14/15 Month stats and well baby

We moved Nugget's 15 month well baby up as it was scheduled for the end of November.  After much persuading and mentioning our friend Charlotte had done the same, they agreed to move up his vaccinations.  He is a little shy on # of words for 15 months but they wouldn't say just how many he should have.  He also does not point adequately to request things and apparently crawling to said item and placing it in my lap does not count.  His very clear tantrums and screaming when he doesn't get what he wants also did not impress the PA.  I told her he was adept at communicating his needs and wants as far as I was concerned.  She also told me to hold out hope he might still walk by 15 months.  Am i worried?
Anyway, his 14 month stats are very similar to previous stats in terms of percentiles.  In the chaos of our lives right now, I did forget the camera so no nakey baby pic this month but I promise to make up for it before 18 months.


Stats:
24 lbs 12 oz = 61% weight
30 in. = 27% height
46 3/4 cm head = 45%


So...holding steady and already has a good shooting rhythm down if things don't change in the height department. Nugget Heimer could be the next Spud Webb and a mexican point guard named Heimer has ESPN special written all over it!!  


I love you Nugget!! Just the way you are!

Denver Nugget

It turns out "Nugget" was a more apt nickname than we knew when Tante picked it.  Ben will soon be a Denver Nugget!!

Here is the email we sent to family and friends:

Dearest friends and family,
 
Yes, that's right, it looks like Ben will be a Denver Nugget afterall!!! Ryan has accepted a job with Sierra Nevada Corp. in Centennial and the Heimers will be moving home to Denver asap.  Ryan will start work there Nov.1, and Jess and Ben will follow soon after.  We have been anticipating this move for several weeks but waiting on some clearances for Ryan to give notice and make our move official.  We have been working feverishly day and night to finish several house projects and are facing the common dilemma of everything finally being perfect just in time to leave.  We are sad to leave the wonderful friends we've made in Wichita and our wonderful neighbors and neighborhood. We regret not having the time to get to tell everyone we are leaving in person but hope to get to say goodbye to most.  We are, however, very excited to settle in Denver for the long term surrounded by our families and life-long friends.  We will do our best to answer questions amid the craziness and will try to arrange a final get together in Wichita.

With love,
Ryan, Jess, Ben, Anna & Luke

My hope was to post a picture of Ben holding the Denver Nuggets basketball his Dad brought back from an interview a couple months ago, but if you teach a boy to throw the ball.......
 

14 Months

Our little man celebrated 14 months yesterday with relative uneventfulness.  Nana Pat was here to help me paint the master bath and Ben was a champ for two days as we traded off painting and entertaining him.  I will attempt a quick update of any changes in the last month.

Ben does have two more teeth starting their ascent (in this case) to make the count currently coming in 8, and the total count approaching 18!! He officially has the teeth of a 24 month old, but as I've said before, let's just get em done.

There is still no walking but lots of standing and lots of pushing from Ryan and I to take a step or two.  The Grouchy Ladybug has returned to the top spot on Ben's Billboard Book charts and when attempts are made to read any other book, Ben flails himself out of the rocker in protest and searches until he finds the ladybug.  There have been many two nap days lately and this week it seems he sleeps longer during the day and at night with two naps.  I resolved long ago that the nap mystery is one I may never solve.

The dryer is still Ben's favorite babysitter and Jelly still his best friend.  The excitement and love Ben feels for that little tiger brings tears of joy to my eyes.  Though Jelly almost exclusively lives in the crib, he spent some tome in the family room last night and Ben was rolling and laughing and hugging him like a giddy school girl.

Ben loves to examine every part of every toy and even some household things. He is very much trained that buttons being pushed usually emit noise or lights and on one new toy tries over and over hoping the button that isn't one at all might magically light up.  For this reason I would say his fine motor skills are honed, but that this mama might need to focus a bit on the larger toys and gross motor skills.

