Rocky Point, Mexico

While my mother was still in town visiting, we decided to take a weekend and all of us head to Rocky Point, Mexico. For those of you back in Ontario - we went on a weekend in November when it was blizzarding there :) We had am amazing time and can't believe we've never been before. It's only a 4hr drive from here so we will be returning frequently!! The 1st picture is the view of the resort from the balcony of our 2 bedroom condo. The rest are pictures at the mostly secluded beach.

Learning to swing

I had to add 1 more post from our trip to Canada. This is Benjamin learning to swing from his cousins - Joel & Julia.

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Trip to Canada - Sept 2008

For the last 2.5 weeks in September, Benjamin and I enjoyed the beautiful Ontario weather!! Once again he spent the weekdays playing with Grandma in London while I worked in Waterloo. On weekends all the family then came together for playtime! This 1st post is of some of his activities with Grandma and the following 3 posts are of the weekends.
Benjamin found this flier and would not put it down. He just brought it around the house reading it.
Unfortunately the humidity made it hard for Benjamin's breathing. He struggled with his asthma while there and had me making an emergency trip back to London mid week to help get it under control.

Aunt Carolyn's Birthday

I won't mention what age my little sis is now, but we were lucky enough to be there to celebrate her birthday with her!!! Benjamin even made a present for her. And although Benjamin wasn't able to eat the cake, he definitely enjoyed the ice cream!

Playing with the Kambulow's

All 3 weekends that we were in Canada were filled with playtime with my Brother's family. Benjamin just loved playing with Uncle Edward, Aunt Jen and his older cousins.

Benjamin carefully watching Jonathon & Joel on their bike and scooter. Once Joel left the scooter, Benjamin went right over to it and tried to pick it up so he could ride it like his big cousin did (he needs to be a bit taller & stronger to accomplish that!) Julia and Benjamin went to play group together during the week.
Joel & Julia are teaching Benjamin the word "ball'. Those kids have a lot more patience with getting him to speak than I do :) Benjamin's new way of swinging - also thanks to his cousins.

Visiting the Buhler's

Once again Benjamin and I spent our 1st weekend in Canada at my sister's (Carolyn) and brother-in-law's (Nathan) place in Toronto. This visit was very different than the last visit as it involved no working and lots of playing!!!

Bye bye curls

Before (well about a month before):
After:

New Hampshire Trip

For 1 week in August we got to leave our triple digit weather and head to cooler weather!! It did rain (every single day) but it was such a wonderful change (well at least the 1st few days it was enjoyable...). Sams parents rented a beautiful 5 bedroom condo and we spent time visiting with them, his brother, his grandma as well as his aunt & uncle and their 2 boys.

The whole clan:
Four generations:

Cuddling with Nana:
Hiking with Uncle Chris & Dad (and mom!! I was just taking the picture, obviously)
Day at the beach (Benjamin had no problem with the weather and going in, it was just his parents that were freezing...)
Teaching Dad how to play:

Hiking with Dad

At the end of July, Sam and a friend of his took the kids up north into the mountains for some biking (the kids were in trailors attached to the bikes) and hiking. I enjoyed my day off by cleaning and organizing the house :)

Escape

Once again - no pictures, just a status update. However this time it's on Benjamins latest accomplishment. Saturday he decided to only nap for a little over 1 hr (he is usally 2.5 to 4 hrs). And since I wasn't going in to get him - he decided to come to me. Somehow my 1.5 year old managed to climb out of his crib in his sleep sack and walk to the door and out into the hallway to bellow for me. I'm really hoping this was just a 1 time abnormality as I'm not ready to give up on the crib.

Breathing treatment

It has been a little less than 72 hrs since my last post and Benjamin has improved drastically. The day after the last post (Tuesday afternoon) we went to see his pediatrician and he was still really struggling with breathing so she wanted to admit him. However, she gave him another steroid shot & another breathing treatment - and then got to witness the 'craziness'. For those of you who know Benjamin, you see that he has some extra energy :) Well, this breathing drug intensified that - by 100%. After the treatment he was running up and down the hallways at the doctors office (and I mean running) for 15 min straight. Proceeding to then try to jump off the walls. But at least he was happy :) So when the doctor checked his breathing again, he was still wheezing -but she now understood some of the reason why. We were then sent home with a new drug that we were to continue giving 3 to 4 hours until we returned Wednesday morning. It is now Thursday night, Benjamin doesn't wheeze at all while he is asleep and we only do the nebulizer 3 times during the day. While he is happy after the nebulizer, he is calm (well, Benjamin calm). He does get prednisone every morning for 5 days and unfortunately that seems to upset his stomach and make him puke. We return to the doctor Tuesday and hopefully he can get a clean bill of health and we will be finished with all of this.

