Bentley is One!

My mom, dad, and sister were here last week for Bentley's birthday. We had a little party for him, went to Legoland and the beach, and played lots of Wii.

He did not like having icing all over him. He didn't even eat any of it.

He loved ripping the paper off the presents. My sister got him this cell phone and keys. He walks around with the phone up to his ear.

My dad got him this horse that hooks up to the tv. I'm not really sure what it does because we haven't hooked it up yet, but he loves to sit on it. It plays music and makes horsie noises.

The next two pictures are from Legoland. It is a really cool amusement park. It is 100% for kids about 2-14 years old. It has rides and play areas and a ton of things made out of legos. There was this area that had a bunch of cities out of legos. I have a ton of pictures, but these are just my favorite two.
Then we went to the beach. It was a little cold the first day so Paul and I went back after everyone left. Bentley enjoyed it much more this time. He kept running off towards the water.

He also had his one year checkup. He is 19 lb. 14 oz. and 28 in. We saw his new doctor for the first time. I actually get a choice here which doctor we go to, but it's really hard to pick one. They just give me this huge list and I have to pick one. I don't get to talk to or see them first. I can always change it, but it's a huge process. I'll probably be changing before his next checkup. He didn't ask many questions and didn't really answer mine. We turned his carseat around and he just loves to look around and be able to see us.

San Diego

We're here! Actually we've been here for a few weeks. We were here for two weeks before the movers brought our stuff. Then while setting up the computer I noticed that they didn't disconnect the USB for the wireless keyboard and mouse. So they just crammed it in the box still attached and it of course broke off. So I've had to make several trips to the store to find a keyboard and mouse that will work automatically since I have to type in a password just to turn the computer on. There were several others items that arrived broken, and in general, our stuff was not taken care of the way I would have liked. I think from now on we will be moving ourselves.

Bentley has adjusted great. He didn't miss a beat. I just tried to keep his schedule as normal as possible and we had no problems. Our apartment here isn't much bigger than our other one, but it's laid out much better so it feels bigger. I'll post some pictures when I get everything settled. Paul is getting used to work. He's had to stay late a few times, but he's liking it.

Bentley has been walking for about a month now. As soon as all our furniture was gone and he had nothing to hold on to, he just took off. He loves to chase us around and be chased. He loves to read. He will bring a book to you and climb in your lap. A couple times he has wanted to me read the same book 4 or 5 times in a row. He has also learned to climb. He can get up on the couch and chair. He'll go into his room and climb up into the rocking chair and just rock for a little while. Or sometimes he goes into his room and does this:I have refolded the bottom two drawers of clothes many times now.

We haven't really been doing much on the weekends. We're still trying to find our way around and find the stores we like. San Diego is huge and there are a ton of people here. The only complaint I have is driving. I avoid driving as much as possible. It's horrible for my blood pressure. People cutting you off while you're driving 70 mph, swerving across 6 lanes of traffic, merging left and right constantly. It is CRAZY!! Other than that, the weather is great, there is a park across the street, and there's a ColdStone Creamery down the road. What more could I ask for?

Here are a few pictures from the last month.

He climed up into the stoller so of course I had to take him for a walk.

Moving..... Yay!

Well, it's finally here. The movers are coming tomorrow, and on Oct. 1 we will be in San Diego. This has been a very stressful process; our first official move within the military. I have no idea what to expect in the next couple days, I'm just hoping it goes smoothly. I'm not sure how I'm going to keep Bentley's schedule while I'm supervising the movers all day.

Bentley has his top front teeth now. They bothered him for over a week. He is still crawling everywhere and getting into everything. He says dada all the time. At first I told myself he was just making sounds, but now I really think he knows what he's saying.

I will update when we get our internet hooked up at our new place.

Have I Grown?

We retired Bentley's infant car seat before we went to San Diego. He seems much more comfortable in his "big boy" carseat, and it sits up higher so he can see out the back window. He didn't complain at all on the 3 hours there and back. It almost makes me sad looking at these two pictures. He's grown so much in 9 months.

It's Been Awhile

Wow, a lot has happened since I last posted. Since I got back from AR several weeks ago, we have mainly been trying to figure out what all we have to do to move. This is our first move within the military so we are learning as we go. We had our first pre-inspection on our house, and everything looked good so far. The movers are coming on the 26th, and Paul graduates on the 30th. We went to San Diego over Labor Day Weekend to look at some apartments and try to get familiar with some of the streets (or major highways I should say). I'm still looking for apartments that are close to the base that will let us have a cat. It's quite a challenge.

We did get to go to the beach while we were there. It was very busy because of the holiday, but we will be back. Bentley did not like it at all. He enjoyed watching the people, but he would not stand in the sand and the waves scared him. The weather was beautiful. We did not want to come back to 29 Palms.

