Four funny little brothers

Lately Benjamin is really starting to play WITH the boys, as well as alongside them. He practises driving cars along furniture and the floor such a lot, and is getting really good at it! When the boys play cars together, he joins right in! He still just grabs the cars and spoils their lines a lot of the time, but he is really starting to play how they are playing, and it's lovely to see FOUR little buddies playing together! Yesterday I was trying to conquer the mountain of clean laundry which needed folding, and when I turned around I saw them all playing with cars on the "road mat" (we have a roll-away carpet with roads all over - I am so glad I bought the biggest and most durable one I could find when we just had Arthur and Matthew!), so I grabbed my camera to capture the moment:





The boys continued playing on the road mat and Benjamin headed off to drive his car on higher ground - he loves putting a car up as high as he can reach, and then trying to push it back and forth up there, lips parpling away as he makes the brumming sound! :) He inevitably pushes it out of reach, and then a sweet brother always comes to the rescue within seconds to fetch it back for him (this time it was Matthew). They're all in various stages of half-dress between pyjamas and day clothes (sigh), and Matthew is potty training and refuses to wear anything other than underwear at the moment! I would say he is pretty much potty trained, which is wonnnnderful!!! It has been a long time coming, as he's 4 already. He does still have the odd accident in the house, but has started going out to the park with big boy pants on, and no accidents so far! I had no expectations for him to poo on the potty because of his issues in that department, but he seems happy to give it a try, and has managed to perform on the big toilet and the potty! He does sometimes ask for a nappy to go in instead though. We are nowhere near night-time training yet, but that's fine. Oh! Photos, I forgot! :)




Another lovely thing that is emerging with the boys is that Nathan and Benjamin are increasingly spotted playing together! Sometimes they giggle and giggle and make each other laugh with something they are doing. Nathan fits in fine with the two older boys - there never seems to be an odd one out amongst the children in this family, even when there's an odd number of them playing at something. Arthur and Matthew are great friends but not in any way separate to Nathan. Nathan is assertive and happy in his play, and he never has to try to join in with the big boys - often it's them asking to join in with him when he starts a game of his own! ;) But it's so sweet to see a second little pair of friends emerging, especially on occasions when the older two are upstairs playing something with little screws or jigsaw pieces that aren't allowed downstairs near Benjamin and Nathan. Last week I came in from doing something in the kitchen when Arthur and Matthew were upstairs doing just that. I was surprised to see Nathan and Benjamin sitting together at a pile of bricks they had tipped out. Nathan was chatting away to Benjamin, and Benjamin was really intent on what Nathan was saying to him, and handing him bricks in a steady stream. Nathan was building with what Benji gave him, and they looked so sweet together! I just felt happy watching them, and decided to take a few photos :) Lots were blurry (the light wasn't the best) but here's one after Benjamin crawled to the other side of the pile to get some "different" bricks for Nathan! ;)



After that he crawled back, and then they noticed me and stopped playing together really :( I did get one funny photo of them - Benjamin laughing at me for some reason, and a classic of Nathan with his finger up his nose, hehe! How charming! ;)



Yesterday I happened to catch a few photos of my older buddy pair - those cheeky little boys keep me on my toes! ;)




Nathan getting in on the action:




They love silliness! Sometimes my head about FALLS OFF with it, but then I see their faces all lit up and hear their happy laughter, and watch how much fun they are having together, and find that I can bear it a bit longer! ;) They really are sweet little boys!

Benjamin is full of fun and mischief these days as well. He is frequently taking a step or two, but never more, and the step or two that he does take is pretty shaky! He is increasing his vocabulary as fast as he was before, and generally becoming more and more mischievous with each day that passes! He loves to make everyone laugh, or ANYONE laugh really! He prefers a big audience and usually gets one in this household! ;) He is beginning to test boundaries and fully understands what no means (and intends to test it to be sure, lol!). He sometimes has a crazy 10 minutes where he crawls in random fast circles and flops down on his side, over and over, sort of singing "Nah-nah-nah-nah-naaaah!" the whole time. He gets out of breath eventually, he goes so fast! The boys can't help but stop whatever they are doing to watch in amusement, and they laugh and laugh as he gets faster and sillier - Benjamin LOVES this, and performs all the harder. I'm pretty sure that's why he does it in the first place - that and the fact that he just seems to really enjoy having a bit of a crazy active moment now and again, hehe!

