One Dae at a Time: Bennett is 4!

Happy birthday, Bennett!

We had so much fun celebrating you this weekend!
On Friday we went on your birthday date and you chose pizza. We went to Totally 80s Pizza because lots of people here have recommended that to us as a really fun place to take visitors. So we decided to check it out first, and it was a unique and fun spot. We loved being able to just spend some one on one time with our Bennett and have fun together!

Bennett at 4:
What's your favorite thing to do: Play
What's your favorite color: Blue
What's your favorite food: Pizza with pepperOOOnis!
What do you want to be when you grow up? *Points to a picture of a gremlin (in the 80s restaurant) and then giggles uncontrollably.
Me: "Haha That's what you want to be?" Bennett: "Yes! Heh Heh no, I want to be Superman."
What's your favorite thing to play with? Racecars
What do you want to be when you grow up? *never gives a non-Superman answer :)
What's your favorite animal? Elephant!

Bennett, you are so kind and joyful and funny and helpful and above all EMPATHETIC. You are aware of what people around you are feeling, and you try to help them be happy. Such a good little, and big, brother. Such a bright spot. I love how much you love animals, how brave you are at playgrounds (and how brave you are at taking care of all the bugs around here -- outside if you like them, flushed down the toilet if you're feeling that route), you love to color, you don't love practicing counting or letters, you love helping me when I cook, you love chasing daddy's car out when he goes to work, you love when you have a Toy Story pull up for bedtime and you always show us "Buzz Lightyear on my booooty!" You make us laugh so much. Oh my goodness, I am so sentimental this weekend thinking of bringing you home to our new house in Fresno, and you being my baby during that hard, hard 22-month gap during Michael's first year of residency. You needed emotional support for every time you passed gas or pooped for like 4 months, it was basically my full time job :) You never liked going to bed by yourself those first 4 months and looking back I wish I just would have let you sleep in our bed more! But after 4 months, I think you cried less than 10 times for all naps and bedtimes the rest of your life. In fact I know that's true. You have been so easygoing, joyful, loving, and I am just so incredibly grateful you are in our family. Tomorrow is your first day of (in person) school, and I think it's all hitting harder when you combine that with a birthday weekend. I selfishly just want to keep you home with me but I know that you're going to love school and school is going to love you. You have worked so hard with speech and I know this is going to be really good for that. You fall out of the bed most nights, you love eating your favorite food on your plate very first, you loved the balloons we blew up for you and threw all over the floor more than any of your presents, and you are SO SWEET, how many times can I say that.

Happy Birthday, Benny boy. We love love love you.

Michael:
has been working SO HARD on our side yard. Moving tons of rocks to make a border, filling in the old water fixture hole with all the grass and dirt he dug up, etc. The boys helped him some on Wednesday and it makes my heart happy to see them work together. Michael also put Camden's new bike seat on my bike this weekend, and vacuumed our whole house, and the things he does to help like that always just make a big difference. I was feeling pretty alone on Saturday when he worked outside all day and the boys played together all day and I was in the kitchen way more than usual since it was Bennett's birthday. But after being frustrated by that I took a second look at how well Westin and Bennett play together, how sweet it is to have little Camden in his high chair by me when I'm working, and how hard Michael works. Sometimes being the only girl in our family gets to me but other times it feels perfect.

Maddie:
Ever since getting a steroid shot in my wrist I've been on a reading frenzy. I finished Walk Two Moons, Lies My Teacher Told Me (I loved simultaneously remembering things I learned in AP History while learning more about primary sources of those situations and the Eurocentric framing of our education), almost done with Moment of Lift (Melinda Gates is amazing), finished The Mother-In-Law (not great, but it's our November book club book so I decided to read it while I'm not painting for a minute), and I'm about to finish up a WWII book one of Michael's assistants sent home with him for me to read. I kind of take a feast or famine approach to reading because when I'm in an interesting book I don't want to do anything else but find time to read it. So then when I get out of it I feel like I can't go there again until I get things done again. For my birthday all I wanted was for Michael to help me with a shiplap wall and a board and batten room with no fighting (haha we love each other), so that's in our near future, but this week he got me a pair of wireless headphones so that I could listen to books while I paint and walk and clean. It made the biggest difference in my week and I'm so grateful for them. Also he got that with an Apple gift card that his residency program gave him as a graduation present. I just think that was so kind.

