Benjamin is 3 months old already!

My teeny tiny boy is already a quarter of a year old! I don't know how that time has whizzed by so fast, but there it is! Benjamin is so precious!! I know, I'm so predictable! ;) I adore him completely.

He turned 3 months on October 9th, and I have been writing this entry in bits and pieces since the 10th! Now it's the evening of the 12th, but hopefully I'll finish it tonight. I knew I would write lots and post lots of photos, and I didn't have time to write it all in one go (though I did try!). I took some extra photos today and yesterday, which is a bonus! :)

Today (Oct 11th), Benjamin rolled from tummy to back for the first time. It was a complete accident, hehe! He was doing tummy time - where he can now get his whole chest, shoulders and head upright looking ahead, leaning on his elbows! - and he had his head soooo high up looking over to where Neil was tickling Nathan on the armchair. He was practically craning his neck to see, and his sweet little eyes were bugging with curiosity! He leaned juuust that bit too far to see, and suddenly - flip! - he was on his back looking very confused, hehehe! The boys were ecstatic, and we all made a big thing of it. He got tired pretty fast after that, so he hasn't done it again since. He is trying and tryyyying to roll from back to front. He gets onto his side really easily (he now does this automatically when semi-awake at night to get in position to breastfeed, as we lie tummy-to-tummy in bed to nurse *bliss*), but now he's clenching his tummy muscles and straaaaining to roll forward from his side to his tummy - it's so sweet to watch him persevere like he does! He seems so determined! His underneath leg always gets in his way, or his underneath shoulder. He'll get there soon, I should think! Here he is a few weeks ago, trying to roll, with his brothers cheering him on (except Nathan who isn't all that impressed with such things!):




He is happiest "talking" to somebody, and he gives the biggest smiles and vocal sounds to me (sooo thrilled!!) and then to Neil, and he also loves chatting to Matthew, who is the only one of his brothers who will hold still and stay calm long enough to really get him cooing and smiling with intent. He loves Matthew, and gives him the fondest smiles and happiest little sounds. Arthur is learning to keep still long enough too, but he keeps interrupting Benjamin by looking away from him at me and using a LOUD VOICE to tell me what Benjamin just did, which Benjamin doesn't go for too much! Matthew just puts his face near to Benjamin's, says "Hiya..." really softly, and waits, keeping eye contact with Benjamin - ideal for a little baby! :) He uses a soft voice occasionally to tell me that Benjamin is talking to him, and doesn't break eye contact with the baby while he does so, which means that Benjamin carries on cooing and smiling. Arthur leaps around like a madman continually (as is his nature!) and seems to talk in a constant yell, and can never stop talking or moving for long, and Benjamin is (unfortunately!) not a fan of loud noises!

He has sooooooo many different cooing vocal sounds now, and we hold quite long conversations (I copy his sounds), which he LOVES. His eyes get all shiny and wide, and he does the biggest smiles! He has recently started screeching and skwawking more, and making sharp squealy inhalations like he's really excited, when he's talking in a particularly animated way!

Here are a few photos from about a week ago, of Benjamin with his daddy, communicating! :)





He drools constantly now, and gnaws on his fingers all the time. I have started giving him teething powder when it's particularly bad. I'm sure he's having teething pain. All my others have by this age, even Nathan who didn't GET any teeth till he was 11 months old, haha! His little teeth will be pushing up in his gums by now, so it's causing him discomfort (and drooooool!).

His newborn hair is falling out still, but he has a good amount left at the back near the nape of his neck, and the traditional (!) long sticky-up bit on top, which is getting thinner. His new hair is coming in already! I'm sure the others were mostly bald from this stage till about 4 or 5 months old. He started with a shadowy look to his whole scalp under the newborn hair, and now he has about half a cm of hair all over his head! It's fine and downy and scrumptiously soft. It's the same colour as Arthur and Nathan's hair. I can't believe how fast it's growing - his fingernails are the same. I have to cut them right down every 3 days or else he scratches his face and draws blood! I am sure he will need a haircut before his first birthday.