He really enjoys hiding and climbing in the clean laundry mountain (it seriously IS one, most days, no matter how many wash loads I fold and put away, it's always still there!!!). We dump out our tumble dryer loads in the living room between the armchair and the stairgate, because that's the best place for me to sit and fold any time I get chance, so that I can keep an eye on the boys while I do it. The boys will often help me fold as well - Arthur can now fold clothes properly as well as towels and things, and can categorise everything into piles to put away, and Matthew is getting better at folding towels and teatowels! They are both so keen over the whole laundry system that my intention is to train them to basically take over the laundry for the most part. They both can already sort loads, load the washing machine (Arthur can put powder in and set it off too), and empty it, switch it to the tumble dryer and set that running too. They aren't allowed to clean the fluff or water out of the tumble dryer, but they can empty the load and bring it into the living room, and they LOVE being allowed to do these things independently. So I am going to make laundry one of their main jobs together when I FINALLY get round to setting up our chore system. I am working on it! :)

Anyway, the clean laundry mountain is a favourite place to play for all four of the boys - they like to bury cars and things in there, "dig" tunnels, and play bedtime, mountain climbing, and just hide and seek. They like to have a fresh load from the tumble dryer tipped onto them as they lie on the previous loads, haha! We do a LOT of laundry in this house, and keeping up with it once it's clean is one of the hardest parts! Benjamin loves to climb the pile, and has started using it to gain height enough to get a knee up onto the arm of the armchair (which is still turned to face the wall along with the sofa, to prevent him climbing on them!) and get onto it! He likes to hide from me and pop out with a sweet little smile. I caught him on camera doing this yesterday:





Off he goes to the armchair....



Such a sweet little manny! :)

Here's a random one of Benjamin from yesterday, to show that his eyes are grey grey grey. Sometimes they just seem non-descript in photos or just look sort of mid-dark. People have told me his blue eyes are lovely as well! They have NEVER been blue, but still one or two people have insisted that in the light they are blue (they're not!). Because he started out with grey grey eyes at birth and they were also kind of dark and didn't lighten up, I thought they would turn brown like Arthur's did (his eyes were dark grey at birth and a lighter grey until he started getting brown patches on them at around 4 months old), but they haven't! I am not sure if they eventually will - there's certainly time yet! He is starting to have a slight hint of a hazel/tan ring around the pupil, but it's so faint and not even visible in this photo:



A couple more of Benjaminny and then I MUST go to bed! Here is my sweet little man in the porch (see how CLEAN and freshly painted it is?!?! I have been nesting up a storm lately, and painting the porch (which was absolutely covered in crayon marks, urgh!) was one of my urges. I am so so so happy to see it crayon-free!! Now for the living room and my bedroom! I don't know what he's looking at in there - he seemed fascinated by the hooks and coats for some reason!



These last two show Benjamin taking a step or two! He was holding onto the door frame (behind him in the first photo) and was sizing up the open door. I could see him wanting to step out to it, and he took a while building up his "plan" and confidence, and then set off in a rather wobbly manner - but he did it! :) He was so pleased with himself when he reached the door. He always is sooooo pleased to be taking steps, or even standing up! If I walk him holding his hands, he walks strongly and smoothly and squeals with excitement the whole way! I have never seen such a huge smile on his sweet little face as when I am helping him walk across the room to Daddy (or an excited brother!). Sweet baby :)




Thanks so much for the sweet comments on my new blog header (and my boys!) - I am glad you like it! :) I'll be back again soon!

New header at last! And Benjamin's words...

