Benson at 6 months!

Well, even though I haven't been keeping up with the blog posts about Benson I have still being taking the pictures and jotting down notes at each month. So, in an effort to update you on his growth before he is a whole 1 year old, I'll start where we left off. Benson's half year birthday was a big milestone of changes for us. This first picture I love because as you can see he has the little ribbon from the peanut, which explains this whole photo shoot in a nut shell. From this age onward I dread the day we need to take our monthly picture as I know it is going to be one big wrestling match. By the end of this shoot he was smothering Peanut and the ribbon was off and he was eating it:) silly little guy!


Using his feet to get Peanut.

I'm so sad this picture is a little blurry, but I really love it. It is just Benson to me, so happy!

Well, we have a few pictures from Benson at 6 months to help describe his personality a bit more.

I was doing a sewing project and had laid out a big piece of fabric on the floor one night. Ryan and I had both went into the other room for just a minute and we came back to the picture above. Benz had rolled himself up all the way in the fabric. When we wen to get him out, he just kept laughing and trying to do it again, he thought he was so funny!


We received a box of used clothes, we are so grateful for friends and family who donate clothes to us, thanks! One of the pieces of clothing was this. It wasn't exactly our style, so as a joke I put Benson in it, to see Ryan's reaction. It told him that since we didn't have any girls this was about as close as I could get. Poor Benson, he just smiled through the whole thing, I'm sure he is going to hate this picture when he gets older. And, no we didn't actually dress him this way to go anywhere.

Don't Tell Owen! This is Owen's Glowen, his best friend, the friend he has to sleep with or have when he is sad. Benson has taken quite the liking to him and will snag him whenever Owen is not on the watch. I think Santa has a good idea of what Benson wants for Christmas from this toy.

Benson eats everything! This is just one of many examples! I wish he wasn't the one with allergies!

See Benson's eye. He has scratched his Cornea several times since birth, all due to his itchy face because of his allergies. It is always so painful, I feel so bad for him, when this happens.

And, Benson is officially our Binky Baby! He loves them and they go wherever we go. Around 6 months of age was when Benson was trying to figure out how to stick his binky in himself, I came over to him one day and this is how he had it. Silly Guy!

As for other 6 month updates, Benson started rice cereal and loved it, that was on July 6. And, on July 8th we spotted his first tooth coming in, the bottom left. Although, it took awhile for that tooth to fully cut, it was not a fun process. He also started to army crawl/scoot around. He crawls just like Owen did, we call it the Nemo crawl since he/and Owen as well dragged one arm like it was lame, haha, it is hilarious. I have no idea why they both do it exactly the same.

And, for Benson's big story at 6 months, we found out he has severe food allergies. If you remember from some of his previous posts he had really bad rashes and eczema since he was born. I even tried taking out certain foods from my diet and nothing seemed to help. The doctor finally said that she thought he must just be that way. She said that we could check him at 9 months for allergies just to be sure but to wait until then. Around this same time, due to circumstances in regards to me, we decided that it was time to ween Benson off breast milk and switch him over to formula. The doctor had told me to use a sensitive kind due to his reflux issues. On July 17th we gave him formula right before bed and he was super fussy when we put him down. We went back in and he had thrown up all of the formula, like tons more than normal and he had hives on his back. We had used some sample formula from the hospital that we had left, so we just thought that maybe it was because we hadn't used the exact sensitive kind the doctor had given us the name for. I was still weening him at this point so he had a few normal feedings before he would need formula again. I was so scared to give him the formula since he had thrown up before but was confident that the new sensitive kind would do the trick. I fed him in the afternoon and again he was getting ready to go down for nap. He seemed fine at that point. I went in to put him down, and felt very strongly that I needed to watch him fall asleep, so I stood and watched him. He got really fussy again and started sneezing, coughing, itching, and basically going crazy. He was not comfortable. I picked him up and took off his clothes and he had hives covering his entire body, his neck, and his face. He was still breathing fine at this point, so I called the doctor. I then called Ryan, crying because I was so scared. I didn't know what to do. I didn't know how serious it was. It was one of those times where I just kept questioning if I was over reacting, should I call 911? His breathing got a lot quicker and more shallow and he kept doing this cough like he was having trouble so the doctor told us the amount of benedryl I should give him and said to call 911. Ryan had come home from work at this point and he dialed 911. They came within minutes and by that point the benedryl had kicked in some so he was breathing a lot better. He was also getting more comfortable so he was smiling at all of the EMTs. They gave him two more doses of benedryl to make sure the hives went completely down. We actually had two different sets of EMTs report to our house, it was packed and they all kept trying to make him smile. Owen was napping at this point and when he woke up, he was so confused, but excited about the lights on their cars. Mimi also came from work to check on us, since she works close as well, and she took Owen down to see the ambulance, etc. Luckily, we didn't actually have to go to the hospital. We made an appointment with the doctor that night and she gave us a hypoallergenic formula that Benson could use until we got all the results back. So, after all the testing and allergists visits we found out that Benson was indeed allergic to Dairy or the milk in the formula and also Egg, and Peanut, that is why when I went off milk his rash didn't go away, I would have had to know to go off all of three things at the same time. The allergist also had us give him soy formula after we figured out he wasn't allergic to that, and it was like night and day. The formula the doctor originally gave us was hypoallergenic but it still had traces of milk that wouldn't give him a full on reaction but were still irritating his skin, so when the test came back negative to soy, we were so excited! Ever since then, Benson has been like a different baby, so much happier and so much more comfortable, it is amazing! I feel so bad that for the first 6 months of his life we just thought he was more cranky, poor guy, was feeling sick all the time. We feel so blessed that things worked out the way they did and know that the Lord's hand is in all things and that he was watching over Benson and us. We definitely experienced a lot of tender mercies through this experience.