Brilliant. Devious. Child.

Our child.. has declared a few things already.

1. he is brilliant. Somehow, while sleeping, he is able to detect the Exact moments in which i/we will be
a: about to eat.
b: about to try and nap.
c: want to travel somewhere.
in this precise moment, probably determined via some mathematical algorithm of our actions, he will begin squirming and squealing. He isn't even awake just yet, but priming the fuel bubble thing that has to be primed before the motor can Really get started (you know, like on lawn mowers and boats!...)... Then ...he lets loose. When this kid is hungry - this kid is Hungry.

2. he is Devious. Maybe this goes along with his brilliance, but he is already terrorizing his parents by dirtying his diaper, and holding in the rest of his magic yellow excrement until his new diaper has been installed!! Only to let loose more... 3.2 minutes later! And I assure you, we've tried waiting it out to see if there is more inside of him before changing the dirty diaper... it does not matter how long we make him sit in his soiled pants... as soon as there is a new one on... kaboom!

3. He is super cute.

Ice Cream for Breakfast

Jared is the greatest. Yesterday evening I came down with either a nasty case of summer allergies or... some other demon plague that traded a wretched cough and headache for my voice. So this morning jared made blueberry pancakes with a raspberry, strawberry, blueberry sauce ...oh, and of course a scoop of ice cream on the side. ..and a tad bit of chocolate sauce next to that. ... :D All while I laid on the couch sipping tea and playing Mario Kart. I really ought to get sick more often.



Even Luda thought he'd lend a hand... Luda loves helping with dishes...


Jared really is wonderful with just about everything. For the most part, I feed little Ben and Jared takes care of the burping/diaper changing. I take care of putting food into Ben, Jared takes care of cleaning what comes out. Fair trade!? Jared even wakes up in the middle of the night with me to take care of the burping/changing duty...meaning I never have to get out of bed!

He's such a great dad so far. :)
Luda agrees...


And simply for your viewing pleasure.....(btw, for those of you wanting prints, if you click on the image it will enlarge, then do "save as" and I belieeeve...you will get the fullsize image... OR be patient, I am working on a shutterfly account and you may order prints via the world wide web (you know, the one invented by al gore...)).

Periodic Blocks and Wide Eyes

Holy Buckets! Look at what Jessica and Maria made us!!!!!

They are little wooden blocks with the elements painted on one side!!!
Ooooh Joy! There are blocks in there that spell "Benjamin" too... they are such creative friends! Unbelievable.

We also realized that we have very few photos of Ben awake, yet! And even fewer of him naked!!! This was pre-bath time last night. ...Not entirely naked, but cute nonetheless. ...We are entirely bummed that it turned out blurry.


In the mornings he usually spends quite a bit of time under his stimulation thing-a-ma-bobber. He loooves looking at the shapes and colors

and even though we've read that newborns don't really "smile" ....we totally think Ben smiles already. Probably because Jared and I smile/laugh a lot. ...at one another's expense generally


You might also be pleased to know that following Jared's post about how badly each of us needed to go exert energy, he went to Taekwondo and I went and played softball. YAAAAY! oooh we were in such better moods afterward! It was amazing!!! Now if I will just ever be ready to get back on the bike...we'll all be Really happy!

Whargarbargl! (yep, a Jared post!)

Well, we just got a new car. It is really nice - a Honda CRV with a bunch of neat accessories. And...well, now it is not quite as nice. We got rear ended at a stop light, and, the first thing we thought of was our little master of worlds (the future, folks, in the future). He is ok, but the other car is not, which is why the CRV got 5 star safety ratings!


(also to note: it was entirely the other person's fault...we were stopped at a red light when KABAAM!... so Yay for everything getting fixxxed for free!)

hjlijopmgjogijoagj; I WANT TO GO OUTSIDE!!!! ARRRGGGHHHHH!!!!! WE NEED EXERCISE!!!! otherwise...we are going to eat human flesh...and, whereas, 500 years ago, or even 100 years ago, that was ok and all, and we were able to get away with it - have it blamed on vampires or some other such nonsense. Really, all I want to do is punch, and throw rocks into the upper atmosphere so fast that they burn up leaving the atmosphere. All Kim wants to do is bicycle at escape velocity, orbit once around the Moon and then come back - just some light exercise, that's all. We haven't been able to get a really good workout in a while - conference, baby, car crashes - madness, I say, MADNESS!