I'm so excited to FINALLY get my new header up! It has taken me so long because I just couldn't sort out photos that I wanted to use for each of the boys. I like the one of Benjamin from his birthday, but he looks a bit "fluffy" (hehe!) compared with his brothers! ;) I'm just SO pleased to have an up-to-date header with the boys' photos in it, yay! The last one was of Arthur (aged 3!), Matthew (aged 2!), Nathan (aged TEN MONTHS!!!) and Benjamin's 12 week ultrasound picture!! Tsk tsk! NOW it has Arthur (5), Matthew (3.5 - I know he's now 4 but it was close enough!), Nathan (2 - it was taken 6 months ago but oh well - it's by far my FAVOURITE photo of Nathan and it always makes me smile to see it up there!), Benjamin on his first birthday (nice and recent!) and Samuel's 20 week ultrasound. I am going to try to be on top of the photos next time and get new ones for at least Samuel and Benjamin (I can't believe Samuel's coming!!! Squeeeee!!! It just keeps re-occuring to me and I have to pinch myself with joy that he's really coming to join our family!!) in maybe 6 months or so. I don't want Samuel's photo to be an ultrasound pic up to his first birthday like poor Benjamin's was! Jennisa kindly did the header for me (she originally designed my blog layout 18 months or so ago)!

That's it really - just wanted to draw attention to my new header as I'm so pleased with it! :) What can I quickly note down while I'm here?!

Benjamin's WORDS!!! He's nearly 13 months old, and I have never had a baby like him before! I figured boys learn to talk later than girls - all mine have, and that's what seems to be the general case. Arthur had a handful of useful words at 16 months, and he was my earliest. Matthew and Nathan were 22 months before they really had ANY words, and didn't start actually talking until after they turned 2. All three were talking in sentences within a couple of months of turning 2 so they weren't "behind" for long!

So Benjamin said his first word at 10 months - "drink". He pronounced it in one of two ways - "guck" or "grich" or a combination of the two. I was so surprised, because well, he's a boy, and my experience with boys had meant that I was not expecting a word for many months yet! Before 10 months was out, though, he had "Daddy", "yeah", and "nigh-nigh" (for night night)!

At 11 months he added:

* No
* Mama
* Oh dear (pron. "Ohduh" or "Ohdoh") if he dropped something
* Matthew (pron. "Mah-" and a silent "ooo" with his lips, hehe!)
* Be-mah or Be-mam (for Benjamin!)

And at 12.5 months my running list (which I haven't added to since, whoops!) noted:

* Bye-bye (bah-bah)
* Car (pron. not much more than a hard "K" sound or "kuh")
* Bird (bur)
* Bar (that is, one of his cereal/fruit snack bars)
* Pwooooar! (pron. "Bow, bow!" like bow tie, which he says while wafting his hand when he farts, hahaha!)
* Yum (when he likes what he's eating!)
* Aaaad (for Arthur!)

He's not quite 13 months now, so in the last 2 weeks he has added (hope I don't forget any!):

* Bus (buh)
* Gone
* Clap
* Clock
* Back (which he says when he pulls a book of the shelf and then wants to put it "back", a favourite thing to do lately!)
* Ball (boh)

There are several more, I'm SURE, but I can't think of them! I need to get back to writing them down as they occur!

He combined 2 words for the first time this week, saying, "Car, bye-bye" when I closed the curtains after he'd been watching them from my arms at the bedroom window at bedtime. He LOVES watching cars from the window! He also loves watching birds in any setting. He sits near the living room window and every time he sees a bird fly past or land on a roof, he points and says, "Bur!" :) If we go out, while I am carrying him to the car, he's squinting up at the sky with his nose wrinkled up, saying, "Bur? Bur?" in a questioning tone, looking everywhere for any sight of a bird, bless his sweet little heart! When he sees one he sometimes squeals and says, "Bur!" in such a delighted tone! If he's at the window watching them and after a while no more fly by, he waits a while and then says, "Bye-bye bur...", waving at the window.

He is trying to say "light" and "banana" but the sounds he uses aren't quite consistent or clear enough to be able to say that he's saying those words yet. He tries them several times a day though!

