parents at the end of February. We decided to get his 3 month pictures taken. We were a bit late since he was going to turn 4 months in a couple days but what can you do?

Here's the link to the pictures:

https://www.smilesbywire.com/home.asp?AC=LTPP0120109627JCP

just put my name in as cathy bender with a "c"...morons spelled my name wrong. They're morons because I spelled it out for them and they appearently think a "K" is spelled with a "c" or something. Anyway, there are some pretty good shots there. I was a bit disappointed that he didn't smile, but I think he was pretty overwelmed. Good thing we have plenty of good smiley pictures of our own.

The big thing around here is we started Jason on rice cereal last night! He took to it pretty well. He's still figuring the whole thing out but since we mixed it with breastmilk at least the taste wasn't too foreign. He was in a good mood most of the night and slept well so overall it seems to be a good thing.

it looks like he's smiling through the goo here:

He kept grabbing the bowl like "hurry up mommy, you don't have to wait for the food to actually stay in my mouth, bring on the food!"

here's the video of the whole thing (bear with it, like the baptism one, it's a bit messed up for the first few seconds but it gets right)

Playing with toys

Hi all! Jason is playing with toys pretty regularly now. It's so cute and nice because he's able to entertain himself a bit better. We've also been able to get a lot more cute smiley pictures:

he loves his moose

We bought him an exersaucer...he doesn't know quite what to think about it, but he's still a bit small for it. I think he'll have fun with this
the little face I can't get enough of:

Would have been one year old...

Today is the one year anniversary of the EDD of my first pregnancy. If things had gone differently I would have a one year old now. It seems odd that I would think about that because it was about a year ago that we concieved Jason - the light of my life and the sweetest baby ever. I am so thankful to God for the blessing that is my wonderful son, yet I'm still sad today. I'm wearing my remembrance necklace I bought soon after I miscarried. I wore it from the miscarriage until the EDD then again on the anniversary of the miscarriage (July 24th). I've just been thinking a lot last night and this morning. Last night we were singing our Palm Sunday/Good Friday songs. I've never really been saddened by Christ's death. I knew it was God's plan and that he would be raised from the dead 3 days later so knowing the happy ending it was hard for me to be too upset. One of the songs we're singing is from Mary's perspective. We sang it a few years ago and so many people cried, but I didn't. Now that I have a son, I was SOBBING. It had to be so hard to see your son die like that...I don't know if I can fit enough tissues in my folder to get me through Palm Sunday this year. Of course I was already sad because Jason was SCREAMING before choir rehearsal last night. I hadn't heard him like that since he got his shots and it really scared me. My friend Krissy suggested it was gas and after some Mylicon and bouncing and patting he felt better. I couldn't imagine dealing with that all the time. I am so grateful that Jason is usually such a calm, happy baby. Sorry for the bummer post. I guess cute pictures and milestones aren't all that's on my mind.