Ben Love

Let me just start off by saying that I don't know the right balance for certain things.  Ben and I constantly talk about how blessed we are.  We have no idea why we've been given so many blessings.  But with all this comes a struggle with how much you should be publicly grateful for your blessings.  For example -- with Ben's job -- most people are amazed and supportive of how much time Ben gets to work from home.  His hours are flexible and he's not usually allowed to work more than 40 hours per week.  But when I tell people about how grateful I am that he gets so much time with us, on the rare occasion people think I'm rubbing it in their faces that we have it so good.  So let me just say this: I never ever mean to seem greater than someone else.  On that note, I am thankful that this isn't a rare moment in our house:

Try not to be distracted by the Flash on the right.  Skyler's got serious speed and he makes sure he tells everyone about it.

Now, with how much I adore and love Ben, there are certain things that he's a little OCD about.  One example is that I'm not allowed to touch the turkey after it comes out of the oven on Thanksgiving.  Ben is very very particular about this.  Also, I'm never allowed to cut his or Skyler's hair.  Ben cuts both his own and Skyler's.  But for a while now, I've been wanting to give Skyler a pompadour cut.  I knew it wouldn't fly with Ben.  Skyler and I both secretly knew we were going to cut his hair.  So one day as soon as Ben was out the door to take Lily to the bus stop, we ran to the bathroom (Skyler with the promise of two chocolate chip cookies) and cut away.  

Ba-bam.  My first ever boy hair cut. 

 Ben wasn't upset when he got home.  Instead he was actually laughing that I thought he was such a control freak.  Anyhoo, I decided the cut only looked good styled and that Skyler wouldn't let me style it everyday so I buzzed it back down to a regular cut the next day.  So we were back at square one.

This is the kind of love that our children have for Ben.  It makes me laugh every time I see it.  A few weeks ago Lily and I went to visit Ben in his office and I told Lily to write him a sweet note he could keep at his desk.  She wrote something to the effect of, "Mommy told me to write you a note.  I love you Ben."  It really doesn't get much better than that.  Why they sometimes call him "Ben" and me "Mommy" is still a question I'm trying to answer.