video clip of "Nanny Feeds Benjamin"

One of the video clips I recorded while Christine - Benjamin's Nanny - was staying with us for about two weeks just before the Christmas.

I believe this makes a nice Chirstmas present for Christine --- enjoy!

Brunch at Birdhouse Restaurant (in the McCormicks Creek State Park)

Last Sunday (Dec. 7th) we drove up north to the McCormicks Creek State Park, the oldest state park in Indiana, and had a brunch at the "Birdhouse Restaurant" in Canyon Inn, one of the bed & breakfasts in the park.

The outlook of Canyon Inn

The Birdhouse Restaurant is so called because there are a lot of birdfeeders are hung around the restaurant and you can see many different kinds of birds coming to feed from the feeders through the windows.


Benjamin looks so small compared to the big table of the restaurant! And he also looks like a tiny bird perching on the table --- just like those birds around the restaurant! :-)








At the end of the brunch, Benjamin got a priveledge of being held by Daddy so that he could look out at the landscape through the window. He seemed to be enjoying it a lot.

It had snowed quite a bit the day before, so we (especially Christine and Benjamin) got to enjoy the wintery, snowy landscapes, as well as the birds and the state park itself. I must say, Christine has been quite lucky with the weather during her stay!

Benjamin is 7 months old

Benjamin turned 7 months old on the 17th of November.

Here are some (well, a lot of) photos of him during his 7th month of his life: please visit my other photo album site

(Please type in "guest" for User Name and "shootingstar" for Password.)

Hope you will enjoy them!

Dad's Roller Coaster (video)

Just a short video clip, in which Benjamin gets a ride on "Dad's Roller Coaster". Quite an exciting one, it seems...
enjoy! ^^

Dad feeds Benjamin (video)

I almost erased this video clip by accident, but thank goodness, I stopped recording something else on top of it just in time to save the funniest part.

In this video clip, Amar (Dad) is feeding Benjamin.
For some reason, Amar is acting funny in this video - he seems teasing Benjamin by not giving him the spoon straight away at the beginning, and then when I ask him to give him a training bottle, he starts examining it opening the cap, closing it, and opening and closing it again, and AGAIN@@

Enjoy ^^

Benjamin sits and plays now

Just after I wrote the last post ("Benjamin started sitting by himself"), I noticed that Benjamin had been sitting (much more upright now!) and playing very happily for a long time. And I couldn't resist taking yet another video of him sitting and playing by himself!

So here it is. Enjoy! ^^

The Day Benjamin started sitting by himself

Here is another video clip.
I took this short video for a record of Benjamin's starting sitting by himself.
It happened to be the Halloween day (Oct. 31st), so he is wearing a halloween outfit (Little Pumpkin).

This is just when he started being able to support his upper body with his hands while sitting by himself, so his back is not upright yet --- at this point he could only sit upright for a moment or two.

About a week later, though, he started being able to sit upright for quite a long time --- more than 5 minutes at a time, and now he can sit and play by himself for a very long time very happily.^^

Benjamin on a swing!

Last week, when I took him to a park for our usual walk, I let him sit in a swing fin the park or the first time.
He loved it!! (as his big smile in these photos learly shows ...)
Please take a look at a video clip too.
(The first half was recorded by myself, and the second half was recorded by Hiromi, a friend of mine who is a Mom to a 1-year-old girl, Maya. We are talking in Japanese --- sorry about that, to those who cannot understand Japanese! ;-) But we are just saying something like, "Wow--- Taku-chan (=Benjamin) loves a swing, don't you! Yes, you sure do!" "Wow --- Maya already can wave her hand, and can even do "High-Five!" and things like that. ^^) Hope you will enjoy!

Benjamin is 6 months old (with a video clip)

Benjamin turned 6 months old on the 17th of October.

His developmental milestones that I have observed are:
- He finally started to roll over. So far, just from tummy to back. It seems he is not very interested in rolling over --- he is more interested in standing up, it seems.

- He has been practicing (or so it seems) standing up a lot in the past couple of weeks. He is now able to hold himself with just his toes and his hands on the ground. (See the video clip below.)



- He can sit by himself for about 2-3 minutes

- He is becoming more and more mobile (though he can only rotate and move backwards when he is apparently trying to move forwards). Lately, he moves from one corner of the lounge (the biggest room in the house) to the other corner of the room in a matter of 1 or 2 minutes! The other day he was almost getting himself into the bathroom near the lounge against (or without) his intention, and he gave a wimpering noise to draw my attention. This is one of the most hilarious episodes of his in the past few weeks ;-)

- He started showing interest and liking in music and Mom's singing. Whenever I start singing for him, he instantly looks up at me and gives me a big smile. How adorable and flattering! ^^ I know it is only him in this big world who finds such a delight in my singing...

- We (Amar, Benjamin and myself) started going to a Baby Sign Language class offered by the city. It is a 6-class series, and during the class we mostly sings and dances with signs. It's fun, but I guess we need to make a bit more efforts to learn and use more signs, not only going to the classes, in order for Benjamin to be actually able to learn some signs. But learning signs would do good for all of us, as it may help the baby to express himself while he can understand what we say but cannot talk himself yet (usually 1-2 years old).

- He started to sleep much longer and better through the night. Now he hardly wakes up during the night, and he sleeps from 8PM till 6 or 7AM everyday. What a bliss! (Though, at the same time, I do miss these night-time nursing sessions... ;-)

There are more photos of him on my PhotoAlbum site. Please visit "Photos of Benjamin 6 Months Old" and type "guest" for UserName and "shootingstar" for password.

First Solid Food

Benjamin is turning 6 months old next week. I had been waiting for his 6-month-old birthday to start solid foods, but since Benjamin had been showing so much curiosity and interest in what we(adults) eat every time we are having a meal and some snack, I decided that it is time for him to try his first solid food.

His first solid food was a Japanese rice porridge, which is a traditional and most popular choice for a baby's first solid food in Japan.

So --- how did he like it?  

Well, I must say, he LOVED it!!!  

The instant I brought a small plate with this rice porridge to him, he seemed as though he was already anticipating that he was at last (!) going to be fed with "a real stuff" (as Amar put it), and he leaned toward me and the spoon I held for him. ^^;

And after the first mouthful, he didn't stop begging for more!

It has past already 6 days since the start of solid foods, so from tomorrow I am going to introduce another food.  Maybe some grated apple or mashed avocado...  

Solid food is quite a fun, I found! :-) 

Very curious...

He is trying to put the spoon head in his mouth, but it seems the spoon is too long...??

Finally, he managed to put it in his mouth...

"Ooogh!  What's this?"