The best special night ever

Well, I’ve been trying to figure out how to write about the kids’ special nights…I want to write about each of them, but when Ben does the special nights with them I have less to write because I’m not there for the whole thing…I just hear about it. Anyways…I’ve decided that on Ben’s months with them I’ll just do one blog at the end of the month summarizing all 3 of their dates with Daddy. When it’s my turn, I’ll blog about each one because I usually have more to share…things we talked about, etc. Hope you enjoyJ

On Tuesday I finally did Benjamin’s overdue special night with him. Sometimes he asks if we can just stay home & I can play Worms with him or help him get to the next level on his computer game, etc…but I had told him we weren’t doing that. I said we needed to go somewhere & do something fun. He didn’t complain, but had a bit of a hard time figuring out what he wanted to do. He decided on a bike ride to the park…or to JOKOs to buy a treat. I of course was fine with that…just wasn’t sure how I’d make it last…we usually try to spend at least a couple of hours with them.

We headed off on our bikes & made the first stop at the school park. At first Benjamin asked me to play tag…I told him it’s kind of tough with just 2 people…hide & seek?...no hiding places…I told him I could just play on the park with him…”you mean get on the park & play!!??” (I guess that means I don’t do it enough). He decided he wanted to see if I could do everything he did on the park. Before we left home when Ben was taking a picture of us on our bikes, Benjamin asked if he could take pictures later. At the park we decided to take pictures of each other doing each part of the park. I’d take a picture of him & then he’d take one of me doing the same thing. I managed to do pretty much everything he did…failed miserably at the monkey bars though…hung there just long enough for him to snap a pictureJ. It was fun to play together & do something we both enjoy…take pictures.

From the park we headed to JOKOs to get an ice cream treat & a drink. When I asked him where he wanted to eat it, Benjamin asked if there was a picnic table anywhere nearby. We jumped on our bikes & rode to some picnic tables beside the creek. As we ate our ice cream, Benjamin told me how glad he was that the whole world wasn’t just all blue, or all green…because he like all the different colors. “Do you know what my favorite colors are to look at Mommy?” My first instinct was to say red because that’s his favorite color…but I asked him what they were. “Yellow…and orange…because those are the colors in a sunset.” He pointed out some clouds that looked like that (just the sun shining on them…the sunset was the opposite way). “I wish I could watch a sunset sometime.” I suggested we finish our ice cream while we watched the sunset & he was shocked that we’d be able to watch it right thenJ.

We jumped on our bikes & rode down the path along the creek. At the end of the path is a dike where Ben & I used to ride to when we were dating. The path to the dike was fenced off, but there was a giant rock there, so we sat on that & enjoyed the sunset. Somewhere in that time Benjamin said, “Mommy, I’m glad we didn’t stay home & play video games, this is the best special night ever!!” Nothing like melting a mommy’s heartJ. We were able to walk closer to the dike by going along the creek. Benjamin loves inspecting things & seeing how they work…and asking lots of questions! Whenever I have this one on one time with Benjamin it hits me how big he’s getting…we have real conversations…and he seems so grown up! I thoroughly enjoy being able to get to know him better!