Our sick boy

Well it's 11:20pm here (way past my bedtime!!) and I'm running on 6 hrs of sleep from last night (also way under my required sleep!) so we are about to discover if i really should have stayed off the blog. I am currently counting down the time to give Benjamin his next breathing treatment, at midnight, so I thought I would update the blog. No pictures, just a status update. Benjamin is sick (bronchiolitis & asthma it looks like) and is having the hardest time breathing. We got to take him to urgent care today where they stuck him on a machine and gave him a nice big shot of steroids. The 2 20 min episodes of the 'face mask' breathing were torture - I think on me the most! I know Benjamin will not remember us pinning him to keep from moving while I held the mask on his face, but I won't forget the tears streaming down his face as he stared at me bawling. But yet - there was definitely a silver lining to that dark cloud. After each treatment we could see and hear him breathe just a little bit easier and then partially due to being 'let go' and the side effects of the drugs, he would become an extremely goofy/funny child just grinning at us and making us laugh. We were told that some children get tired after a treatment, others hyper. Ours definitely took the hyper route (surprise, surprise). Unfortunately the treatment wasn't as effective as they hoped so we now own our own breathing machine. We get to repeat the treatment every 4 hours for the next 48 hours and then slowly increase the time interval for the next week. I also get to spend the next 2 nights sleeping right outside of Benjamin's open door making sure he keeps breathing. I never knew how peaceful and relaxing it could be to just listen to a child's breath go in & out. I know I should be sleeping while he sleeps, and I'm hoping I will during the next sleep interval, but this one I just wanted to hear him breathe. And then when the urge to go in and hold him got too strong, I came in here to write so that at least he could get his sleep. My son isn't 1 of those that will sleep in my arms. He prefers to make faces at me or try to tickle :) Plus I'll be waking him up in 30 mins anyway so that Sam can pin his arms, and hold his head still while I watch him cry & scream and hold the face mask on so that he breathes in his medicine. But AFTER that, we will laugh and he will cuddle, and life will be just perfect.

Bens 1st Flight with Daddy

We took Benjamin up on a short plane ride with Sam flying over the weekend. It was a trial run so that later in the summer we can do a longer flight to San Diego. Benjamin did great with the noise & the heat. Mommy...didn't fare so well. The heat and the constant turning around to make sure Benjamin was okay in the back made me quite nauseous. We will definitely have to wait for a little cooler weather before we do San Diego.

At the end of the flight we always have to do a quick wash/wipe down of some parts of the plane. Benjamin saw us working and decided he was going to help out so he pulled out a rag from the bin and climbed up the ladder!

Swimming

The following video is what Daddy and Benjamin (and Maully) do in the evenings while Mommy washes dishes.

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Growing Up

A friend sent me a picture of Benjamin from a play date nearly 1 year ago. It's always such a shock to see how much he has changed in the last year. He just had his 15 month checkup and he weighed in at 25lbs-2 oz (60th percentile) and 33" tall (90th percentile). So in between the 'comparison' shots he has gained about 4 lbs and grown nearly 5". He has also changed hair color and obtained a very active personality. So far we've had a chipped tooth, fat lip, a near black eye and lots of scrapes all over. But seeing how his favorite pasttimes are running at full tilt, tackling the dog, climbing up and then off of everything, racing to go down slides forwards, backwards, standing up, on his stomach....and not caring if someone is at the end to catch him, we are expecting a lot more injuries in the future. And with his full blown temper tantrums already at 15 months....I'm a little wary as to what the 'terrible twos' are going to hold for us. But he laughs and giggles as often and as loud as he screams, and after a 'time out' in the crib for misbehaving he will happily cuddle with you to tell you how sorry he was. In fact, I think it's nearly the only time you can get him to stay still for a minute :)

Julia's Visit

Benjamin's 5 year old cousin Julia came out with Grandma for a 1.5 week visit. Benjamin loved having an older child to copy and play with, and I loved having the help with keeping him amused! We had a very full visit with trips to splash parks, zoos, pottery painting, indoor amusement parks, miniature golf and crafts at home. We took an abundance of pictures (of course!) so I did my best to narrow it down to just a few (well less than 10) for the blog.