Birthday Boy

Photograph by Stephi Layton

I do not know who gave this child permission to grow up so quickly, but whoever it is should be shot.

Seriously.

When did my baby have the time to turn 5?

I really need to stop calling him my baby.

In any case, this post is a day late, but Ben turned 5 years old yesterday.  We've been involved in a countdown for the last month or so.  Every day he would ask how many days left.  Until the last week, then he asked how many days left about once an hour.  Luckily, Nana came out for cake and ice cream a few days before his birthday because I didn't think he was going to make it.

Wednesday morning he bounded down the stairs and into the kitchen.  He responded to my "good morning, birthday boy" with a "where's my present?"  I made the mistake of letting him look around on Amazon with me a few weeks prior to get some ideas.  And then an Amazon box showed up a few days later.  So, yes, the kid knew the gift was in the house and he knew it was his.  I told him he would have to wait until Daddy got home since the gift was from both of us.  Luckily, chocolate chunk pancakes and sausage was on the menu for breakfast and thus he was easily distracted.

Mid-morning we packed up his birthday brownies with sprinkles (oh yeah, I know how to make things fancy, alright!) and took them to preschool for him to share with his classmates and (some of) his teachers.  You can see a food theme here, right?  Chocolate for breakfast, chocolate for snack, chocolate, chocolate, chocolate.

That's my boy.

The afternoon we spent at my first PT appointment.  Not the most exciting birthday activity, but he gets to play on my Kindle Fire during my appointments so he was happy as a clam.  He found a bed with a pillow and got himself comfortable to play some Star Wars Angry Birds.  What else could a boy want for his birthday??

When we got home and Jason got home from work, Ben finally got possession of what was rightfully his: An Angry Birds Star Wars Darth Vader Jenga game.  Oh yeah.  Whoever invented Angry Birds is a freaking genius.  A stinking rich, freaking genius.

Dinner was black beans and rice - at his request and why he may possibly be my favorite son (at least at the dinner table).  Well, all my sons are my favorite sons.  It is just more difficult to think of some of them that way at dinner.

And dessert: chocolate cake.  Shockingly enough, we still had leftovers from the 4-layer cake Nana had made 4 days earlier so I was spared the effort of making a special birthday dessert.  Not sure I could have topped a 4-layer cake anyway.

There it is.  The day Ben turned 5.  We love our boy who is cuddly, hysterically funny, loving and sometimes appears to be channeling my grumpy grandfather.