Superman

When did my baby grow up? Over the past week I've been struck by how big he is. We often refer to Ben as "The Baby," since he's the only kid in the house, but he's clearly anything but. He looks older to me, thanks to the new haircut and he talks a mile a minute. I am constantly amazed at the minute details of life that he remembers (places we've been, things people did weeks ago) and by his fun personality.

Here are some pictures of our not-so-little boy.

While in Utah, my friend Mandy gave Ben a superhero cape. Yesterday put it on and "flew" around for much of the afternoon. If anyone is in need of a simple craft, this one is it. A little fabric, some velcro, and voila!
Two days ago Ben decided he was done with the plastic tee and asked if I would pitch the baseball to him. Much to my surprise, he can make contact and hit it quite far. We spent an hour outside with me as his pitching machine, Ben repeating, "Go!" time after time when he wanted me to toss him the ball.
A close-up of the Lightning McQueen rain boots he's worn nonstop since Saturday when the arrived in the mail, courtesy of Grandma Annette. It was very serendipitious because earlier that day he was over at a friend's house where they played with the most amazing Cars racetrace I've ever seen. He was inconsolable when I picked him up and didn't want to leave because he was having so much fun with the Cars toys. So there must have been some grandmotherly intuition going on when that afternoon the boots arrived in the mail.

We swam at the YMCA for Family Night a few weeks ago. Ben is modeling his dolphin goggles. He likes to jump off the side into our arms nonstop and even jumped in by himself into the 3 feet deep water, but cried afterwards because he wasn't expecting to be totally submerged.