Ben turned 25 yesterday on Feb. 24. I feel like I just turned 25 yesterday...what the hell happened? I'm now less than a year away from becoming 30...yikes! It's all a little hard to believe.
I was 4 when Ben was born, so I don't necessarily remember it, but I feel like I remember it because of pictures. Ben was an easy baby...and a lazy one. He only opened one eye initially and finally managed to open the second one about a month later. That should have been a solid foreshadowing indicator right there. He crawled foreverrr...felt no need to start walking and exert the effort. So, yeah, he was kind of lazy but super easy because he was pretty much always content.
He had a care bear that started off looking normal, but now it's a dingy, towel-wrapped lump with its eyes/nose/mouth drawn on in marker. He reallyyy liked that care bear. He used to do this strange thing with it where he would take the foot and bat it against his eye...over and over and over...while sucking on his "bee bee", which was his pacifier, naturally. I guess it was a soothing thing for him but obviously looked pretty strange to outsiders. So, the poor care bear's foot fell off and had to get sewed back on numerous times. While other kids were throwing tantrums or learning to walk, Ben was just happily crawling around batting stuffed animals' extremities in his eye.
My mom had it made with Ben...and, lucky for her because I was literally the worst baby ever. Never slept, just stared/gawked at strangers without cracking a smile (even when they told me I was cute), and did weird stuff like pick my whole toenail off. The only good is I was always really cautious (the opposite of Ben), so if my mom told me not to touch the fan, I wouldn't even so much as LOOK at the fan. My mom could put jewelry on me without ever having to worry that I might take it off and try to swallow it. Ben probably would have (not that he'd be wearing jewelry though...). He ate a Christmas tree light off our tree one year. The point is, even though I was good in some ways when I was young, for the most part, I was really difficult and strange...whereas Ben, for the most part, was just really easy, laid back and happy.
Things definitely changed/flip flopped as we both grew up. My temperament evened out (my parents like to say that I got "a little bit better each year", ha), I got good grades, was pretty responsible, etc. Meanwhile, Ben and his friends were burning plastic tarps with matches by the 5th grade. There were lots of fun teenage years to follow where my parents were pulling their hair out, and they like to refer to ages 11-21 as "iffy". He's likely (hopefully) hit his stride now though.
He's made it to 25! A whole quarter of a century...so, happy birthday Ben! Love ya!
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