Not to Be Forgotten: A Very Strong Big Boy

When I came home from the hospital after having Lilah, Ben appeared to have quadrupled in size while I was gone. It was amazing how the presence of a newborn made him look so much bigger and older. And he is older. He's a big brother now, with big brother responsibilities. (More on that later.)

Ben is quite taken now with the notion of "big boys." While he considers himself a big boy, he has not yet reached the highest category of what Ben calls the Very Strong Big Boy. We have no real definition for the Very Strong Big Boy, but some of our recent conversations have given us some hints:

"When I grow up to be like a Very Strong Big Boy, I will fly like SUPERmannn!" (I think he actually believes this is true and I am currently pondering how best to break the news to him for fear he might actually try to fly like Superman by jumping off an object of great height.)

"When I grow up to be like a Very Strong Big Boy, I can have a toy like that. Right, Mom?" This is typically said when we are at some place like Target and he sees a toy that he wants. This has actually worked out pretty well because I am not the one who has to tell him he's not getting the toy, as he has already decided he should have it when he's older. I usually agree that it would make a great toy for him at some future point in time and we move on, any possible tantrums averted.

"When I grow up to be like a Very Strong Big Boy, I can do dishes/take a bath/etc. all by myself." I am in full support of this.

"When I grow up to be like a Very Strong Big Boy I can do that." This applies to whatever we are seeing at the time, whether it's watching basketball on TV or if we see an older kid at the park performing some sort of advanced maneuver on the jungle gym.

Ben is also very much into telling us that he has "an idea." In a statement tying together nearly all of the themes above, this past Saturday morning he said "Hey Mom, I have an idea. When I grow up to be a really strong Ben, I can fly to Beckett's house and then I can fly to the Little Gym all by myself." (We had plans to go to both places that morning, so I guess he thought it was a drag that Mom and Dad had to come along too. Or only Dad, as it turned out in this case.)Or on other occasions he frequently says things like "Maybe we should go to the park. I think that's a great idea!" He usually says something like this while smiling at us and nodding his head the whole time. It's possible that he may have a future career in sales.

Although Ben is not yet a Very Strong Big Boy, he has definitely grown up quite a bit in the past few months. It is now possible for us to play the board games we gave him for Christmas without (for the most part) throwing the pieces or stomping on the board. Our current favorites are the Toy Story version of Chutes & Ladders and Candyland, though Ben refers to Candyland as the "Handy Manny" game.

We've also been playing Toy Story Uno for a few months now and that has gone surprisingly well. When we first started playing he cried every time he lost, but he is slowly learning how to be a gracious loser (this might be a 4-year-old accomplishment, although it's something that I'm personally still working on as well). And now that he has the hang of it he can beat both Harold and me fair and square, without any parental assistance.

Here are some photos from this past spring showing just how much our Very Strong Big Boy is growing up.

Post-nap silly hair, after sleeping face first on the pillow with the covers pulled over his head.
Post-nap silly face.

Ben with his first fish, caught on a fishing expedition with Papa.

Easter Egg hunt at Thomsen and Beckett's house. Note the Spiderman Easter basket. Spiderman is his current favorite superhero. Webs!

Soccer with his favorite preschool friend.

April trip to Atlantic Beach. Harold is very impressed with Ben's frisbee throwing/catching skills.

Mom and Ben

While he may be growing up into a Very Strong Boy, he still loves his old standby comfort mechanisms of sucking his thumb and pulling my hair. And I am perfectly okay with that because right now (and always) he is still my little boy.

Finally!

We are happy to announce the extremely punctual arrival (compared to her older brother!) of Miss Lilah Elise Brady, born on Wednesday, May 4, 2011 at 1:21am, only one hour and 21 minutes after her due date. She weighed 8lbs, 2 oz and was 21 inches long, which means she outweighed her big bro by 2 oz.

Me and Lilah, just a few minutes after she was born.

Lilah, with her full head of hair on display, and Dad.

Ben, when he first met Lilah. The first thing he said to her was "Tickle, tickle" and he reached out to tickle her. After that, he became obsessed with her "silly faces" and repeatedly asked her to make another silly face. He still talks about her silly faces every day. Very cute!

And just for comparison's sake here is a baby photo of Ben followed by that of Lilah.

What do you think? Do they look alike? Honestly, it is hard for me to tell - a case of not being able to see the forest for the trees, I suppose.

In honor of Lilah's arrival, I've refreshed the blog design. I was tempted by several pink-oriented designs now that I can get away with an unabashed love of pink, but decided they were a little too obnoxious. So I'll stick with what I am considering a gender-neutral blue for now.

Three Again

So here are very belated pictures from Ben's 3rd birthday party in January. Better late than never, right?

We had a joint party with Ben's best friend from school, and the love of his young life, C.

I think all the kids had a great time, but Ben did especially. He didn't stop moving for the entire party, hence his red cheeks and sweaty hair.

Ben and his little friend both picked out Toy Story cakes, because you can apparently never have too much Buzz or Woody.

We were very grateful for all the friends that came out to help Ben celebrate, and Ben was especially thankful for all his loot! We are still rationing presents, which is a good thing when your birthday falls right after Christmas.

Next up: gratuitous belly photos!

Three

As hard as it is to believe, Ben turned 3 on December 30. We celebrated by opening a few presents when he woke up.