Ben has also recently discovered all the joys of the bathroom including "water play" and unrolling ALL the toilet paper.  I made the toilet paper mistake thinking he was safe in the powder room if the toilet lid was closed. Ha!
In other baby-proofing of late, there is now nothing safe on the coffee table.  If it is there, it is fair game to be thrown, chewed, or both.  The high mantel and higher side table are being overwhelmed with stuff and I need to take another group of things to storage in the basement for a year or so.

The physical stats update comes at 15 months.  Until then.......

Loss, Health and Inspiration

This week started with the Heimer house in a somber mood after some sad events around our country.  Indy Car driver Dan Wheldon was killed Sunday at the Las Vegas Indy 300 in one of the worst crashes many seasoned drivers have ever seen.  Although Dan was always in the Indy circuit rather than Champ Car where Ryan worked, many of our friends have been deeply affected by this loss and knew Dan and his family well.  As a fan, I watched so many horrific things happen that the drivers always walked away from unscathed.  As the minutes ticked by Sunday it was a powerful reminder of how truly dangerous this sport is.  Hours have not passed since Sunday that I haven't thought about Dan's family and two young sons and I pray they all find peace knowing their Dad died doing what he loved.

Monday morning one of my personal heroes, Guiliana Rancic announced that breast cancer was discovered amid her undergoing infertility treatments.  Guiliana is an eNews anchor and star of a reality show that chronicles her life with her husband Bill and their struggles to become parents.  She has become a hero to me because unlike many celebs that put off having children until their late thirties and forties and miraculously have twins "with no help," she is being honest with the world about her struggle and the very real downside of waiting.  I am confident she has become a hero to many and she has lots of prayers behind her as she fights this battle.  When a friend asked what they could do to help, Guiliana said, "take time for yourself and your health."

So, my dear Nugget, as you come across this post as you grow, I hope it is a reminder to spend time being grateful for the ones you love and to set aside life in honor of your health-no excuses!  I know I currently am not the best example of putting down the to-do list, but I'm trying and hope this post will be a reminder to me to do just that.

Monkey Back

That's right, it's not a monkey on my back, but this Monday morning, I got my Monkey back!! Ben awoke from his nap Friday with a slight fever acting not at all like himself.  My first thought was teeth but he also pulled at his ears a bit throughout the weekend making me wonder if that wasn't the culprit.  At many moments he was completely inconsolable and there were many incidences of him playing happily one minute and overcome with tears the next.  He refused to eat much and at times even refused his milk.  Sleep Friday night and Saturday were troubled at best.  Amidst all this, Grandpa Jim flew in to help with some house projects so silence for naptime was hard to come by.  But this morning after 11 straight hours of sleep, my Monkeypants awoke like himself.  

Well, I started this post this morning and lunch was not normal as Ben again refused to eat but seems exhausted.  We had a nice run in the crisp fall air this morning so that surely made him extra sleepy.  We will see how the afternoon goes and either way I'm glad we're on the path to Monkeypants Smileyface.  I'm off to paint while the painting's good.

Monkeypants Messyhair

Wings in the morning-just like Dad.

Ben's Post #2

LKMZ v ĩuey

klg,f lZlzf¨≈Ωpppz-

Ben could not be entertained by his office toys tonight while I tried to send an email so I gave him a minute to type out his own thoughts.  By the time he was done with what's above, a window popped up asking if i was sure I wanted to reset my computer's encryption??  Between that and the mystery characters above, perhaps Nugget is part computer genius??

