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! :)