My grandson Benjamin turns 3 today. My sweet, darling, precious, beautiful, funny, loving, curious, caring, kind Benjamin. My Benjamin with the biggest blue eyes… the kind you just fall into like a magnificent river, lake or ocean. His eyes are all Time and Love and Life! Benjamin with the sweetest voice… he has the voice of an angel and we know that one of his angels is BB, the little person who Audrey miscarried in March of 2006… the angel with the greatest love who “moved over” to send Benjamin to our world.

Benjamin with the grandest smile… all light, delight and joy.

Benjamin is the 3rd of Audrey and Matt’s 4 boys. He is 3 1/2 years younger than William, 2 1/2 years younger than Alex and 14 months older than Henry. Ben is surrounded with testosterone… and he runs and plays and jumps and pretends and fights with swords and light sabers and digs and gets dirty and converses with action figures and LOVES Star Wars and Indiana Jones and his DSI and laughs at farts (there’s a lotta them)… but he also crawls into my arms and kisses my hands and loves books and flowers and crayons and his 2 identical yellow blankies and Max & Ruby and petting Janie’s dogs and making puzzles and playing with his BENBEAR on Webkinz. Ben loves chaw-milk (chocolate milk) and Rainbow Goldfish crackers and Nola Bars (S’mores Quaker Granola Bars) and clam dip and Pop-up’s pancakes and Frosted Flakes and bananas and apples and raisins and I keep these things well-stocked for Ben’s visits to my house. He laughs often and from somewhere indescribable and he squints his eyes when he’s mad. And you know when he’s mad because he folds his arms over his chest and announces, “I’m mad.” Mad can come when one of his brothers has a toy or book he wants at that moment, or me singing. Benjamin hates it when I sing… so, of course, I sing! It’s become our little game. Ben never stays mad for more than a minute or two… it’s just not productive for him because there’s so much else swirling around him…

I think Ben was, literally, born to be in this family of boys from a long, long, long, long time ago. He adores his brothers, all 3 of them, and he does everything to keep up with William and Alex and to catch Henry up with all of them. Ben calls his brothers, “My guys.” I melt each time he says this. He is an old soul… holding hands, explaining things, cupping my face with his beautiful hands as he whispers, “I love you, Gramma.” I melt each and every time Ben tells me he loves me… and I fall into his big blue eyes again and again and again.

Benjamin’s given name is Benjamin Barry David McClelland. He was given this wonderful name to honor both of his grandfathers, Barry Couto and David McClellan. Yes, his name is long… but no-one could possibly have known 3 years ago that Benjamin would become the Boy with the Nicknames! Benjamin IS and ANSWERS to all of these:
Benjamin, of course
He calls HIMSELF Ben-menge, so we do, too!
Ben
Ben-a-min
Boo-jee
Boo-shawn
Boo-shawn-o (in an Italian accent!)
Bennah

One of Ben-menge’s most precious nicknames comes from his brother, Henry. When Henry was born, Benjamin called him Baby from the very beginning. Ben still calls Henry Baby. But when Henry began to talk, one of his first words was Baby… and that was Ben. To this moment, Ben and Henry still call each other Baby. I wish, wish, wish this would go on forever… but I know 2 brothers won’t be doing this too much longer! Awwwwwww.

Ben is also Boo-show, Ben-hoo, Buddy, Ben-a-menge and BenBear. Recently, I began to call Ben BEN2d2. I even had special birthday Star Wars pajamas embroidered with his new nickname! Ben loves this! But Ben is never Benny. I don’t know why, but Ben-menge is simply not Benny. It doesn’t fit.

What does fit is how our little Ben-menge loves and laughs and lives… and gives our hearts soaring love and laughter and life. Ben-menge was born to bring light to this world and he does so every, every moment of every day.

4-4-07 at 7:01 am… my life forever changed with my bundle of Ben-menge!!!

HAPPY HAPPY HAPPY 3rd BIRTHDAY, my beautiful, beautiful, beautiful BEN2d2!!! I LOVE YOU TO THE TOP OF THE UNIVERSE AND BEYOND!!!