Quirkiness

Last night Ben had a strange moment.  And when I say "strange" I actually just mean "strange for other people but I'm used to it."  Since day one, Ben and I haven't been able to agree on what's hot and what's cold.  I prefer to stay on the warmish side of comfortable.  Ben feels that since our outside can't feel like Idaho in the winter, our inside should instead.  So we've made a deal.  I get my way in the summer and he gets his way in the winter.  That way we also save on our bills.  But let's be clear here, I have to sleep with a sheet, electric blanket, and thick duvet on all winter long while Ben usually sleeps with nothing, or on a freezing cold night, a sheet.  And when I say "winter" I mean every month except June, July, and August.  Okay.  Maybe I'm the one with a problem.

So now you get that Ben and I have different personal thermostats.  Last night Ben was working on his laptop for a couple of hours and when he put it away he started fanning his hands at his face.  "It's so hot."  I hear this probably 3984 times a day so I didn't really think about it.  But then he said, "I've been typing so much my hands are dying from the heat."  And that's when I realized that he was fanning his hands only, not his face.  Even his hands get warm as if they've been working out from typing.  WHAT?!  And that's when I realized something even bigger.  On the blog, I feel like Ben has this whole "Good Father/Good Husband" image and not much else.  Ben is definitely those things, but his quirkiness is such a huge part of him that I can't believe I've neglected to make that come across.

So I thought I'd list a few little things that make Ben different.

• Ben is an incredible cook.  On fast Sundays when he's dying from hunger, he usually prepares this huge feast which includes some sort of delicious dinner and some sort of yeast bread (typically rolls or cinnamon rolls).  It's usually slightly better than the typical incredible feast he makes all the other Sundays.  
• Ben is as obsessed with cute baby clothes as I am.  This week we've been packing up the kids' old clothes to put into storage and Ben and I sort of went through a mini mourning period when we packed up Ella's cute baby clothes since she's the last baby girl we'll have.  We had to stop and look at each of the cutest dresses and outfits.  Maybe I was a little worse than Ben, but he definitely goes googly eyed when it comes to these things.  All I have to say is that, Becca, you had better take some awesome pictures when you someday have a girl and she's wearing these clothes.  Oh man.  
• Ben is just as obsessed with flowers as I am.  We have planted tons of flowers at our house only to have over half of them fail on us because of our poor soil.  But some of them have stuck around and they make our home look so much better.  I'm grateful to have a husband who's as flower-obsessed as me.  
• When Ben is with kids, he acts their age.  This is a fantastic thing as a dad, but sometimes it's a little weird to have 4 kids.  I mean, trying to get a 29 year-old man to share his Lego's can sometimes be difficult.  ;)  And let's not even talk about how much Ben loves watching the Transformers cartoon on TV every Saturday morning with the kids...
• Ben finding out that he's going to be getting a new tool usually ignites the same reaction as telling kids they're allowed to eat ice cream for dinner every night for the rest of their lives.  
• Ben has the body of an old man.  Or at least that's what I always jokingly say.  He has a really bad back, bad hips, and bad knees and often has to hobble around when he's been doing too much physical labor.  I guess if you combined that with my completely messed up heart, we make a charming old couple.  I can just see the wrinkles now...

And by posting this, I nervously squirm away as I wait for Ben to create a similar post about me in revenge.  Ummm... love you, Hubs?