Benjamin is still such a big boy! I don't know his latest weight and length, and probably won't at all from now on, as I'm unlikely to get chance to get him weighed and measured (they don't have regular appointments scheduled for this in the UK). I could take him to a baby clinic but I'm not likely to do that. It doesn't really matter anyway - I can see he's growing well and very healthy, so that's all that matters. He is currently comfortably fitting all his 3-6 month baby clothes. A few tops have already been put away too small for him, and as far as popper vests (onesies) or sleepsuits go - we've had to get the box of 6-9 month clothing down!!!! I thought they'd be hanging off him, but no, he fits all but 2 of the 6-9 month sleepsuits really well, without even having to turn the sleeves, and the toes don't hang off either! I remember Arthur wearing some of these when he was 2+ months old too, but that was mainly due to him having a bulky cloth nappy on, and the feet of the sleepsuits used to hang off the end of his toes by several inches! Benjamin doesn't wear cloth nappies and is clearly a much bigger boy than any of his brothers were at this age! At church last Sunday, a lady looked at him sleeping and said to me that he was DEFINITELY bigger than his brothers! How funny that he's the littlest of them all and yet will probably end up the tallest when they're grown!

My favourite things about Benjamin at the moment are:

* The way he clings to me when I hold him, clutching my top with his little fists while he looks around on my shoulder. He stays clinging for ages, and I love it so much!

* His sweet new hair mixed with his soft newborn hair. His little head always feels so warm and soft and NEW still, and I could rub my cheek on it and kiss it all day long.

* His soft doughy little cheeks! Ohhh they're too precious for words! I kiss them aplenty. I think I said this about Nathan's cheeks too, but I'm surprised they're not chapped for how much I kiss them! ;)

* The way he rolls onto his side and kind of snuffles about urgently for milk when he's hungry. He usually tries to get milk out of his knuckles while he's waiting, and gets increasingly frustrated! I love the "baby bird" stage in little babies!

* Breastfeeding him. Absolutely bliss! Nothing so precious in the whole world than breastfeeding a sleepy hungry baby till they doze off. I love how his eyes roll shut with the blissed-out look!

* Squidgy little thighs!! Oh my goodness!! I could eat this boy right up, hehe! ;)

* The soft sounds he makes to talk to me, and the biiiig smiles he does just for me when were alone in the bedroom with no other noises or distractions. I love the soft little gaspy happy breathing that goes with the big smiles too :) I love the way his eyes shine when he smiles.

* How easy-going he is, in general. He isn't a "high-maintenance" baby. He likes to be held, and I hold him a lot in my arms, just upright either facing into me or out into the room. He likes both. He likes to look around from the comfort of my arms, and I like doing that with him too. When I have to put him down, he gets on happily lying on a playmat and talking to the school display or a brother! He hates being put in his bouncy chair now, but once I have rocked him and talked to him a bit, he will happily watch (and talk to) the toy bar which has sounds and lights, for ages. He will also just sit in the chair and watch his brothers for a long time too. He sometimes still rocks to sleep in there, and I transfer him to his Amby Hammock once he's sleeping, but increasingly now I am taking him upstairs when he's sleepy and putting him in the hammock, and rocking/bouncing till he falls asleep. If I am right about him being sleepy, this doesn't take long at all. I wasn't too impressed with that hammock at first, but I love it now! :) When he wakes or stirs, I often get him right back to sleep just going in and rocking or bouncing his little bed. I can't do anything to get him back to sleep if he's woken after only a short nap, if he's in my bed or something.

Here he is in the bouncy chair a couple of weeks ago, looking rather put-out that I'm STILL taking photos, haha! I took quite a few leading up to this one, but they didn't come out too well.