Bentley had his 9 month checkup. He weighs 18 lbs. 14 oz. and is 28 in. long. He's starting to get the hang of feeding himself and he wants a bite of anything Paul or I eat. He is very fascinated with Chunky and he will follow him in a circle around our downstairs for hours. Chunky only minds when Bentley grabs his tail.

Here are a few pictures of Bentley from the last month. I am so thankful for digital cameras. In his almost 10 months of life I have over 1000 pictures of him.

Bentley's First Swim

I took Bentley swimming the other day for the first time. He wasn't really sure what to think. He kicked and splashed for a little while, and then my sister scared him. She jumped off the diving board and came up right in front of him. He didn't like it one bit. After that he was scared of any water splashing. It was fun though. He floated around, and I held him some of the time. He refuses to keep a hat or sunglasses on, but he enjoyed playing with mine. We are planning on going several more times before we leave.

The day before we went, my sister and I were reminiscing about when she was younger and swam almost every day and her hair would turn green. She told me that if you just wet it with tap water before you swim it won't do that. Well, she didn't take her own advice. After about an hour, my dad pointed out that Erin's hair was looking a bit lime greenish. She freaked out and it just kept getting worse and worse. I got a good laugh. Don't worry though, lemon juice took it right out, but not before I got a picture.

Sleep Problem Solved

I decided that I would just let Bentley sleep with me. A few nights later he crawled off the bed while Paul and I were still asleep. I changed my mind and decided he needed to sleep in his own bed, it was for his safety. I won't go into details about how I did it because I don't need a guilt trip about letting my baby cry, but if you want to know you can contact me. It worked and now we have a schedule that is very predictable and he knows when it's time to go to sleep. We are in Arkansas right now and he has adjusted pretty well. He seems to like the pack 'n play.

We found out that we will be stationed in San Diego. We should be moving there at the end of September. I am excited about it. There will be more things for us to do and the weather will be much nicer. The cost of living there is crazy expensive though. I've been researching apartments and such online and it just blows my mind. Paul's SSgt told him that he would need to get a motorcycle because it can take 30 minutes to go 5 miles. It is legal to cut lanes with a motorcycle there and they drive crazy! I don't know how I feel about it yet. It scares me, but I hate the thought of him spending an hour in the car just to get a couple exits down the highway. I guess we'll see once we get there.

Here are some recent pictures of Bentley. He is growing like a weed. I can't believe he is almost 9 months old. He has two teeth and is crawling everywhere. He keeps me busy.

HELP!

Sleep... Okay, some of you have kids and some of you don't. If you don't have kids you can read this and feel sorry for us, but if you do have kids, please give me any advice that you have. Bentley used to be a great sleeper. He would only wake up once to eat and he would go right back to sleep, in his own bed. When he started rolling over in his sleep about 2 months ago, I had to stop swaddling him. Ever since then he will not sleep unless I am holding him or he is right next to me. I've been just letting him sleep with me, but I don't sleep good because I'm worried and it's hard to sleep in the same position all night every night. We have a bedtime routine, he falls asleep very easily, and I put him in his crib. He wakes up anywhere from an hour to 3 hours later and will not go back into his crib no matter what I do. He rubs his eyes constantly, pulls out his paci, sits up and just cries. He is currently teething so I give him teething tablets, put orajel on his gums, give him tylenol or motrin, but that doesn't seem to be the problem since he will go to sleep immediately if I lay beside him. I posted previously that I accidentaly let him cry it out and was going to try it again. Well, he cried off and on for 2 hours and I couldn't take it anymore. I know we would both sleep better if he was in his bed. So, how do you get your babies to sleep? I'm open to anything.

Other than the sleeping issue we are doing great. Bentley is crawling and pulling up on everything. My birthday is coming up and we might get a babysitter and go out. I'm a little nervous about that since we can't really stay close because there isn't anything close by to do. My phone died this morning and they asked me to bring it in, but the nearest Alltel is 90 miles away. We hopefully only have about 3 more months here.

Now for some pictures. The carrots got a little messy. I've learned to just strip him down when he eats, using a bib doesn't help at all.

Before we got this gate our days were spent with Bentley crawling over to all the fun stuff with the cords and then me moving him away, over and over and over. Now he doesn't even really notice they are there.

6 Month Pictures

Here are some of Bentley's 6 month pictures.

