bursting at the seams

As if there wasn’t enough evidence that Ben is. . . well. . . having a good time with this whole “growing up” bit, I offer these couple of anecdotes to make it even more clear:


Sometime last week on a random beautiful sunny morning set amidst a string of other beautifully sunny summer dawns, Ben found it fitting to wake up a little later than usual allowing his mommy that extra precious half hour of sleep she always seems so sore to miss. When he finally came out of his room and climbed into bed with Anna, he declared to her waking eyelids, “Mommy, I’m happy.” Needless to say, her day was instantly that much brighter.


Yesterday morning, Anna received a phone call from her dear friend Mary (whom Anna had happily agreed to help through her labor and delivery when the time finally came) telling her that, yes – the time has finally come! Anna had no one to watch Ben while I was at work so she made last minute arrangements with his part-time daycare to take him for an extra half-day. Later that afternoon when I picked up Ben I decided to treat him to a special boys-night-out for being such a good sport. We flew down to the nearest BW3 (that’s local-speak for Buffalo Wild Wings, or as I like to call it, Buffalo Yummy Yummy Yummy Yummy) and I ordered Ben the kids meal. Now wouldn’t you guess, it came with chocolate milk. We were planning on taking our food home with us, so while we waited the hostess offered to give Ben his milk. I supposed that wouldn’t be so bad, seeing as it was a treat to come here in the first place, so I sat the boy down on a bench and helped him get started with the straw. Now if you’ve ever seen Benjamin attack a cup of chocolate milk you’d know that once the straw touches his lips he won’t stop slurping until he’s suctioned every last drop of milk off the bottom of the cup. And if he can’t get ‘em all with the straw he’ll take off the lid and eat the cup just to make sure. But this time, about a third of the way down, Ben paused to take a breath, looked at me and said thankfully, “I like my daddy,” then resumed his assault on the milk. What a guy.


We’re just loving these moments with him right now. He’s reaching that stage where he’s developing a sense of empathy, and it’s just so cute to see it pour out of him. He accidentally kicked his Buzz Lightyear toy when climbing into the car a few days ago, and I heard him say to the toy, “Sorry Buzz! Sorry!” Anna just buzzes every time she hears Ben say, “Oh thank you, Mommy. Thank you!” He says it like that every time! “Oh thank, you, Daddy. Thank you!”. A couple of weeks ago he watched as his best buddy Noah was reprimanded by his mother for pushing Ben, and when he caught a glimpse of Noah crying at the top of the stairs during his “time-out”, we had to physically restrain Ben from running to Noah, all the while pleading to us, “I give Noah a hug. I give Noah a hug.”

He has such a big heart. Maybe that’s why he’s growing to be such a big kid - the rest of his body is just trying to keep up.