thoughts mostly for me

Benson is mad in this picture and no one remembers why. It's probably better that way.

I've been wanting to write a little ditty about Benson for a while now, you know the kind of thing you store away and stroke on your cheek when they are big and scary teenagers and have too many other things to do than frown in pictures in front of balloons. He is truly the sweetest boy, and I keep waiting for him to change into a regular 6 year old that is totally obnoxious but he's still the sweetest thing you ever did see. For example:

This morning when Roman was screaming his head off because he (and consequently all of us) woke up too early, and I was feeling tired and was short with the children, Benson came and found me in the bathroom and sweetly asked, "mom, what can i do to help you?" Even though I was short with him too! He learned this exact phrase from his father, by the way.

Banks was crying on the trampoline a couple of days ago, so I peeked my head out to see if there was any blood spilled and what do I behold but Benson holding and rocking Banks, stroking his hair and giving him kisses. And when Roman started to get a little jealous, he reached for the little one, pulled him into the hug, and rocked him too.

I could literally go on and on, but I'll stop with these two little occasions. Sometimes Ben and I talk about what we are going to do when our kids face problems as they get older, but in the end we often joke that everyone else will probably be okay because they have Benson going first to show them how it's done. And I don't think it will even be from the typical oldest child pressure to be perfect, he's just one of those kids who wants to do the right thing.

I feel lucky to have him around. We all learn a lot from our little Benson.