He's SO much further on with speech than any of my other children! It's delightful to observe, and sort of uncharted territory for me, since I was not expecting it for a good while yet! I have had a couple of people wonder if he might stop or even lose some words once he starts walking, as that has happened with their little ones, so that might end up being the case for Benjamin, we'll see. He is not walking yet, which is another new thing. All my others were walking, as in, taking several steps or more than that, by 11.5 months or at least by their first birthday. So perhaps Benjamin is "doing" words earlier than the others because that's what he's chosen to work on, rather than walking like the others? I hope he won't stop or lose the words he's got when he learns to walk! He loves to talk, and he's SO motivated and intense about it. He watches my mouth so very carefully as I show him new words, and tries them out straight away. He doesn't get bored but practises words, and remembers that he was practising a specific word the next day, starting it up again and looking to me questioningly, for me to set him straight on it. None of the others were interested in talking, and would never repeat a word even after 18 months old, if I asked them to! So I'm enjoying Benjamin's enthusiasm and cuteness in this department! :)

He is beginning to get a couple of new words every day or so (today's are clock and clap). He will clap when he says the word, and look at the clock or point to it when he says clock, so he does know what he is saying - not just a repeat.

He stands unsupported a lot of the time now, and prefers it to holding onto something near him. He can get up from the middle of the floor to standing without difficulty. He cruises fast and easily, and crawls everywhere in the same way. He loves to climb the stairs and can do it fast! He also climbs on anything he can get his knee up onto, which has resulted in us temporarily turning the sofa and armchair to face the walls! SUCH a nice look, lol! But otherwise he's up like lightning, not just onto the sofa but onto the back of it and then onto the windowsill (and then falling right down onto the floor - it has happened once or twice, hence the sofa being turned around now!). He'll also climb onto one of the little school chairs, from there to the school table, crawl along that and then up onto the school cupboard that's at the end of the table. That ends at the windowsill too, and is the same height. He has fallen of the school cupboard once as well. He is now able to pull out the school chairs if he fancies climbing on one of them, so we are beginning to teach him not to climb when we say "No climbing". A work in progress - we are not getting anywhere yet! ;)

He is trying to take steps but he sort of drags his feet or swings his hip to bring his foot forwards instead of lifting - he really hasn't clicked that to walk he needs to LIFT his foot forwards yet, so he isn't walking yet! ;) He has taken one proper step this week, but that is all so far. I don't think it will be long now though! He'll be thrilled to walk about, but I do think he prefers communicating to moving - he has been that way throughout really. He communicates ever so clearly even with babble and especially with expressions - he uses his brow and his eyes like none of my others have been able to so far, hehe! You really KNOW what that boy is trying to tell you when he uses expressions! ;)

Okay, that's all for now! I am glad to have updated about Benjamin's latest stuff on the spur of the moment! Now it's recorded for prosperity, which is a relief because I am not good at remembering all this precious stuff! I will be back soon! Thanks for the recent comments on my two photo posts (Benjamin's birthday, and the beach)! :)

Beach photos! :)

Another catch-up post! :) The day after Benjamin's birthday (so, July 10th), we packed up the car and went down to the seaside for the day. The boys have been asking to go to the beach this summer so we planned to take a few day trips there. So far we have managed one! The weather hasn't been good for the last few weeks so we haven't been again. I hope we'll be able to fit some more beach trips in before the end of the summer! NOT keen on sitting shivering on a British beach in not-so-great weather though! ;)

So here are the beach pictures! The boys are all wearing the same sweet little wetsuits and beach shoes, and the three youngest have matching UV hats. Arthur is too big for the little kiddy hats now so he wore a normal sunhat. They had a GREAT time! We arrived late morning and had a picnic on the grassy bit that leads down to the beach. It was quite busy but we walked quite a way down and found a much quieter area. It always amazes me that people just arrive at the beach and sit down on the first bit of sand they step on, no matter how crowded it is! We timed our visit for low tide (wouldn't have been much sand otherwise!) and started home at about 3.45pm, just after the tide was furthest out. Most of the photos were taken at sort of "mid" tide.

