I fell in love with Benton from the first time I saw him all scrunched up and partially formed in that ultrasound picture yesterday. I guess it wasn't yesterday that my husband and I held hands and watched two lines appear on the test. Yesterday they didn't pull a wriggling baby out of me, unwrap the cord from his neck and put him, wailing, into my arms. It just seems like it. Since yesterday, aka October 4, 2004, my 7lb 1oz bundle of joy has grown up! He turned 5 last week. Now instead of screaming for hours on end, he talks for hours on end. He creates art as often as he is able. The other morning, he asked if he could have his markers and paper. I told him he needed to get dressed and make his bed first. He sighed heavily. "It's just that art is the only thing on my mind." We're doing pre-school at home together and he soaks up knowledge like a sponge. He reads (as long as they are three letter words that follow all phonetic rules involving short vowel sounds); he writes (as long as the previous applies); he quotes commercials, Bible verses and theme songs; he makes up stories ( I wonder where he gets that); he loves animals (I really do wonder where he gets that); he keeps us entertained and on our toes. Here is an example of a few questions hurdled in my direction today: "If a quadruped has 4 legs and a biped has 2 legs, what to they call an animal with 1 leg?" "Why does glass make things look bigger than they are?" "Can you set the timer so I know when I can get up? Only don't set it for long."
Benton counted down his birthday for weeks. He planned his party--dinosaur theme; invited two friends--Soren and Kyler; filmed his infomercial; and waited. It must have seemed like forever. The week before his birthday, Paul took on the challenge of the dinosaur birthday cake. No ordinary dino would do. This one had to be 3 dimensional and a replica of a real dinosaur. I was in charge of making the cake. I used funfetti cake mix, but since cake mixes are not as dense as this one needed to be, I had to do some tweaking. I made 4- 8" rounds and 2- 8" squares per the instructions of the architect.
The architect, after careful research, pondering and measuring, crafted a skeleton for what would become an Argentinosaurus.
The skeleton became sandwiched between cake layers, cut in the necessary shapes, and glued together with strawberry cream cheese frosting.I also got the great pleasure of tinting the frosting. I started with a rather brilliant shade of bright green and my challenge was to turn it to a shade of green between "sage and peat moss."
The artist took over from there, carefully applying the crumb coat before slathering the beast with a thick layer of moss green butter cream.
Here is our decorated dino before he spent the night in the deep freeze.
The morning of the party, we hooked up with Soren and Kyler and headed to the Kroc center for a morning of floundering in the pool.
The kids had a blast, and I almost used my allotment of 109 pictures. after we were all dried off, we came home for a special lunch of dino shaped peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, grapes and dinosaur fruit snacks.
and, of course, the cake.
Happy birthday, my sweet boy!
