Ben is 4

Ben just celebrated his 4th birthday! It hardly seems possible that our baby is 4 already. I know it will just keep going fast and I'll be saying the same thing every year, but still… Wow!

Ben has grown into such a fun boy. He warms our hearts and makes us want to scream all at the same time. He is a wonderful big brother and can often be caught jumping up from his seat at the table to pick something up that Kyle has dropped, whether Kyle should have it back or not. Last Sunday, Kyle dropped a piece of banana on the floor and before we could say anything Ben had run over to pick it up. We thought he'd just take it to the garbage for us, but he very carefully blew all the dirt off of it. He was so sweet we didn't have the heart to tell him he should throw it away.

He's also very much his own boy. He knows what he wants and he can be very persistent in asking for it sometimes. He also surprises us at how much he likes routine. Last night, we kept giving him ideas about what he might want to do for his birthday... did he want to go to a movie? eat at a restaurant? Nope, he wanted to play at home and go get a happy meal and bring it home to eat. I even tried to talk him into watching his new Veggie Tales DVD while he ate dinner, but he told me very plainly that he wanted to eat at the table and THEN watch Veggie Tales.

Ben is also still a source of great stories. One of Ben's birthday gifts was a plastic suit of armor complete with sword, shield, breastplate and helmet. We told him it was his knight in shining armor costume. He's really a fan of it and has taken the sword to bed with him at least two or three times in the three days since he got it.

The other night as I was putting him to bed he lobbied for me to help him get his armor on and I told him we didn't have time.

He pleaded with me saying, "Daddy, I want to have a night in shining armor."

Did he just say what I thought he said? We had a short conversation and I confirmed that he indeed thought the armor was for night time, not for a knight. How would he know, he's never seen a knight before. I tried to explain it and I think he understood a little, but it was pretty darn sweet that he wanted to have a "night in shining armor."