Ben Ten

Ben turned ten on Wednesday. He kept referring to this week as his birthday week. “But Mom, I shouldn’t have to do homework; it’s my birthday week.” “Do I have to clean my room, you know, on my birthday week?” I kept telling him that he gets a birthday, not a birthday week, but we did kind of stretch it out over a few days.

We started the celebration on Tuesday with Ben’s birthday dinner. He picked Firehouse Pizzeria again this year. It was scrummy! We had the place pretty much to ourselves (no more kids-eat-free Tuesdays at the Centerville Firehouse). We played U.S.A. Brain Quest on the way down and back. The kids loved it. It was fun to see how much they know. Ben’s ability to store random facts in that little brain of his continues to amaze me.

Ben was surprisingly okay with his birthday being on a school day this year. He took Airheads for his birthday treat. He called home at lunch time because he couldn’t bite his food. He had a major orthodontic adjustment on Monday and I forgot to give him ibuprofen in the morning. I felt lots of mom guilt that he was going hungry on his birthday because of my mistake. The good news is that Wednesdays are early out days. Nate came home early so Ben could open his presents. We gave him The Burrows Lego set, Life on blu-ray, and the Sensei Wu keychain that came free with our Lego order. He got the Quidditch Match Lego set and Harry Potter glasses from Grandma Reatha and a gift card from Grandpa and Grandma N. He loved everything. He told his sisters “Just so you know, birthdays just keep getting better!” It was great. He invited a few friends over to play in the afternoon and spent the evening building his new Lego sets and watching an episode of Life. The only disappointment was his cake. For some reason he thought that I would put a Lego set on top like I did with his Indiana Jones cake, so his expectations were a little high. He got over it. I, for one, think it turned out really cute, and it was delicious to boot (Ben and I share a love of lemon cake).




We took the kids to the aquarium on Friday. I was not very excited when Ben picked that for his birthday activity. The last time we went was a couple of years ago and I wasn’t all that impressed. Luckily, they have made some major improvements since then and it was much more interesting and enjoyable this time around. We loved the new South American addition and learned all kinds of fun facts. It turned out to be a fabulous family day.