My 2nd Birthday by Ben W

Yesterday was my second Birthday.  We had friends over for family game night to celebrate.  On Friday Mom was cleaning the house to get ready for company so I thought I would help her out.  First I got myself a snack.    I was not sure what that loud screaming Mom was doing was all about so I tried to look as innocent as possible.  I think she bought it.

Seriously I think I should be a Cheerio model.  Thank you General Mills for sending us that free box and all the coupons.   It certainly worked.  My brothers and I love them.

Then while Mom was in the kitchen cleaning up, I decided to go help out elsewhere.  That bathroom door does not always latch when you close it so I thought I would check it out.   Sure enough, I hit pay dirt.  Mom's screech got a little bit higher pitched when she saw me with my head and arms under the toilet lid, while I was cleaning the toilet with my hat.   Then I got to play in the water at the sink while she made me wash really good.  I have the best time in that bathroom.  To bad they usually remember to shut and latch the door.

Then Mom said it was time for me to be the biggest helper of all.  It was only 11:00 in the morning, but I was getting sleepy from all my hard work.   So we had a quick snack for lunch and I got to go play in my crib.  Mom said I did a good job helping her by taking a nice long nap. 

Finally my Birthday party time arrived.  I had so many nice friends and their families come over to play with me.  We even got to eat spaghetti.  Mom let me have my own plate and told me to go for it.  I ate 4 plates full. Not sure why everyone kept coming in the kitchen and laughing at me though.

Then it was time for cake.  My brothers picked out a yummy chocolate one for me.  Not sure why everyone around me was making blowing noises, because I just liked looking at the pretty candle.  Then they had to go and blow it out.  No messy cake pictures for me this year.  My Daddy helped me eat my cake so I stayed nice and clean.  One major clean-up a day is enough for me.   I had so much sugar, and there was so much excitement, that I did not go to bed until 11:30.  But I really had a fun Birthday.  Thanks Everyone!

What A Difference A Day Makes

Yesterday was beautiful. 65 degrees, sunny, slight wind. After the big boys got home, and we got done with our ESU visit, we decided to go out and explore the farm and enjoy the weather. After just a few minutes, it hit me that it was the first time that Ben was able to walk outside. He started walking the weekend after Thanksgiving, and then the weather turned bad. So this was all new to him and he was having a blast. Mostly, I was just following him around.  He was so focused on checking things out, that he was not about to look back at me. This was my view most of the time:

A few times it looked like this:

Then he discovered rocks!

And then more rocks. 

And then it was time to go in.  But Ben did not want to go.  He threw a small fit.  So to distract him I popped in the new Baby Signing times video that we got from Jenni from ESU3. It was called A New Day, and it was all about going outside.  How appropriate that he learn words like outside, rain, grass, flower, bug etc.  We will be all ready to practice our new signs the next time we go outside.  Which looks like it might be a while.  Especially since today the weather looks like this:

What a difference a day makes.  We finally got all the snow melted from before, and it has to go and snow again.  I thought it was supposed to be spring tomorrow.  Oh well.  There is a saying... if you don't like the weather in Nebraska, just wait a bit...it will change.  Hopefully it will stop snowing soon, and melt quickly.

Ben and I are ready to do more exploring outside!

Seriously?

A couple weeks ago I posted Ben's More Alike than Different Poster.  This month the NDSC was holding a contest for people to vote for their favorites.  I was trying to decide if I should advertise the contest or not as Ben's poster was done more for fun and not really to win a contest. 
Unfortunately, this week the gallery of posters had to be taken down and the contest was suspended by the NDSC. 
Why? 
Because, there are a few horribly mean people out there who stole a few of the images, reworked them in Photoshop to be very vulgar and hurtful and then posted them to the web.  How sick.  While I did not want to see what they had done, I had to find out if Ben's photo had been hijacked.  Luckily it had not.  I am truly shocked that someone would steal images of these innocent people, turn them into something so degrading, and then post it for the world to see.  The administrators of the site did remove the link and legal action is pending.   I hope that those responsible are held accountable for their actions. 

You may see some changes coming to the blog, as I try to remove some of the more personal information.  I do want to keep the blog public if possible, in hopes that it can be helpful to others going thru similar situations.  At the same time, I feel that steps need to be taken to make sure the blog does not fall prey to a similar attack.


 

Feeling Better

Last weekend Ben woke up from his nap with some nasty sounding breathing.  He had done something similar the Wednesday before for Andi, and we went to the Dr. that day where he got a steriod shot.  It was another one of those miracle shots.   His breathing got instantly better and remained good for the next few days.  But on Saturday, it not only got worse there was a little whistle with it.  In the past when this had happened,  we just needed to wait a bit and  it would usually sounded better.   After supper it still sounded bad, so I called a Telephone Line to Care, and afer putting Ben on the phone so the nurse could hear him, she felt we should go to the emergency room. 

Now I knew we were not even close to being in real danger.  He was pink, and not really contracting his chest, but decided to go anyway becuase we needed either another shot or a breathing treatment, and it was going to be a long night without something.  Unfortunately we had not ever been able to get into the Dr when he had been breathing like this in the past, so we did not have any of the supplies at home to give him a breathing treatment.  When we got to the hospitl his O2 level was 97.  I knew we were OK, but after a few other tests came back negative, the breathing treatment is what they decided to go with. 

He still sounded bad when they released us, but he did sound better than when we got there.  The thing I thought was curious was that his O2 was at 94 when we left, so it had actually gotten worse. 

They sent us home with all the supplies, so we are now set up and have been giving breathing treatments at hom.  He is doing much better now.  A current picture is below.

This weekend was our nephew Sam's B-day.  We got to go over and enjoy cake and ice cream with the family.  He was so cute trying to blow out his candles on his cake.

Ben just loves his cousin Emma.  He likes her long hair.  Here he is, giving her a little squeeze.

Spread the Word to End the Word

Today is the day! Spread the word to end the word.