The boys were just SO excited to run on the beach and paddle in the sea! They mostly wanted to transport water in buckets and their little plastic sand cart, alllll the way back up the beach to the dry sand and mix it. Arthur chatted away to other children on the beach and ended up playing with them, either where their families were, or bringing other little ones back to where we were! He's so easy with social stuff - always has been. :)

Nathan was scared of the sea when he got to it! He cried and cried when it went on his toes, and wanted to be held when near the water after that, or allowed to go back up the beach away from it! By the end he was running down to the water to collect it in buckets though, so he was okay! Benjamin seemed happy enough with the water, but he was always in arms while he "paddled" so perhaps that was less scary?! He DID love holding sand tools and patting the sand with them, or just examining them, and he spent most of the time sitting watching his brothers and clapping! He seemed to really enjoy it for the most part!

It turned out to be lovely weather. The kiddies all wore high factor sun cream but Nathan's arms still went pink (which we felt bad about!). We had a UV tent which they went in if they needed to wrap up in a towel and warm up for a bit after getting wet in the sea. Benjamin sat in there for a little while (see pics!) but mostly preferred the sand! He did not eat it, which I was thankful for! You never know whether any baby will turn out to be a sand-eater or not! Mine isn't - phew! ;)



































There were some photos where Nathan just looked SO much older to me all of a sudden, with his expressions! I liked trying to get photos of them all running down to the sea - the one with Benjamin in the foreground on the sand, and there's another of them running down with Arthur at the back waving a sievey thing or something, hehe! Nathan is nearest the sea, and it really hit me looking at them that day, how much Nathan is starting to grow out of little toddler-hood and into little BOY-hood :( I mean, this is a GOOD and HAPPY thing!! But bittersweet for me. I love that tiny little boy, just TINY and cute like he is! I feel sad that he'll soon leave that stage behind!! :( I can't wait to see him more "grown up" like Arthur and Matthew though. They are always playing together as a little threesome, and have been for a long time, so he would love to fully catch-up! His running is getting less "bobbly" and toddlerish, and smoother like the older boys. They still leave him waaaay behind when they all start out running somewhere together though - he must have had a good head-start that time on the beach! ;)

We came home tired, sandy and happy, gave the boys a quick baked beans on toast tea, and they all fell into bed and slept pretty well! I was so tired that evening that I actually felt unwell from pretty much the moment we arrived home. I was on my feet all the time and it was hot, and I'm not really used to the activity levels of that particular day! Not a good thing! But oh well. I recovered fine (with a bit of sunburn - I NEVER burn! But have since read that pregnant women burn more easily than when they're not pregnant, so perhaps that was it?!). We definitely want to go again! We all had a lovely time! :)

Benjamin's 1st Birthday!

Finally a catch-up post on Benjamin's first birthday! I have a lot of photos to share, and wish I had more time to write "stuff" to go in between them, but it is already late! My laptop finally came back from being fixed today, and I can now access my photos again, hooray! :) So, without further ado...

On July 9th, my sweet little Benjaminny turned ONE! A whole year old. Amazing. He napped for a long time during the morning so we didn't do much birthday-specific stuff. After lunch, he opened his presents, and then napped again, and we had his birthday cake after dinner.

Here are the first photos I took of him that day - tasting cows milk for the first time! They say 12 months for starting cows milk, so we usually just make it a "first" on their first birthdays. Sometimes ice-cream too! :) Here is Benjamin swigging back his drink at lunchtime (he had cheese, cream cheese sandwiches and Nutella sandwiches, because those are his favourites!), without knowing there was milk inside it! I he gave us "looks" as he realised it was different - I'm not sure what he made of it! He does much prefer my milk still, but it has pretty much dried up now so I am glad that he will tolerate cows milk in the meantime. He's still nursing just the same, for comfort, and that's GREAT with me because I actually want him to still be nursing when the new baby (and new MILK!) arrives in December, and then hopefully carry on until at least age 2. :)









After lunch, he had some tumble time with Daddy (mostly involving Benji being eaten or tickled - how he LOVES this game!). You can see how much he enjoyed it from the photos! :)











