Ben's Killing Me

Mother's Day

Ben has been planning for Mother's Day since the day after Mother's Day last year. Somehow Brian must have made it so special and fun that he is anticipating it almost more than Christmas. He always is making me pictures and cards and telling me about what we could do to get ready and talking through getting flowers and always has ideas about what I might want to have as a present. Today he told me that he could go on a walk to find Mother's Day flowers but he keeps having to wait to go get them "because they will just be dead on Mother's Day if I get them today."

Smells Like Grandpa

We had house guests for five days. Our friend from Houston, Candy, and her dad, Jerry. Jerry had lovely accomodations in our basement on an air mattess so he could have some privacy. Like most men, he apparently wears cologne. Something Brian does not do. It gives me a headache if he has it on and I'm not so sure he wore it before we met either. Anyway, after Jerry left to go see the sights in DC the second day, Ben went in the basement to get some toys and hollered up the stairs to me, "Mom, it smells like Grandpa Zufelt is down here." I hope Grandpa Zufelt feels flattered that Ben remembers his scent. It sure made me chuckle.

Treadmill

Today during Maddie's nap, Ben asked if he could exercise on "the big fold down machine in the basement" meaning the treadmill. I got him all set up with the safety cord on his shirt and walking shoes and supervised while he walked on the slowest setting for five minutes. I was surprised he did it so long. He really enjoyed it. Later that afternoon, Ben came and told me, "Mom, I can feel myself growed taller today because of all that exercising I did." And another time he said, "When I grow up, I'm going to get on an airplane and come back home to our house in Virginia and get the exercise machine so I can practice walking and exercising." I replied that maybe I would want to use it still. He said that would be okay. After 20 minutes he had come up with a better response. "I think when I'm a grown up, you'll be kind of older than me so you might just be dead. Then I can have the exercise machine because you won't need it, because....well...you're just dead."