Hazel’s first Thanksgiving

We have so much to be thankful for this year. Thanksgiving is becoming one of my favorite holidays- it marks the beginning of the holiday season and brings people together without the pressure of exchanging gifts. I like the sentiment behind Thanksgiving- that we come together as families and pause to reflect on what is most important in our lives. This year it’s pretty obvious what we are most thankful for. Our little family has given us more to be thankful for than we might have imagined.
We were planning to go to Alabama to be with my dad’s family for the holiday, but we weren’t able to find a rental van and Jered only had Wednesday-Sunday off so we didn’t have much time to make the trip even if we had been able to find a van. I spent yesterday and today over at my mom’s house getting ready for today’s meal. We prepared quite a spread- turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, roasted root veggies, green bean casserole, three pies and a cranberry trifle. I’m exhausted from all the cooking and baking but it was all worth it.
We spent our Thanksgiving holiday with my mom’s friend Paul and his family. It was a challenge to feed 12 adults, but we managed to pull it off and still have leftovers! As a special treat for Hazel I baked her her very own sweet potato- I kept it separate so that it wouldn’t have any salt/sugar/oil or spices on it and pureed it up with a bit of her usual favorite meal- milk. We fed her the sweet potato after we had all finished eating and she seemed to like it, but didn’t really enjoy that it was much thicker than her usual milk or even the thin rice cereal we have given her a few times. She ate a few teaspoons and managed to wear more of the sweet potato on her face and chin than she actually ate. We have video of the very orange meal that we’ll post over the weekend. We’ve also taken some more pictures of Hazel over the last week or so. She is getting so close to crawling and is also practicing standing (supported, of course). We managed to snap a picture of her today holding on to our hands as she tried standing up on her own. Our girl is growing and changing so fast. It seems like just yesterday she was a gassy, sleepy newborn. Now she’s a curious, chatty, funny and active little kid. She is even starting to grow some hair on that little head of hers. There may be enough on her head to put a bow on her at Christmas but I’m not holding my breath.
We hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. We’re so thankful to have all of you in our lives- Happy Thanksgiving!

What was that?

Jered and I have contemplated wearing ear plugs around the house lately. Hazel remembered that she knows how to squeal and she delights in doing it as loudly as is humanly possible for a 23 week old baby. She’s had a very chatty weekend- squealing, gurgling, cooing, gaaaing and growling. The growling thing is my fault. Last week I thought it would be funny to teach her how to growl and roar like a lion/bear/other big furry noise-making animal. I also thought it would be funny to occasionally arrrrrgh like a pirate. I thought she didn’t notice and I was wrong. I am learning that Hazel picks up more than she lets on and just when I think she’s been completely oblivious to something she will suddenly show us that she has been watching and learning all along. Case in point- I go in to get Hazel Saturday morning and she’s growling and aaaarghing and roaring like a bear/pirate/lion and she is absolutely loving it. This is made even more hilarious by the fact that while she is growling she stares intently at one of her hands as she deliberately flicks her wrist back and forth and side to side while moving each finger in a wave-like motion. I have no idea what this hand/wrist flick finger wave thing is, but she is absolutely fascinated by it. Needless to say, we’ve had a highly entertaining weekend! I’m uploading a bunch of videos from the past week and will post them to the blog over the next few days. For today I’ll post a video of Hazel blowing bubbles on one of her balls. She’s a ham!

Hmmm…. from esther benoit on Vimeo.

Hazel might be… shy?!

We hosted our first play date yesterday and it was great. Hazel made a new friend and enjoyed meeting someone her age. It was great watching Hazel and Nora play together- they are only 4 days apart and both got a kick out of smiling at each other. Hazel has always been outgoing and vocal, but she was actually a little shy at first which totally surprised me. She wasn’t too sure about what she should do at first- whereas Nora was super excited and jumped right in, touching and grabbing Hazel’s face and hands.
It was really neat to see Hazel with another baby her age- the other kids we have been around have been much older, most of them walking and talking- playing with Nora was much more her speed! Here is a video of the two girls having some tummy time together- as you can hear both of us moms were pretty darn excited!

Hazel and Nora from esther benoit on Vimeo.