A little while later, the boys were eager for Benjamin to open some presents, as we STILL hadn't got to that part of his birthday yet! He was acting so sleepy and seemed really ready for another nap, but we brought his presents out and he opened two or three before heading off for his nap (he opened the rest afterwards, but I didn't get pictures of that). As I brought them, everybody started singing "Happy Birthday" to him, and ohhhh he just sat and beamed around at us all! I had no idea he would love being sung to like that so very much, being the centre of adoring attention, haha! He's the centre of adoring attention a LOT around here, but this was a certain intense focus and he really enjoyed it! So much so that when we stopped and set the presents down, he didn't take any notice of them at all, just started sort of making a sing-song sound with "words" that went, "Naa-naaa, naaaaa, na-na-naaaa" etc, over and over. He was giving us intent LOOKS as he did so, and we eventually realised he was "singing" Happy Birthday to try to get us to sing it to him again, haha! Sweet little peanut! :) So we did, and he breathed a heavy, happy sigh of relief and basked in the joy of us singing to him again, smiling round at us. As soon as we stopped, he prompted again, and again and again, ALL day long, hehe! In fact, just today after lunch he ate something or other with chocolate on it (I can't remember how or what it was!) and sat rocking in his booster seat at the table, singing, "Naa-naaa, naaaaa, na-na-naaaa..." and on and on, until I recognised it as his little "Happy Birthday" song from last month! The boys started singing Happy Birthday to him straight away and he beamed so happily at them, and enjoyed their singing right to the very end! It was obvious that he was remembering the association between the chocolate and the song we sang him as we ate his chocolate birthday cake on his birthday! :)

Anyway! So the first photo here is an odd one - he looks tired out, and like he's letting his mouth hang open or something! But I took it because it was the only "caught" memory of him "singing" Happy Birthday to himself! :) The boys were very excited about the present-opening and helped him a lot with the wrapping paper. He wasn't too interested at first, but he soon enjoyed pulling the paper if we started it off for him.













He got a CD of African music (for children), which ALL the boys love! We looked at the information about the various countries in Africa that the songs came from, and then put the CD on. Benjamin reached and reached for the CD player when the music started (a good sign that he really liked the music!). He likes to bop to some of the songs still, and we usually have this CD on several times a day still. Arthur and Matthew love it so much, and we have learned such a lot about Africa since Benjamin's birthday! (never mind my hair in this photo - it was having an unruly "frizz" day for some reason!)





After Benjamin's nap they played with the new toys and Benjamin opened a present of a few books from my mum. I didn't get photos! But then came dinner (spaghetti bolognese, because it was his joint favourite meal, along with my pesto/tomato pasta sauce on fusilli!), and after that we sat the boys at the school table for birthday cake! I didn't get a photo of the cake before we ate it, but never mind. You can pretty much see it from the first photo, but some of it is out of shot. I made a big sheet cake (the usual chocolate cake with chocolate fudge icing - Benjamin really liked that at Matthew's and Grandoug's birthdays, so I made it for his too!) and cut it into the shape of a big "1". I put one candle on it and Smarties all around the edge to set it off and look fun. Smarties are a treat for our boys so I knew they would like that. Benjamin has not had them before though, obviously!

I carried it in and everyone sang "Happy Birthday" and Benjamin looked SO pleased with life, hehe! He was fascinated by the candle but even though he looks like he's starting to reach for it in the first photo, he wouldn't actually reach out to touch it. He just wanted to see it. The boys blew it out for him, since he was too mesmerised by the flame to even take in the idea of blowing at it, lol! As soon as the candle was blown out, he set to work scraping the Smarties off the cake - not to put in his mouth, just for the fun of it I think! Funny boy! :) They all tucked in, and as expected, Benjamin reeeally enjoyed his birthday cake. The photos tell the story really - he got pretty messy and was rather possessive of his piece of cake! ;) Once it was finished, he even tried to start on the piece of kitchen roll in front of him that had some fudge icing on it, hehe!























