Sleeping

Ben is 6 weeks old as of yesterday. They say babies get fussier and fussier up until they hit 6 weeks old and then it starts to mellow out. Ben has his good days and his bad days, but for the most part I would say he has been a pretty mellow baby. He gets crazy mad when he is hungry. He starts screaming hysterically out of nowhere - to the point where his voice stops. This boy likes his food. Last night I let him cry in his bed when he woke up at 4 AM. I want to try and get him into the habit of sleeping longer periods of time at night without having to eat. When he got up at 4 I tried to feed him, but he wasn't interested. He was just awake and not wanting to be in bed...so I let him cry it out. Neither of us slept much for the next hour and a half. Hopefully he will start to understand about sleeping at night. It only took a couple of times of me letting Caelan cry before she started sleeping better at night, so maybe that is the trick. It sure is hard sometimes. Ben is also doing more cooing and smiling all of the time. I love it!

Smiles

The past couple of days little Ben has given us several more smiles. You have to get him in the right kind of mood (really calm and content) and then he will start to focus on us and give us a couple of good smiles. I love it! He is also starting to make some cooing noises - not very often, but it is pretty fun when it happens. I love when they realize they can make noises of their own because then they get quite vocal. He is still getting up every three hours or so each night, but I started to put him in his own bed regularly when he first goes down at night. I want to end this pattern of sleeping in our bed all of the time. It's cozy, but it's hard to get any good sleep when he is right there next to me. He's done pretty well the past two nights, so we will see what happens next.

Sleeping

Last night was a pretty good night for Ben, which was a nice relief from the tough day he had. If I wasn't sleeping right next to him I bet I could have gotten a full night's rest. He isn't too fond of sleeping in his own bed. I put him in there at the beginning of the night, but usually within an hour or an hour and a half he is awake again. By then I am too tired to do anything by lay him beside me in our bed. Then he usually sleeps for the remainder of the night (getting up here and there to feed). One night he fell asleep in my arms, so I put him in his crib (this was at about 11 PM). Within a minute or two he had woken up, so I went to pick him up, and I laid him beside me on the bed. Instantly he was back asleep and slept for a good few hours before wanting food. He is a crazy little guy. I guess he just loves knowing that there is someone right next to him. That is going to have to change soon, but I'll give him another couple weeks of sleeping with us (good thing we have a King size bed).

Baby Blessing

So much has happened since this little guy has come into our lives. Dad graduated from BYU at the end of April. Little Ben attended both ceremonies with me (Mom) and his grandparents. He behaved wonderfully. He was blessed on April 24 while everyone was in town for Dad's graduation. He had his dad, Grandpa Dick, Grandpa Sorensen, Great Uncle Steve Anderson, Great Uncle Dan Boles, Uncle Garrett Sorensen and Joe Finegan in the circle (Great Uncle Dave Anderson came in just as the blessing was starting). He was blessed that he would stay worthy to go on a mission and get married in the temple. He was blessed that he would be an important person in his family and a good example. It was simple and powerful. Dave and Diane Anderson lent us a little white outfit that Matt (Dad's little cousin) wore for his blessing. It was very cute and he looked like a little angel. We had a get together afterwards at our place (the basement of the McFarland's). That basement easily handled the 35 people that came that day. We had lots of family and friends. Grandma Dick and Great Aunt Diane organized most of the food with a couple other people bringing things as well. The next day all of the family left. We had 16 people sleeping at our house for that weekend. It was back to just the four of us. We started getting ready to move. We moved to Clearfield, UT that next Saturday, and Dad started a new job with Stock Building Supply. Ben had a pretty fussy day on Friday (the day we were packing the truck and finishing boxing everything up) - I guess that is the way things work. He is almost five weeks old now. He is a little growing machine. At his two week appointment he had grown a full 2 inches from what he was at birth as well as a half a pound, which is quite good at 2 weeks - they usually are hoping that babies are back to their birth weight at that point. He has been a good little guy. He gets fussy at night but for most of the day he is fairly content. He still is regular about eating. He seems to really like to lay on his belly or to be sitting upright. He is starting to focus better on us. I can actually tell he is looking at me sometimes. Yesterday he did his first actual smile as a reaction to something I was doing (and then Daddy too). It was super cute. I am so excited for him to be more social and interact with us - and this is the start. YAY! He has a cute smile, which seems to light up his whole face. Today we went to our new ward and he got all sorts of compliments. We do all we can to be humb

le when they tell us how cute he is....but we know they're right.