7 Months

Bentley had his check-up the other day. He is 17 lbs 2.8 oz and 26 1/4 in long. He is pretty much staying in the 25th percentile. He is trying very hard to crawl, and is doing everything else he should be doing for his age. He's finally settling into a predictable sleeping pattern, but it's not really a good pattern. He goes to bed at 7:30 and falls asleep very easily, but he wakes up every night at 10:00 and will not go back to sleep until I bring him into bed with me. I always said I would never have him sleeping with me, but I have done what everyone said would happen and have brought him in there just so I could get some sleep. I have also said that I would never allow him to "cry it out." Well, last night he had to, by accident. In my sleep I turned the monitor off, only to wake up frantically at 2:30 thinking something had happened to him. I realized the monitor was off and he was sleeping safe and sound. I felt so bad I couldn't fall back asleep for another hour. I have no idea how long he cried. He slept until 5:30 though, ate, and went back to sleep until 6:30 which is his normal wake up time. So tonight we are going to do it again, if I can handle it. I know I slept better not having to worry if I was covering his face with the blanket and being able to roll over.

It is already over 100 degrees here and we have no a/c. We have a swamp cooler which just puts moisture into the air and can cool it up to 20 degrees, but that means it is still around 80 or so inside. It is going to be a very long summer.

He tries to crawl...

But he does a push up instead.

Eating a banana, kind of.

He somehow always finds a way over to his toy basket and dumps it out.

6 months

Bentley is 6 months now, I can't believe it. We've started him on solids and so far he's just had bananas. He seems to like them and he's starting to get the hang of it.

Last month my sister had her senior pictures taken so we got some family pictures as well. Bentley had the same expression in pretty much every picture.

He is teething I guess. This has been going on for over a month now and there are no teeth even close to coming through. He chews on anything and everything, even some things he shouldn't be chewing on. This toy is okay to chew on.

He isn't crawling yet, but he's very good at scooting backwards to get to where he wants to go. We are entering the time in which I cannot turn my back away for even one minute. I found him chewing on a basket that I use to keep his diapering supplies in on the floor. Not okay to chew on. It looks like he's been eating chocolate though.

I guess that will be all for now because my pictures are uploading really slowly and I want to go to bed. I will be going back to CA next week. It is really hot there already and I am dreading the summer. There will be more updates soon so check back.

Gaming

Bentley is going to be like his daddy and enjoy playing video games. Here he is playing some Call of Duty 4 on the xbox.

And here he is playing Mario Kart on the Wii. Obviously the above picture was staged, but I promise this one was not. He was steering and copying Erin. It was so cute.

Arkansas

We are in Arkansas again. This time Paul got to come with us. He is working with the recruiter here for 30 days! Bentley and I will be staying until May 25 so we can see my sister graduate. It's so nice to be here for an extended amount of time. We don't have to rush around to make sure we see everyone. Bentley is growing so fast. At 5 months old he was 15 pounds and 26 1/4 in. long. I don't have any new pictures on my mom's computer, but we had family pictures taken last week and I'll be getting his 6 mo pictures next week. I'll be posting some as soon as I get a chance.

Long time, no post

We've been very busy since I last posted. Bentley and I were in Arkansas for 2 weeks. Two weeks is just enough time to visit everyone a couple times and eat at the places I've missed (Daylight Donuts, Miguels, Sonic, Homey Hearth, etc.). We were constantly going, which we are not used to. This was Bentley's second plane trip and he did fantastic again. On all but one plane we had an empty seat next to us so we could spread out a little bit. I didn't take very many pictures while we were there, but here are a few.

Bentley with his cousins, Abbie and Simon. Simon didn't want to pose for pictures.

He was getting really cranky because I had to keep waking him up to get him in and out of the carseat so I just carried the whole carseat into the house. I was telling a girl I used to work with about it and she brought her infant carrier for us to borrow. I am now very thankful we have the carrier at home. He almost always fall asleep in the car.

I taught him how to "give sugars." Here he is giving very slobbery sugars to his Aunt Erin.

He was trying so hard to roll over, but his arm was always in the way. The night we got home I laid him on the floor and he just flipped right over. Now every time I lay him on his back, over he goes. At first he would roll back over to his back (he started belly to back rolling at 2 months), but now it's like he forgot how. He doesn't really like being on his tummy for very long so he just gets mad.

First sippy cup experience: I put a little bit of milk in his sippy cup so he could practice with it. He did really well. I was surprised that he even held it.

Paul graduated from his second class today. He will start his third and final class at the end of May and he will graduate at the end of September. Hopefully then we will get to move. If he does get stationed here, we will be putting in for a change of residence. I don't like to complain, especially about something that we aren't having to pay for, but our house is soooo small. It's a long story, but we ended up with a two bedroom instead of three. There is a major size difference in the living space. Paul "cleaned" while I was gone, but really what he did was take all of Bentley's stuff up into his room. So of course I had to bring it all back down when we got home so we're cluttered again. It's going to be a real challenge to babyproof this place. I should probably start working on that.