Art

As you know if you've read much of this blog, or know me,  I love taking pictures of Ben.  Well, I love taking pictures. period.  I have taken a few classes and tried to take a little time here and there to learn my camera better.  Still, some of my favorite pictures that I have taken were before the SLR.  Ryan is a great amatuer photographer and though I get frustrated by how much he knows in terms of how our camera works, photography is a shared passion that brings us together.  The decent skills we share between us is a huge part of why we haven't had more professional pictures of Ben taken.  With limited financial resources we always wonder whether the professional pictures will be better enough to justify the cost and become a financial priority for us.  The ones we had taken recently were a bargain by any standard and we do appreciate the different perspective.
Ryan also compliments my photography to others which means the world to me.  As relationships grow and get busy, little things like that mean more and more.  You reading, honey??
Several of my friends love taking pictures too and also have SLR's.  They have different passions and skill levels but it brings us all together.  In my mommy world, photography often takes center stage and several of our friends are also professional photographers.  The non-professionals among us deliberate over who we might choose to capture our kids and families, trade links of "amazing" photographers we live far away from or could never afford, and as with too many things in mommy-land, criticize others for their choices.  What's worse than this mommy-land criticism is the criticism among the photographers.  They laugh at and belittle each other and say very hurtful things about other peoples art.   I am not writing this claiming to have never done the same, but maybe we all need to take a step back for some perspective.  First, most of what we are judging are people's families....the ones they love as much as we love ours and who are we to judge them for wanting to capture a moment in their own family story.  Second, what's affordable or within reach to one might never be considered by another.  I am confident a $40 package at K-Mart is just as endeared by a mom in Springfield as a $4000 shoot by a mom in LA.  Finally, and here the edges blur, photography is art.  I will be the first to say that while fulfilling an important need, lots of mall-run photography studios are not producing art.  As for the professional photographers with studios or shooting clients in parks or neat locales around the world, to them their craft is most often art.  If anything these professionals should applaud one another for making a living or attempting to while doing what they love.
So the pics that prompted this post are below.  From any skills perspective they belong in the trash.  Again the lines of art blur when we are talking about pictures of people we love.  Art or not, I love these.    I love the subject and how the light reminds me of the sunshine of the day.
So, I'll vow here to take a step back and be a little less critical and think about the art of it all.  You with me?

Inspiration

Yesterday the world said goodbye to Apple founder Steve Jobs.  While I have long been a "Mac" girl and proponent of all things Apple, Steve inspired my life in a surprising way.  For some reason when you start exploring the possibility of adoption, you come across all these lists of famous and influential people who were adopted.  I guess an attempt to relieve worry, but let me tell you, it works!  I can tell you that each time I came across those lists-I was comforted-and no name on those lists brought me more comfort than Steve Jobs.  It's not that I doubted for a minute what any child of mine could become, but along with all those lists of famous people come throngs of naysayers and anti-adoption advocates that it is hard to completely tune out.  Steve, for me, was the example that my little something really could become anything and could change the world in countless ways if that's what the little something was meant to do.  Thank you Steve Jobs for being an inspiration to me and to the world.  The "dent" you wanted to leave on the world is a pretty big one.

Sweet Surprises and Oenghus Mac Og

In addition to having a great time at a bridal shower Sunday, I got another sweet surprise.....sort of.  My mom informed me that she and Molly had been planning a surprise visit for this coming weekend.  They decided when Molly left at labor day that they couldn't wait until Turkey Day to see us  Ben again and worked with Ryan to plan a trip.  As my dear hair stylist and friend said yesterday, "we make plans and then God laughs."

Well, my poor dog brother Oenghus (Angus) found a delightful treat of underwear and corn cob and spent last thursday-monday in the pup hospital.  After major surgery, a blood clot during said surgery and 3 feet of intestine being removed he is miraculously at home and on the mend.  I can tell you there were lots of pup prayers coming from this house last weekend!  So the trip will wait for a better time and maybe we'll have to go west.  I'll agree Turkey Day seems far away and as we don't plan to be home until Christmas, I wouldn't mind a breath of crisp mountain air or even polluted big city noisy air for that matter.

Pup Oenghus

Tot Tuesday Begins Again

Now that school is back in session, so begins another year of Tot Tuesday's at the Humane Society.  Once a month they host tots from tiny to pre-k for story time, an activity, and a visit with the animals.  I will share my disappointment but also say any nearly free opportunity for Ben to be with other kiddos and explore a new place is a blessing.  The first book read was a tiny board book that was hard for the big group to see.  The second big book was read by a kind woman almost exclusively to the girl right in front of her and at a barely audible level.  I wanted to grab it from her hands and say, "this is how you read a story to a room full of kids!!"

