Nine Years

Today Ben turns 9, and we are, of course, at the beach.  He’s always had beach birthdays…except for his actual day of birth, thank goodness, though we cut it close:

Two days after we got back from the beach, he arrived!  He was my easiest pregnancy and my easiest delivery of all three children.  Maddie was not too happy at first about his arrival, however…

 

 

Ben has been making up for that easy pregnancy/delivery thing ever since.  He’s definitely got his own mind and opinions (read:  stubborn) and I try to remind myself constantly that those will be good personality characteristics when he’s an adult.  Ben also becomes very, extremely, exceedingly enthusiastic  in whatever his current obsession is.  For instance, at the age of two he loved lawn mowers, and he knew the names of every family member’s/neighbor’s/slight acquaintance’s lawn mower.  Uncle Ed?  Cub Cadet.  Mr. Gontz?  Husqvarna.  The man who lives next to the church?  Troy-Bilt.

 

 

He is smart and really has an innate sense of mathematics.  He and Maddie made a joint purchase of the recently released Harry Potter Wii game.  He spent $7 and she spent $43 (how smart is that?)  When they were arguing over who should get to play it one day, Maddie reminded him that she owned 43% of it and he only owned 7%.  He politely informed her that “you actually own 86% and I own 14%”.  He had not learned percentages in 2nd grade.  He just knew they were always expressed in hundreds.  (It was the wrong time to share this fact with her, however, because he lost the argument.)

 

He was so interested in money in kindergarten that his Sunday School teacher referred to him in a letter home to parents as her “future investment banker” who helped count the offering that came in every week (he was also going through a jacket-and-tie-for-church phase at the time).  He knew which president was on every bill and coin from low to high and was adding items in the grocery store and figuring out change from the time he understood the values of the coins.  He asked me one time to make him money with his face on it.  He posed for the pictures and stood next my computer giving me helpful suggestions.  Here’s what we designed:

He carried that money in his wallet for months.

He’s my challenge and my sweetheart.  Happy 9th Birthday to my Beach Boy!