Westin:
loved going on a date with Michael to pick out a birthday present for Bennett. He chose dinosaurs for him and it was really cute to see him excited about it. Then on Friday when we took Bennett out for pizza, our babysitter helped him wrap the present for Bennett. I love that we have babysitters right in our neighborhood. When she came over she had made Bennett a little birthday card and he loved it so much and carried it to dinner with us. My favorite brotherly moment of Westin's this week was when he was just SO excited for Bennett to go on a birthday date. Never complained, never whined. Excitedly asked where he was going to choose to go. Asked him all about it when he got home. Loved asking him what kind of cake he was going to choose, and helping him open his presents whenever he legit needed help but letting him do it when he didn't. This boy LOVES holidays and birthdays and this weekend he just loved that it was Bennett's birthday, for Bennett. It was so sweet. He played his new counting games with him and helped him count, and helped him clean up all his new dinosaurs when he was done with them. He's such a good kid. I think I am too hard on him and I just want him to know how good he is. I tell him all the time because I see perfectionism eat at him, but then I catch myself expecting a lot from him at the same time, and man parenting is just hard. You want to do all the right things for your kid and not mess them up and somehow the line between them sometimes feels so fine, but there's probably a lot more grace there than I realize. He's looking forward to going to school this week but tonight I could tell he had a little nervous side about it too. He's so sweet.

Camden:
put his bum in the air for the first time this week! Haha if that sounds minuscule to you, then, well, you haven't been a mom with a kid with a delay in anything before. I watch this kid so much -- when on paper you just know he's not crawling or walking yet, it's worrisome. But every day I see the things he does for the first time. This week he pushed himself from his belly to sitting up, for the first time. He also scooched backward by putting his bum up in the air a few times in a row for the first time, kind of going on his hands and knees. I'm watching him each day and whenever I don't see any progress, I'll worry. But for now I just know we're doing all we can to support his development there and he's going his own slow pace. He loved riding on the back of my bike today after Michael set up the new seat. It was so cute. We love our neighborhood. While the boys were working with Michael this week one neighbor brought them over a bag of matchbox cars that her sons used to play with, then another neighbor brought them over a Japanese treat. Then tonight another neighbor brought Bennett over a birthday present. We just feel surrounded by kind people and bike trails and good food -- we're set.

Last night being 3! Sweet Bennett!

I haven't given a Kitty update in a while -- I'm obsessed with Colorado Kitty. She spends almost all day outside, pretend-hunting bunnies and squirrels and rolling around in the grass and jumping at grasshoppers. She hangs out under our deck or out in the yard with the boys, and will even hang out with Michael while he's gardening in the front yard, or backyard. She's super at ease here. Then, because she spends so much time outside, she never wakes us up at night anymore and sleeps by us and is the coziest little thing in the morning. We're also on a different floor than our front and back door so there's not really a way for her to bug us to go outside. I didn't realize how much our loud Toby neighbor dog scared her in Fresno - she wouldn't go outside much unless it was night and she was always SO skittish there. I thought that was just how she was but now I see that she's living her best life here. She also stopped sneezing. She was literally allergic to Fresno, and scared all the time -- poor girl. We're way better friends again because of it all.

We did a mystery shop dinner with all the boys this week (never again) and it was basically the most fried food I've ever eaten at one time so obviously I loved it. I mean, the place was called Fat Shack. It just was what it was. We had a bag of beignets and Michael took home the bag of powdered sugar that was left and "blew fire" for the boys in the backyard. I will always remember the whoosh of fire then Michael looking at us with a powdered sugar face and 12-year-old boy excitement saying "Wasn't that cool!" Hahaha why is playing with fire so fun.

Still going on walks and picking up lunches at the school.
It's free and I felt guilty about it at first, but the boys love it and we pay taxes and it's just what we do right now and it's great.

The lights at Totally 80s Pizza were my favorite part.
The music videos playing were my second favorite part.

A bike with pedals! He just can't QUITE get on and off by himself,
and doesn't dare pedal yet, but he'll get there soon enough.

Pre-frosting. Bennett's birthday requests were basically what we eat on Christmas.
Cinnamon Rolls for breakfast, cheesy potatoes and salmon and caesar salad for dinner.
This was pre-frosting but these were so yummy! Mels' Kitchen Cafe Small Batch Cinnamon Rolls are my very favorite. But we're entering the stage of not needing small batch anything...
growing boys.
Also I need to learn how to roll these out evenly so I don't have those sad end-of-the-roll cinnamon rolls.
But those are the ones Bennett specifically asked for when we ate them, so.... still winning.