Play dates

Tomorrow Hazel and I are hosting our first play date. There are two other moms coming over with their 5-6 month old baby girls. In August I joined a local mother’s group- Peninsula Mommies. Since August I’ve attended a few events, most recently a babywearing event at the mall. Most of the mom’s in the group have older babies, but I have finally been able to meet a couple of moms with younger children. I’m excited to host a play date, especially since the other babies are Hazel’s age. She loves looking at pictures of babies and she really enjoyed the baby wearing event at the mall on Tuesday- she could look at other babies and toddlers for hours without getting bored. Not only will it be fun for Hazel to have other babies to “play” with, it will also be nice for me to meet some other mothers with young babies. I’ll give an update of the play date on Friday.

I have no new pictures of Hazel to share with you today, but I do have a picture of the cute shopping cart cover that I ordered from Goose Hill Designs. The cover is on its way and I can’t wait to try it out with Hazel at the grocery store this weekend! This is a nice alternative to always schlepping the car seat/carrier into the grocery store- especially since we will eventually be moving up to a car seat that can’t be carried out of the car!

Weekend Update

It’s another lazy Sunday morning at the Benoit household so we thought we’d do a little blog update about the past week. Things around here have been pretty busy and exciting lately- Hazel has been busy working on all sorts of important life skills, namely sitting up, trying to crawl and cutting her first tooth.

She loves to spend time on a blanket without a diaper or an outfit- she loves to move around, rolling and trying to crawl and it’s much easier when she doesn’t have a big ol’ diaper to restrict her movement. We try to keep a cloth diaper underneath her so that we don’t end up with a wet blanket. This is not always a successful endeavor!

Our sleep schedule has been somewhat interrupted for a while now- maybe two weeks. Hazel has been waking up in the middle of the night to have a little snack almost every night. We think this is partly because she is starting to teethe- her bottom right tooth is poking through just a little bit and the bottom front left tooth looks to be on its way as well! As if teething weren’t enough discomfort for Hazel to go through, she also seems to be going through another growth spurt. She’s learning to sit up all on her own and we’ve read that that takes quite a bit of work- physically and mentally!
Here are a few pictures of Hazel sitting up and playing with some of her favorite toys. She’s wearing a fabulous new outfit that her Aunt Joanna and Uncle Matt sent her. Isn’t she stylish?

She is starting to really get the hang of sitting up unassisted- she seems to love the view. Hazel loves squirming and wiggling around constantly now. When I went up to get her from her nap a few days ago she had managed to wiggle her arm out of her sleeve. She is constantly on the move!

This week we got a new recliner and decided to rearrange the furniture in our living room. This has been a 3-4 day process because we had to rewire all the electronics and spackle and paint over the holes left by the art we had hanging up. Jered did most of the work and he did a fantastic job. Our living room looks so much better now and the entertainment center is all ready for our next movie night. Clayton got to come and try out our new set up last night. He watched Hazel for us while Jered and I went out to catch the latest Bond flick. We’ve decided that once a month we are going to try and go out on a date in the evenings. Hazel goes to bed around 7 and then sleeps through until at least 3 or 4 am so babysitting for us in the evenings is pretty much the easiest money a teenager could earn! It was nice to get out, just the two of us, and reminded us that we need to make time more often to get out on dates!
Here are a few shots of Hazel- in this first one she is trying out our new recliner- remote control and all. I think she approves.

In this one, she’s wearing our slippers- they are still a little big for her feet.

These next pictures were taken this morning- we love our lazy Sunday mornings!

Another video update

Here are a few more of the videos we recently uploaded. I have a couple more along with about 75 new pictures I plan to upload over the weekend. We recently bought a new recliner and spent the evening re-arranging our living room- we are without tv until we get our second cable jack activated so I am sure I will have plenty of time to post tomorrow! Thankfully we still have internet!

Enjoy the videos- it’s hard to believe Hazel is 5 months old already.

Making Hazel Laugh from esther benoit on Vimeo.

Sitting in the Bumbo from esther benoit on Vimeo.

Hazel’s First Amusement Park from esther benoit on Vimeo.

New Videos

As I mentioned in the last post we were able to catch some neat stuff on video over the past week. I will try and post one a day for the next few days- although I think when I embed the videos in the posts you might be able to click on the video to see the other videos that have already been uploaded to our vimeo site. I will post a back story to each video over the next few days so if you want to wait you can, if you want to go look at all the videos at once, feel free!
This first one is of Hazel rolling over, reaching for her toys and showing off her scooting abilities. She makes us laugh all the time!