Neil ran a bath while they were finishing their cake, and Benjamin went straight from the table to the bath! ;) Until that day, he had still been getting his baths like a baby - in the big bath but on his own without the bath toys that the big boys play with. I would just sit him in, wash him, and lay him back to wash his hair. He loves his baths and so we didn't change a thing, until that day. I just suddenly thought since they all needed a bath INSTANTLY (they were all pretty chocolatey!), he might enjoy sharing a bath for the first time! We chose to pair them up (and generally still do, though they had their first bath ALL together last week, and the second one today - sweet sweet photos to come!!), and put Benjamin in the bath with Matthew. Nathey sometimes screeches and fusses when we wash his hair, and we didn't want to pair Benji with him because we thought he might get a bit freaked out by Nathan's noise! He had a lovely time in the bath with Matthew, and very much enjoyed the bath toys. He would not stop drinking out of all the cups and containers, no matter how we tried to dissuade him! ;) Matthew LOVED bathing with Benjamin, and Arthur was a bit put-out not to get the opportunity, but we switch their pairs frequently so they both get the chance. They LOVE Benjaminny-bean-boo! We all do! :)



After his bath, my four crazy little boys played some sort of racing game on all fours around the living room, shrieking and laughing continually (one of Benjamin's favourite games to play with his brothers - they love it too!). I sat and spectated for ages and could not stop smiling at them because they were so funny and sweet, all stark n*ked crawling around, with wild hair from being quickly towel-dried before they streaked off! ;) They continued until at least two of them had hiccups from laughing so hard, and then we got them into pyjamas and ready for bed.

The last photo I got of Benjamin on his birthday was of "teeth time", just after all the boys had their teeth brushed (they're all little enough to need us to brush their teeth still - Arthur would prefer to do his own but he doesn't get that privilege till he's 7! Good dental hygiene is just too important and the dentist recommends parents brushing children's teeth until age 7 so that it's done thoroughly enough, so that's what we're doing! He gets more free-rein in the mornings though). Benjamin LOVES having his teeth brushed! He only had 3 at his birthday (first bottom one onnnly just came through) and now has two at the top and two at the bottom (nothing more in the works yet). He has a teeny little pink toothbrush, because they randomly select the colour when you order them for a supermarket delivery (which we do!), and they brought pink! He loves it! So I am glad to have a picture of him with his little pink toothbrush at the end of the day on his birthday :)



They all seemed pretty tired out, but Benjamin didn't breastfeed to sleep. He often doesn't, and then I usually rock him in my arms, or else put him in his cot and sit next to it while he gets settled, and read. This time he finished nursing at 7.15pm or so, and I held him in my arms and sang Happy Birthday to him really softly as I rocked him, and some other songs, just letting him get sleepy. I watched the clock the whole time, because I remembered that at 7.15pm a year before, I was nearly there, starting to want to push, and getting ready to meet him. He was born at 7.30pm and I was so thankful to be in the same room a year later, walking him back and forth at the side of the bed - the same bed where he was born. I could almost see myself there as I walked and sang, a year ago. At 7.28 I knew my waters broke, and it was just such fun to relive it all in the same location, with the overwhelming gratitude that I had the same sweet precious baby boy in my arms going off to sleep, exactly one year later. At 7.30pm I sang him Happy Birthday again and felt quite tearful and just immensely happy and in love with my sweet Benji-boy. After another 10 minutes or so (where I just wanted to hold him, never mind if he wanted to go to bed, lol!), I put him in his cot and he slept.

Ahh, my sweet little Benjaminny! I am so happy to be his Mummy, and so thankful that God saw fit to bless us with him! I can't even put into words how VERY much I have enjoyed his first year, and while it's a bit sad that it's behind us now, I do look forward to the year ahead and the years beyond that. I don't really think too far ahead though, generally - I am too busy enjoying the moment! :)

I have more photos to come - quite a few of Benjamin, and I need to also post a catch-up photo post very soon about our trip to the beach, which we took the very next day after Benjamin's birthday! It was perfect weather and we just piled them all into the car and DID it! It was a lovely day, and I took lots of photos, which I'll post very soon! :)