Happy Birthday, Benji

Twenty eight years ago this afternoon, at 5:09 PM, was a very special day in my life.  A certain "round faced pumpkin boy" was brought into this world, and I got to watch it happen in the mirror, during my c-section.  I had realized minutes before he was born that the baby I had thought was a girl, was not--and it's a good thing--because the little boy that popped out was very much the perfect addition to our family, and very much a boy.  No question about it.  I remember him flutter kicking when they grabbed him to deliver him, and me telling him it was all OK, and to puuuh-lease stop kicking.  Within minutes he was in my arms, eyes wide open and alert, looking at me with a " Heddo....I'm Benji" expression that just sent me over the moon.  I was officially a goner and still am to this day.  A funnier baby was never born.

I remember asking for him in Recovery so I could nurse him and in came what within minutes I realized was a hungry baby barracuda.  He almost pulled me off the gurney and that was just the beginning of a life long hysterical relationship with a son I adore.  (I am just as adoring of the other one, too.  Boys....there's just nothing like 'um.)

I remember catching Benji, as a toddler, loading one of those Oaxacan embroidered Mexican dresses of mine, into the toilet in the boys bathroom, a nano second from flushing it.  At the time, he thought flushing was the greatest invention in the world and spent hours, practising.  Any water--preferably swirling--and you could count Benji in.

I know what he did last year on his birthday and it involved water, again, but I won't go into that here.  Let's just say I hope you have a great one today,Benner!!!  I love you, Benji.