Pseudo-Crawling from esther benoit on Vimeo.

Sitting, Teething and Not Sleeping

It’s a very busy time for us here at the Benoit household. Hazel has gone from sleeping 10-12 hour stretches straight through the night to sleeping for 4-5 hours, waking up screaming, eating, then back to sleep for 3-5 hours, lather, rinse and repeat until 6 or 7 am. It has been exhausting, partly because I have been pretty sick for the past week or so. I seem to have some sort of sinus infection/lingering strep throat malady that just won’t quit. Fortunately, I think I’m on the tail end of this thing and I am hoping that with a bit more rest I’ll be back up and running soon!

This sleep disturbance has been a bit surprising as it seems to have come out of no where. Usually when Hazel is going through some sort of growth spurt or is reaching a developmental milestone, her sleep schedule goes out the window for a day or two- but this time it has been almost ten days of middle of the night wakefulness. I know that there is a major sleep regression between 4-5 months due to some of the developmental stuff her little brain is trying to process, but it seems like this has been above and beyond what we might expect for that sort of thing. Joanna mentioned in a note to me the other day that she thinks Hazel could be teething- this is something I’ve tried to push to the back of my mind, as the thought of nursing a baby with teeth scares the bejeeezus out of me- but I think she might be right! Hazel has a little white spot on her bottom gum and it looks like there is a tooth in there just waiting to cut through.

So all this hard work on Hazel’s part, what with the constant waking and eating and wanting to be held, never comes without its reward. As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, all of these fussy, wakeful, irritable times always end up happening just before something new and exciting emerges in Hazel’s world. This time I think it might be more mental than physical- according to some of my development books there are major things going on in Hazel’s brain right now, most importantly she is learning how to distinguish patterns and her brain is starting to figure out cause and effect. I can only imagine how challenging this must be for her- although she doesn’t know that she’s being challenged. She is starting to realize that when she chews on her fingers it hurts, but when she chews on mom or dad’s fingers it just feels good.

Aside from the important brain stuff that’s going on right now (sorry to use such clinical terms), Hazel is also approaching some physical milestones. She is almost able to sit up completely unassisted! Here is some evidence- taken this past week. She has become quite adept at tripoding herself with her hands to make sure she doesn’t topple over.

I can’t tell you how proud we are that she is able to sit now- it makes her so happy too because it gives her a completely different outlook on our world.

We’ve taken a few great videos this weekend of Hazel and I hope to post them sometime this week so be sure to check back often!

Pumpkins and Princesses

We had a nice Halloween with Hazel. The week before we headed over to the pumpkin patch to find a pumpkin to carve. It was a gorgeous sunny day and Hazel seemed to enjoy sitting on the pumpkins.

We ended up getting a very large and tall pumpkin which Jered carved up before our Halloween party Friday night. We had quite a few people over for a potluck and movie night. We watched Ghostbusters and took Hazel trick-or-treating early in the evening before she decided she wanted to spend the rest of Halloween in bed. Here she is as Princess Leia, with her dad- Darth Vader.

And finally, Hazel with me as a witch- Jered and I decided to go low key on our costumes and just wore fancy hats (Darth Vader mask/witch hat).

Happy Halloween!

A taste of things to come

While Great Grammy and Grampy were visiting we decided to try out a first with Hazel: rice cereal. It’s a little early to feed her cereal all the time, but we thought it would be fun to have her try it out while they were here- especially since we knew her performance as granddaughter and great granddaughter was being closely scrutinzed

We got Hazel all suited up to eat her first bites of solid food- Great Grammy graciously reminded us to put a bib on the kid, and it’s a good thing we did!

We mixed the cereal up with Hazel’s beverage of choice- so it was rice au lait for our sweet bebe.
At first she didn’t really know what to do with it and just stuck her tongue out to feel the ricey gruel.

Eventually she realized that the cereal tasted somewhat familiar and she enthusiastically started to gnaw on the spoon.

Everyone got to give Hazel a spoonful of the lovely rice au lait concoction. She literally ate it up.



I fed her the first few bites, but alas there is no evidence- just pictures of my hands.
For those out there who are having a difficult time picturing the whole thing, I’m adding all the video footage of the event to this entry. It’s nearly 7 minutes long, but quite entertaining if you’ve got the time!

Hazel’s First Solid Food from esther benoit on Vimeo.