Weekend, Names & Babies

So many things to talk about.

This past Saturday, we went to visit my in-laws to help celebrate my mother-in-law's birthday. This was Benjamin & Ella's first trip to Tacoma and their longest car ride yet. We headed down south about a couple hours before the Seahawks game to avoid the traffic, and luckily, we did avoid the traffic (yay, the Seahawks won). We didn’t avoid the rain though. The ride back home was a lot better – no rain! I thought we were going down there for just a small thing with his parents, but Jon’s mom invited over all these people so they could meet Benjamin & Ella. One person, my sister-in-law’s biological grandmother, looks like one of the ladies in my vanpool. We had a good time talking to all these people. We occasionally checked on the score of the game. The babies did quite well on their first trip to Tacoma. Their first trip to Spokane might be around Easter weekend as I have Good Friday off, but it depends on whether Jon can get the time off and what the weather is like. I hope to take off that Monday too so we can have a little bit longer trip to be able to see everyone.

The next topic – baby names. I got an e-mail listing the top 100 baby names of 2007. I had looked at a list last week and it seems each list I’ve seen is different stats as Benjamin and Ella’s ranking in the top names are very different depending on what list you look at. In this one, Ella is #16 and Benjamin is #34 (in the other one I remember looking at – Ella was #21 and Benjamin was #24) – so they’re popular names, but not in the top 10, so yay! Another part of the e-mail was talking about celebrity baby names. Most seem o.k. to me, but Heaven and Princess and Alabama?

And now more on my own babies…

Ella LOVES to play with tags – they are just so yummy to gnaw on. Mmmm – tags. Silly Ella! Ella also loves to play with whatever toy Benjamin is playing with. It does not matter if she already has the same toy in her hands - she must have the toy Benjamin is having because it looks like a lot more fun. They are just (nearly) 7 months and it’s already starting. However, Ella can sometimes be easily distracted – you put a new toy in front of her that wasn’t there before, and she must put down the toy she has and play with that one you just put in front of her. Ella has been sleeping a lot with her hands underneath her head – as if she’s using her hands as a pillow. I wish I could give her a pillow to use, but that’s against the rules. At what point can they have a pillow? And speaking of things I’ve been meaning to look up – at what point can they have juice?

When Benjamin gets a toy, he likes to bang on his side like a tambourine. When I’ve put Benjamin on his tummy for tummy time, he just rolls over. He seems to have no interest in staying on his tummy for too long. When I’ve tried to get him to sit up (Ella is doing very well with sitting up on her own), he just leans forward and gets frustrated that he can’t get back up. He is still doing a lot of talking – he has so many stories to tell. Sometimes, he does sound like he’s singing – so cute. Jon was telling me that when Benjamin gets kisses sometimes, he’ll turn toward the kiss on his cheek, rolls his eyes and looks to the side, and gives a bashful grin. :-D

This morning, both babies were awake when I left. I got them changed and ready for their breakfast before I had to go to work. How I wish I didn’t have to go. They looked up at me with such cute little faces – it was so difficult to leave but the guy in my vanpool was waiting for me (I’ve got someone picking me up to take me to the vanpool when he’s in the vanpool – that has been so nice. It will suck when he’s on vacation and I have to go back to the bus during that time. It’s been nice having that extra time with the babies).