We should get one of these. I always see them advertised in science magazines, but have no idea how you would look using this crazy whatcha fangled contraption...



In the meantime, we did go bowling, and carrying around a baby everywhere gives me some arm exercise.




This is bowling form Alpha, for those of you not familiar with space-age bowling nomenclature...

We all took turns helping Isis bowl...

I was her favorite


This is the Destroyer of Worlds. These pictures will ensure we do not get thrown into the Maw of Carcatsits, who digests you into alternate dimensions - randomly selected by dice roll.


I have no idea what exactly this image is, but it feature 7,2% beer and a polar bear! What's not to like? I found it whilst performing a google image search for "interdimensional digestion."

The things we Do.

Jared went away to a conference this past weekend and I headed home to Illinois with Benjamin. It was a good trip, but along the 4 and a half hour drive (vs the usual 3.5 hour thanks to detours + feeding ben + slow Iowa drivers) I realized that... kids/babies get us to do things that we never imagined we would do. In fact, things in general that we Love dearly get us to do what we never imagined we would do or would be able to do.
The number of poopy diapers, for example. I never imagined I would change so many, and I am well aware that there are many many many many more to come in the future. Never thought I'd get spit up on every other day (i'm sure that will happen more and more, and ...even more frequently!). Never actually believed that I would be peed at. Hell, I never imagined birthing a child at all! Whew!
On the drive home, because of the detours... There came a point where Ben woke up! ...The plan was to feed him Right before I left and he would sleep alll the way to Illinois, 3.5 hours. This is usually his limit, so it should work perfectly! But as mentioned before, the detours..... So 40 miles from the Rock Falls exit and ... 30miles from Anything behind me... I did what I never imagined I would do. I pulled off to the side of the road as the sun was setting, and fed little Benjamin. Me... the "we're not stopping just because you have to pee - drive 10mph faster and we'll get there so you can pee!" Which brings up another thing I would rarely ever do before.... drive the speed limit! Typically, I would be going 80ish in a 70... not 72. ...Alas, with my fragile kids on board (Luda came, too) ...
Maybe these seem like small things...but I think they're just the beginning of us doing things for little Ben that we never, as individuals, thought we would do - and not even thinking twice (and most definitely not regretting it!).

PHOTO UPDATE!!

Miss Kris with Mr. Ben


benjamin's new (latest) blankie!!! :)


Why people love going to dinner with us...(we're fun...)

Funny Faces

What is one of the greatest things to do to an infant? Well give them funny faces of course!!
It is payback for waking us up at night.

We like to name the faces, too...
This one is the old man who collects baseball cards and some other random ancient artifact.


This iis the Chinese man who has too much cheek skin


I'll give a free benjamin visit to whoever comes up with the most clever name for this one...



We really have been having a blast with our latest family addition - almost too much of a blast. Jared is exhausted from prepping for his GRC conference thinger in Massachusetts (so much for catching the first fathers day weekend? It's okay, we'll celebrate on Monday!) this coming weekend and I... well I think there has been too much visiting and going out for ice cream and vehicle shopping (more on this later) and not enough Wii playing... Jesse, can we score Mario Kart back, btw??? or...anyone else have m.k. who wants to donate it for a bit ...until i beat it? ;)

On that note,
In case you're wondering... we're also doing Okay in terms of... dealing with a crying/screaming one week old. He doesn't do it often, but we've found a few tricks. He likes being held and dancing to music. He also finds Jared's head amusing (go figure...). But my personal favorite is... that him sitting in Jared's lap and watching the tv also calms him down. It might also be noted that the midnight "lullaby" we use happens to be the Super Mario Brothers 1-1 song:




Jared's boyfriends should know that... Benjamin is .... destined to Brawl...

