Get a Grip

Hello friend, it's been awhile. As I stated in my last entry, the past two weeks for me have been killer. There were highs (shooting with Peyton Manning) and lows (waking up at 5AM and getting home at 9PM). Despite my back-breaking schedule, I was able to get some decent time in with Benjamin. A medley of other noteworthy events have happened in the past two weeks - Emily's birthday, Father's Day and our wedding anniversary. Mental note - buy Hallmark® stock before next June.

So as I get a grip on life, Benjamin is getting a grip on anything within his reach. It's definitely a hoot to watch him, because he is about as accurate as the crane game at your local pizza place. But when he does clinch on to you your options are: a.) wait until he loses interest b.) tickle him to loosen his grip c.) gnaw your finger off. I've mentioned it before, a baby's grip is surprisingly strong. I could still totally beat a baby arm wrestling, but they have a shocking amount of torque in their digits.

It's funny to see him react when he is grasping at something in particular. When he successfully grabs it, the look on his face starts off as "holy cow, I did it!" And then it turns into a perplexed look that says, "umm...who put this in my hand?" We also think that he has some latent simian genes in him. His foot dexterity is very impressive. If he's really riled up Benjamin will clap with his hands (sorta) and with his feet (definitely) at the same time. His absolute favorite thing to do now is put both of this feet up in the air and grab on to them (the Baby Pose if you take yoga).

His foot tendencies are so monkey-like we actually put a banana in between his feet to see if he could hold it - of course. And the cherry on top of the experience is looking over at Schmax (he wears a cone due to allergies) staring at us and then slowly lowering his head back to the floor, as if to disapprovingly say, "you people are sooo weird, and I'M the one wearing a lampshade."

So the next big thing for the Alexanders is...air travel. We are going on a little(big) family vacation up to the lakes of Wisconsin. I will no doubt have something good to report in the near future. Just thinking about it stresses me out. When I travel by myself I am like an well-oiled piece of German engineering, looking out for #1. Even traveling with Emily makes my kettle whistle a bit. I just don't want to be that person/couple/family that holds up the line and is the target of every person's headshake and eyeroll in the terminal. And this is coming from a former eyeroller.

Best case is that we travel with little to no incident. Worst case is Benjamin cries the entire flight, barfs on a business man behind us, I'm forced to land the plane using my video game skillz, and they some how lose our suitcase and carseat. My sippy cup is definitely half-empty headed into this adventure. All travel aside I am looking forward to the vacation part. Benjamin is still a little too young to do some truly cute things - playing in the sand, splashing in the water, cherry picking, etc.

Aha! It just hit me, I can put his power-wench grip to use in the cherry orchards. I'll just hold him up to a branch and he pick with all four of his monkey-hands. Cherry toejam for all!