Unplanned days at home

So Ohio’s winter has allowed Ben and I some extra time at home. So far, we’ve been at school for 8 1/2 days this month. (We were scheduled for 14 days so far.) Once the roads were cleared this past week, we returned to school for only 1 day before sickness struck. Another round of the “yuckies” attacked Ben. So his routine quickly mimicked last month . . . lots of diaper changes in a short period of time. At the beginning of the illness, he didn’t seem to be too affected. But today was a different story. He didn’t want anything to do with independent play or for that matter . . . he didn’t even want to be put down for very long. By the end of the day he seemed to be back to normal.

The additional days at home have allowed Ben to work on some skills (walking and talking) and they have allowed me to take more pictures, work on scrapbooking, and get some classwork done. Of course my creativity was challenged as well when boredom hit. (You’ll have to check out the pictures with priority mail boxes. Let’s just say I saved money on building blocks!!) While I’ve tried to appreciate the additional time at home, cabin fever reminds me that I am ready for a return to routine.

I’ve posted some new pictures in our photo gallery and a couple of videos. Hope you enjoy them!!!!

Video of us reading a book

Video of Ben walking with his table

Ear plugs . . .Please

Recently our household has been anything but quiet!!! No matter what is happening, Ben talks about it at the top of his lungs!!! Sometimes I think he’s loud enough to guide a ship in from sea. Now don’t get me wrong, there are still moments of silence in our house. He still has times of silent, independent play and so far, he doesn’t talk too much in his sleep. But it always seems like he has something to say. Ben has developed many sounds and words that range from “da, da, da, da” to “ge,ge,ga” to “good, ga, ga, ga” to “I ga, ga” to “e,e,e,e,e” to “m,m,m,m”. We can’t forget the random noises either that are usually outbursts like aaaahhh, mmmmmmm, or eieiei. (Can’t get him to add the “o” to “eiei” yet but I’m sure that’s coming soon. haha) Of course the crazy part is trying to figure out what he wants/needs when he’s staring at you making the noise. Hopefully, he will start to use sign language to express some of his needs. But until then . . . . the guessing continues.

Even though his noises are loud, his silence is not always great either. He is usually silent while he is concentrating. But recently his silence usually means “I’m into something” like climbing into the toy box or wiggling his way under the table to get to a plug. But one things for sure, the adventure never stops.

Speaking of adventure, he has started to gain confidence in walking and will occasionally let go of whatever he’s using for support. He has successfully taken 2 to 4 steps between people over the last couple of days. So, it won’t be long before we are chasing our little “fog horn” around the house.