Please excuse the mismatched pajamas. It happens sometimes and was an incredible lack of foresight on my part.

Despite the incredibly pathetic look on his face (not unlike a look he once gave me when he was only 3 months old), he did actually have a good time opening his presents.

The presents were followed by birthday pancakes. I believe Ben actually ate several bites of these pancakes, which was a record. Despite the fact that he wants to make pancakes every weekend, he rarely eats them - which has nothing at all to do with the quality of my pancakes, I am sure.

After the pancakes, we took a very exciting trip to the train station where we picked up my parents who had taken the train from High Point to Raleigh for their own big city adventure.

We had a very busy afternoon, with lunch at the Pit followed by stops at the history museum and the natural science museum. After that we all needed naps so we reconvened for dinner that evening and then went back to my parents' hotel room for a little bit.

Ben was quite taken with a rather old-fashioned piece of technology he found in their room.

We topped the evening off with birthday cupcakes. And as is often the case with Ben and cupcakes, he did not eat a single bite, despite the fact that he'd been talking about his birthday cupcakes all day long. Thanks to the various holiday parties and birthday celebrations at his school, Ben strongly feels that cupcakes should be present at any kind of gathering that might be construed as a "party," however loosely defined. Cupcakes are required for everyone's birthday, even Mortimer's. And yet, he never eats the cupcakes. Cupcakes, pancakes...there seems to be a theme.

But he did blow out his 3rd birthday candle, and that was the most important thing.

Happy 3rd Birthday Ben! You are such an adorable little guy and your Dad and I are so lucky to have you in our lives. You make me and your Dad so "berry berry" proud every day. You are already such a little caretaker and I can't wait to see how your personality and spirit continue to develop as we embark upon another exciting year together. As your friend Buzz would say, to infinity and beyond!

A Purple Present

When we asked Ben what he wanted Santa to bring him this year he said, very confidently, "A purple present." Hmm. So I inquired as to the desired contents of this purple present and found that they included crayons, pencils, and a hippopotamus. The first two were pretty easy, and somewhat surprising, since we currently have a house full of broken crayons (with all the paper peeled off, as peeling this paper seems to be Ben's primary interest in crayons at the moment), and pencils. For that matter, we actually have a plastic hippopoatmus, a PURPLE hippopotamus no less. But Ben's list of purple present contents did not change, regardless of how many times I asked him.

He did however, have some other ideas when he made his Christmas wish list at school.

Once again, we actually already had all of the items on this list, even the carpet. Anyhow, when Christmas morning rolled around, some purple presents were waiting for Ben under the tree.

Inside his purple presents Ben found crayons, pencils, and markers, as well as a toy hippopotamus that walks, and of course everyone's favorite classic, Hungry Hungry Hippo. Hungry Hungry Hippo was actually a big hit and we played lots of games over the next few snowy days.

Ben was a great present-opener this year. He said "Oh wow, look at this!" almost every time he opened something. But of course, the more presents he opened the less he cared what was in each present and the more he cared about opening the next one. At Harold's parents' house on Christmas Day he kept following Harold's Mom around saying "Is that present for me, Grammy? Is that one mines?" It was very cute, but it has the potential to become highly obnoxious as he gets older. We will definitely have to keep an eye on that! But right now he is still a sweet little boy who is thrilled to help anyone open any present, just for the sheer excitement of it.

Anecdotes to Remember

This past weekend Ben and I took his tricycle for a spin around the block. It is too small for him, as is the bike helmet that he insisted on wearing even though it barely fits on his head. Safety first! He has become quite taken with the bike helmet recently, and was even keeping it on his bed for a while. After we cruised around the block, and he demonstrated that he can pedal on his own and that he " needs a bicycle" (are you reading this Dad?) because the tricycle is too small, when we got back home he told me the baby could ride the tricycle and have his helmet. Lets hope this sharing attitude sticks when the baby actually gets here.

Monday night I was telling Ben about the lunar eclipse and he said back to me "The moon is going to turn red and do flips!" He thought that was pretty cool. He then said "Aww, maybe the moon wants his Mommy and his Daddy and his baby." Again, super sweet, and I hope he is as enamored of his baby when she gets here.

Thumbs Up

This past summer/fall we signed Ben up for soccer and basketball classes with the Raleigh parks and recreation department. They were a lot of fun and Ben is now a big fan of playing both sports. At the end of every class the coach would ask all the kids to do a thumbs up. It took Ben a little while to get the hang of this, as he kept wanting to hold up his pointer finger and thumb (kind of like a gun, but that's another post), but he finally got the hang of it. And ever since he did he likes to occasionally walk around the house saying "thumbs up!" (It doesn't sound that exciting, but it is really cute.)

So it seemed especially fitting that during my last ultrasound Ben's little SISTER gave him her very own thumbs up.

That night I gave Ben a book about becoming a big brother along with a copy of this picture so that he could feel like he and his sister have something in common. He liked looking at the pictures and was somewhat excited when he found out he was having a little sister (who, regardless of gender, Ben believes should be named Max a la "Where the Wild Things Are"). It was a little anticlimactic, which, I guess, shouldn't be all that surprising since he is only two. But he has talked about his baby sister quite a bit in the last few weeks and even suggested that she might need a Christmas present. So I think he is getting used to the idea.