And another of Benjamin the bouncy chair while we did school one afternoon. He sometimes still brings up lots of milk, and if he's recently had a feed I will lay a T-shirt or terry towel on the bouncy chair before I put him in it, so that if he brings up milk I won't have to strip the chair down and wash it - just the T-shirt! :)



Benjamin sleeps usually the whole evening now, in his hammock. I have adjusted things so that he is TIRED between 6 and 7pm, and so that's when he goes to bed. That allows us to get the boys into bed shortly after that (if all goes to plan!), as they were showing obvious signs of being sleep deprived when they were going to bed later. They get up at 6 or so in the morning so they need to go to bed at 7pm really. It's soooo nice to have Benjamin going to bed at the other boys' bedtime (before even!). He zonks right out after a big breastfeed - I rock him in the hammock. He sleeps till midnight-ish, although this week he has been waking once during the evening - probably another growth spurt. He has these soooo frequently! Then I nurse him and he stays in my bed after that. I go to bed around that time, and he wakes again sometimes twice or sometimes once, before waking for the day around 7am. Often his pattern is bed at 6.30pm, wake at 11.30 or so - nurse and be-burped without really waking up properly, wake again around 1.30am, nappy change (he is a HEAVY wetter and even wets through disposables if he's in the same one the whole 12-hour night!) and feed, wake again at 4 or so to feed, and up at 7am. I can manage this fine.

I took a few photos yesterday and today - yay! Here is Benjamin helping me with the mountain of clean washing to fold while the other boys were at the park with Neil:



Less than impressed with me at bedtime last night, because I was taking a photo of him all ready for bed in his sweet little grobag, instead of actually PUTTING him to bed! He was tired out and ready to go. The last of my babies to wear grobags was Arthur, so it's nice to be putting them to use again. My last two babies were tummy sleepers and those don't really work well with grobags. Arthur and Benjamin are very much BACK sleepers! :)



The photo at the top of this entry is one that I took today. I made it black and white (in a very amateur way!) because I wasn't happy with the colour and noise in the photo when it was in colour. The other two I took at the same time came out slightly better for colour, so I didn't change them. Here they are!





Is he not completely squishably precious?!?! Ahhh, his cheeks are the most wonderful things, I love them so much! ;) His eyes are clear grey, sort of mid-grey. I feel sure they haven't finished what they're doing yet, and can't wait to see what colour they end up being! I WISH I could just get a good photo in GOOD light of all four boys in a row looking up at the light or something marvellous like that, because at this moment, I have four children - one with brown eyes, one with green eyes, one with grey eyes, and one with blue eyes! I think that's amazing, and I just WISH I could photograph it before somebody's eyes change colour!!

My nickname affliction continues from child to child, haha! ;) Benjamin has a zillion cutesy nicknames, as his brothers have done, but current frequently used ones are Benji-woo-loo, and Benjaminny still. He is also my little truffle-wump! :) That's my favourite one right now. If I'm holding him and I call him that, I just want to squidge him right up and kiss his cheeks for ever more. *sigh* He has a lot more nicknames than that but I am slightly too embarrassed to share any more! ;)

I could write about Benjamin for hours without stopping, really I could. I just adore that precious baby boy! It has been almost exactly one year since he was conceived, and I'm amazed that he has existed for a whole year already! I LOVE being his mummy! :) There is no novelty-wearing-off thing at all, even though he's the fourth boy in four years. Every little thing he does is as precious and thrilling to me as if he were my first baby.

All the boys were born between the 9th and 14th of the month, so everyone is changing up a month around here! ;) The 9th also marked exactly ONE MONTH to go until Arthur's 5th birthday!! And Nathan turned 21 months today. Matthew will be 3 years and 4 months in 2 days. Next I want to write a post about Nathan, similar to this one, to mark him being 1 and three quarters! Only 3 months until he's 2!!! Crazy. I want to catch up on everything he's doing here, so I have a record before it all vanishes from my memory. He's changing so fast. I'll try to do that asap!