Well Wouldja Look at That

So we've moved onto 'Plan B' of sleep training which turns out, is the same thing we were doing. Benji's cry-it-out has been cut back to about 20 minutes with 2 or 3 incidents in the middle of the night. He is still protesting by collapsing face down into his mattress which I am 100% sure is a 9 month old's "F you, mom." The SIDS thing has been terrorizing me since the day he was born and he can smell the fear like a bee (or probably something stronger like a tiger~ do they smell fear?).

1. Face down in the plush thing in his crib. He really doesn't like plush toys that much (probably because I don't give him many since Gus also enjoys plush things) and he NEVER has shown interest until this cry thing. He pets the white fuzzy thing (its a sheep) while in hysterics so against my better judgement and the current safety stance on items in a crib, I left it in to soothe him...then he put his face in it.

2. Collapsing in exhaustion (sideways) with the little arm dangling through the cage (to show me he was reaching out for me) face down and drenched in sweat (I'm going to go ahead and make the educated assumption that he inherited hyper-hydrosis from Funcle Patrick).

3. Face down in the fuzz mid-stroke. At least he was self-soothing~ I told you he likes to pet this guy. Also, the quilt is strategically in the crib because he also likes to grab onto the fringe. Grancy (Grandma Nancy) made a multi-purpose quilt!

4. Once again soaked in sweat. After 2 weeks of crying, he and the sheep have obviously become very close. That orange guy is called Eebee (google it) and is in the crib to escape the pup (his purple hair is irresistible for Gus).

Day 14 (last night) the tiny glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel grew a little bit bigger. At about 8:00, Benji took his bottle and fell asleep on the last few drops. I moved him to his crib and he stayed asleep.... until 3 am!!! He has not slept that many hours since he was like 2 months old! Then he cried for about 15 minutes and was back out until 6:45. He nursed a little bit and fell back asleep! THANK YOU BANJO! THIS is something we can work with. I'm curious to see how tonight goes. I'm praying it's not a fluke but I have a strong feeling the crash had to do with late dinner, heat, swimming, sweat, fireworks, heat, staying up until 10:30, sweat, no nap, heat, barbeque, sweat, baby pool, heat fireworks.... what a weekend. Maybe 'Plan C' should be to beef up our social calendar. Apparently we aren't busy enough on an everyday basis to wear him out!

He's probably also worn out from the excessive amount of "Bu-bye's" that he has had me spitting at him lately. It's pretty amusing to see a mini-person respond appropriately to a command so I obviously have to try to get him to do tricks 5,000 times a day. Our first basic trick is the no-no. He has been shaking his head for a few months now but he recently started associating it with the word 'no' (he doesn't grasp the 'no' concept, he just knows that sound goes with the action). He hears a 'no' in casual conversation and he shakes away.

*disclaimer: I sound so annoying in these videos but I'm taking one for the team here and throwing myself under the bus for Benji

The more advanced action is the bu-bye. It started in the mirror, only waving to himself and morphed into a backwards open and close (more of a 'come here') action but its still cute. I think he's a little jacked up with whether this goes with "bu-bye" or "hi." He's also missed the boat on people coming and going because he likes to stare at the person trying to get him to perform, then wait for them to give up and turn around to do it over and over and over.

He also is distinguishing a particular 'duh' for 'Gus' which he did not comply with on camera. It's a raspier, deeper sounding 'duh' than the other 'da da da's.'

And here is a combo video of tricks. Apparently Matt will be teaching sit and roll over soon.

Obviously "yay!" with clapping is my next trick to teach. Those are going to be some SUPER annoying videos of my voice. And while we're on visuals, here are Benji's teeth. I needed to capture them before he gets too many more. 1 tooth on a baby is funny and cute.

In case you were wondering, Benji has more than 1 shirt. I need a smart phone so I can make videos more sporadically instead of trying to get my show pony to do all his tricks in one day for the camera.

To relax from all of the exhausting waving Benji has been doing, he got to go swimming for the first time! We have a little baby pool and he has been really digging the bath lately so I had a feeling he would love being in a real pool. I am so smart.

He LOVED swimming (notice all of the 'bu-byes' coming from the floatie). The kid has not learned fear (not good for mamma) and he thinks he is a dolphin. He tried to climb out of his life raft a few times so I held him and then he tried to climb out of my arms. He also had no problem getting dunked (hold the CPS phone, I didn't dunk him, but he did go all the way under). Whoever wants to invite us to the pool, we are accepting offers. Matt seems to think installing our own isn't in the budget for a sheriff's deputy so we would also gladly accept monetary donations for the "make benji's life better and feel good about yourself for bringing out the smiles pictured above by contributing to our pool" fund.

Thanks in advance for your support, he's working on the "yay's!" to thank you.