Help Me Help Me… My Baby is Turning 4

Ben is turning FOUR on Monday. He is our 4^th child – the 4^th in a 5 year span of pregnancies. The twins were a wild ride, then Alexander was born when the twins were only 3 ½, then Ben was a unplanned blessing, born when Alexander was only 20 months old. As a parent, we are not supposed to, and we really don't love one child more than another, but at different times, they capture our hearts in different ways. When they have birthdays, I seem to reflect on their entire lives from birth in some nostalgic way. Ben will be four on Monday, and I am settled into this state… only this is the last baby, so I may need more help snap out of it.

Also, he is my snuggliest one (I know snuggliest is not a word, but it should be). Ben keeps agreeing when we ask him to stay little. When school started in August, and Alexander went to kindergarten, I realized that this time I have with Ben on the 2 days a week he is not in preschool, is the first time I have ever had just one child. I have been savoring Tuesdays and Thursdays for the past month, realizing that this is what my friends with one baby had that I missed. I know I probably benefitted from a lot of moments that moms of singleton babies didn't, but this one on one time is amazing to me right now. I have never had it.

It is cold and rainy too, so we have had 'lots of snuggles this week. I am in real trouble. I am really having emotional issues. I am not just reflecting on the four glorious years of Ben's life, but on the entire 10 year journey that lead us to where we are now. I guess, because he is my last baby, I am realizing this is it… finale...end of the road… no more babies. I don't have any regrets about this. I know that I am stretched beyond my capabilities, and I can't even remember my name at the end of many days. For this reason, , and the fact that I do have a lot of work to do with these four to make them fit for society, it is a good thing that this baby factory is closed. But, I really will miss the babies in my life. I have had a baby for the past 9 ½ years, and now all of the sudden, no more babies.

I cannot imagine what life would be like without Ben. He is the master charmer of my crew. It seems it is always this one… the one that was not in our grand plan (not that we had a grand plan)… the one that my mom almost disowned me for conceiving… the one that caused me to cry when I realized I had conceived him – my 4^th baby in 5 years…. It is this one that absolutely wraps himself around your heart in a way that changes everything about you. For that matter, he wraps himself around the hearts of almost anyone who meets him. He doesn't have a bad day. He is happy when he wakes, and happy when he goes to bed. He is busy, but always smiling. He tells strangers about his day.

Ben… sweet Ben… he is so "go with the flow". He love trucks and tractors, and is happy to go anywhere. He is busy, but he is so happy. He hasn't gotten the attention that many of his friends get from their mom, not because I don't want to, but because he spent the first year in the baby bjorn, the second in a car seat and stroller, and the last two years have been a blur. He finds ways to entertain himself though. Whether he is bathing our white lab in Hershey's syrup, squeezing green Play dough through my garlic press in the middle of my cooking (before all of the garlic was pressed), or mixing red Kool Aid in his giant dump truck, he is happy. Just this morning, I was cleaning up the splattered blackberry yogurt in the kitchen from when Ben fed his yogurt to the dog yesterday. As I was on the floor, I looked in his dirty dump truck and there I saw one of my earrings. I don't have many pieces of expensive jewelry, but this pair was my Christmas gift from my mom last year and I know they were nice. I had taken them off one night in exhaustion and placed them in my bed side table, rather than my jewelry box, and for some unknown reason, Ben thought one of these earrings would fit nicely in his Tonka Truck this morning. These things happen every moment of every day. It is so hard to get mad at him because he is honestly not trying to cause destruction. He is just exploring. Sometimes I do have to discipline him, but I try to keep my perspective that he is so happy and innocent and did not intentionally cause the mess. I am so grateful for that happiness. I think I have more funny Ben stories than the total of all of my children. He is just such a character. I could write an entire book on this kid. He recently said to me "Mommy, when I get bigger, I will still be Ben." Innocence at it's best!

I am really not sure who I am writing this for, but over the next few days, I will re-live the past 10 years, focusing on the birth of all four children, and the stages of chaos our family has been through, and how Ben came to be Ben. I sometimes complain about the craziness, exhaustion, and many other things I can't even describe. This week, I am reflecting on the blessings that I have been given in this life. Ben is one of my blessings, and because his birthday is in four days, he is getting a lot of focus. All of my children are all blessings in their own right. The journey of the past 10 years has lead to this last baby growing up.