Ben quickly headed for the door when the stories were done as I wasn't going to let him dive into the peanut butter involved project.  As with many others we attempt, this activity will be better with age but we'll keep going for the kiddo and pup interactions.

 

Don't be fooled into thinking he sat like this for the stories.

Dog treat activity

 

Outta Here!

Ben's favorite little tripod Chihuahua.  He still loves the little pups best.

 

He loved the ceiling fans, black shag rug, and metal hand sanitizer stand more than any animal.

Guests, Giggles and Gates

Guests

Our good friends from Colorado Cole and Amy, and daughters Grace and Sara drove in Thursday night to spend the weekend with us.  Ryan has known Cole since 5th grade and attended CSU with both Cole and Amy.  I remember Amy having a line-up of girls waiting in the wings for Ryan when we first met and him repeatedly saying, "no. not yet.  this one might be good :)"  We had an amazing weekend that all started with staying up way too late Thursday night.  Friday we went to Tanganyika Wildlife Park followed by relaxing with wine, tapas and pizza.  

Amy being attacked by Lorikeets.  One is about to dive into her purse.

The girls feeding the rhino

Grace with the lemurs.

 

Ben's sleep and nap schedules were way off and he woke up every morning way too early.  We did get him to "take a nap" in our bed Saturday morning from 5-730 which left barely an hour for the whole family to get ready for Ben's first professional photo shoot at 9-yikes!  Grace and Sara had their pics taken right after and photographer Amber Dawn was nice enough to take a couple family shots and a couple of all of us.  Next was playing at Riverside Park for almost 2 hours.  They have a mini-zoo at this park and the girls quickly quipped, "can we feed the animals?,"  after being spoiled by Tanganyika the day before.  Amy commented, "you do realize no zoo will ever be the same?"

After the park we headed to lunch at the Old Mill Tasty Shop downtown.  It is a Wichita landmark I had still never been too and Grace and Sara had a great time sitting at the counter while their ice cream sundaes were prepared.  All the food was delicious and I don't remember the last time I had a chocolate ice cream soda-yum!

Ben loved this and held on several times. Eeek! says the Mama.

Amy and Grace getting Sara to pose for the photog.

Oh how I love big wet baby kissies!!

 

 

Silly girls

Ben and I took the afternoon off so he could get a quality nap in and sent everyone to the YMCA to swim.  They were gone for hours and returned exhausted so I would venture to say it was successful.  

Al fresco lakeside dinner at Felipes with the boys enjoying a Flaming Consuela was the perfect close to a very fun weekend.  Our guests departed Sunday morning after breakfast and we can all take credit for another successful weekend of making memories to fill the miles while we live apart.

Grace proud of her CU puzzle.  Go buffs!

Giggles

Grace and Sara have always been so fun but five and six year old girls really do say some hilarious things!!  Grace's concern for her dogs Anna and Luke and what they were doing every minute was adorable.  I guess both my favorite quotes of the weekend came from Sara......

I was clapping after one of her many guitar and singing sessions and told her what an amazing job she did.  "I know, I am amazing.  I knew when I was born that I was going to be a famous singer."

My other favorite was told by Cole and Amy as they were playing a question card game on the trip out.  One question read, "What are the 3 things you dislike most?"  Sara's response, "Being in this car right now!"  Sara thought the trip was unbearably long and I don't blame her.

Oh wait, there was also Grace describing the "wrestling" tortoises at Tanganyika.  When Ryan asked her who was winning she said, "the one on top," with a very "isn't it obvious" tone.

Gates

As I was chatting with Amy on the phone after their departure Sunday, Ben started up the steps in the entry as he often does but this time he didn't stop!! I yelled to Amy, "oh my god! Ben is crawling up the stairs.  I have to go."  Amy laughed evilly and said, "have fun with that one."  He later made it all the way up chasing after Ryan but has absolutely no sense not to pause for a rest and fall down the stairs (if I wasn't right behind him.) Today has been a little different as he's gone up two and down two over and over.  Down is just as important so I'll let him explore as he wants.  It is a whole other level of chasing for Ryan and I and gates are priority numero uno this week.