Pee Shooter

also...
Ben just peed all over jared mid diaper change hahahahaha
ahhh its everywhere. haha

it won't be as funny when its me that it happens to...

The first weekend!

The Topp grand-parental unit came to town on Saturday for a visit

We failed at taking many pictures, and apparently the one i did take turned out blurry... oops.
Grandparents are wonderful. My mom was here for our first diaper EXPLOSION. ...we ended up just giving Ben a bath.. it was gross.

Last night Drew came over with some MEAT and grilled for us.
He's one of Ben's favorite uncles. And whaddya know but while we were grilling, Maria showed up with a pan of uncooked lasagna for us to put together for...tonight maybe?? Are you coming over, Maria?
Benjamin likes being outside... next to plants...


Luda does too...
Don't worry Luda, we'll still take tons of pictures of you, too...

Especially when you do super cute things like this:


Brooke Jordan and Logan came over last night Too!!!
Logan likes saying "baby"

He also struggles keeping his pants up (boys and their lack of butt...) and sometimes ends up with his hand down there...


All in all, things are going great!
Ben even slept ...a good portion of the night last night. He was only up twice. :)

We're ...learning... its a sharp curve... he went through 3 outfits by 10am today...

More later, folks!!

The first day home includes Gelato!

We got home Friday at about 11am... Ooooh it felt so great to be home!



By evening we decided we deserved some gelato in our lives...
We met up with Maria and....





Yum.
Ben likes gelato (not really...he didn't get any, we're MEAN parents by not actually sharing...bwahahaha!)

Out of the Oven

SO
A few of you have asked about more details! When did it all start, how was it? blah blah.
Well!
Things started to roll post-Luda walk at about 6pm on Tuesday (you keep that time/date in mind now...) but contractions and such were pretty far apart and not Terribly strong (but still stronger than ever before! So whaddya do... uuuh eat a nice big dinner and Play Guitar Hero, duh.

Come 9pm or so, we were pretty certain things weren't going to stop, but it still wasn't Terrible so... what else do we do... Go get ice cream with friends, double duh!!!

While at ice cream, I hid my cringes from Maria and Jessica within bites of pure deliciocity. Jessica exclaimed as we left that we need to have this baby tonight because she leaves Thursday morning!! Jared and I both grinned and said "we'll see!"
We then proceeded home to finish up a few Guitar Hero gigs and when contractions were too tough to maintain 90% drumming (on Hard, mind you!) we moved on to watching Instant Netflixed many a South Park episode.

Really it was a pretty normal night in the Jared/Kim house haha.
Eventually the time (2am-ish) came where we needed to go to the hospital. Well, Jared decided and I said "oooh errrr Okayyyy...what if what if we're not really ready? what if..." jared: "kim, get in the car"

They said "yep, its go time" and we were admitted.

I will spare you many detais from here to the bun arriving, but Would like to share that Kris came and gave us a HUGE hand. She'd go get ice water so Jared wouldn't have to leave. She was a second/third hand to hold (trust me, you need many hands to hold). Jared and I left important things in the car before we came in and she grabbed those for us. She definitely picked many many areas that made the whole experience easier. Thanks Kris!

Finally, about 1pm on Wednesday Jared declares
"The baby's about to come! I can taste it!"
....Poor word choice Jared.
But he was right.

At a point during the pushing process, one of the machines makes a noise and Jared goes "the machine congratulates you!" which made me laugh, messing up that particular ...push. The nurse declares (mind you, the staff has all been very friendly and LOVED our sense of humor so played along with it a bunch) "Keep that up and we'll make You do the pushing!"
At some point, the midwife also declares "This baby has more hair than his dad."
She did ammend it with "I wouldn't have said it, but i heard you picking on him about it before!" haha
We actually had a fun time pushing. They kept telling us we were hilarious and we literally almost laughed little Ben out.

And then with the help of our support team of nurses and trained medical staff!


Shazaam! There he was! Right out of the oven:



Newborns are kind of gross...but we're Still a cute family.
naked baby!!!!


And this is him after a bath! ...his face is starting to become unscrunched.


All for now... more and more later
:)