Ben's day at the farm

Yesterday was my nephews Jack and Ben's birthday party and as usual their mom went all out for the celebration. I don't want to go into detail too much, I'm sure she will blog about it soon and you can see pictures of the party over at her blog, but it included a one mile walk through a park with the 15 or so kids and their parents. Despite the well groomed trails I somehow managed to lose my footing and fall down. Unfortunately I was carrying Tony in the baby bjorn when I fell, fortunately I able to fall in a way that avoided a single scratch on him and he was unfazed by my fall. I felt pretty lucky because my foot didn't really hurt that bad, but by evening that changed and I was having quite a bit more pain. Minimal swelling though, so I was pretty sure it was nothing more than a bruise, but it still hurt pretty bad to walk on. I had to go into work at 3am for a short 4 hour shift so I decided I'd just get an X-Ray while I was there (one of the off the record perks of working in an ER) just to be sure everything was okay. Sure enough, my foot is fine, and surprisingly it didn't hurt as bad once I knew it was fine. Funny how that works.

The party was yesterday, but today is Ben's actual birthday, he turned 4 today. He is very fascinated with anything farm or tractor related, so today I picked him up after lunch and brought him back to our house so he could spend the afternoon on the tractor with his Uncle Todd. He hasn't been over to spend the day on the farm since last year, but on the drive over he asked me what that thing was called that Todd pulls behind the tractor when he plows the field. I told him I didn't know, he'd have to ask Todd. He thought about it and then said, I think it's some kind of special discs. Actually after he mentioned that, I think he was right. What a smart little 4 year old. I guess those All about John Deere for kids movies have taught him a thing or two. (BTW Todd has already bought the set for Tony and started watching it with him.) Todd said the 2 and a half hours they were in the tractor Ben talked non stop asking lots of questions. He also said that he was impressed how much Ben already knew.

After Uncle Todd and Ben were done working in the field I took him out there to take a few pictures. He climbed in and out of that big tractor all by himself.

Before I took him home I told him I would take him to Target to pick out a birthday present. Then as we were on our way I had a better idea, so I gave him a choice, go to Target and get a toy or go to the Farm store and get a toy. Obviously he chose the farm store, and he was like a kid in a candy store there. After he browsed the two toy aisles for a good 15 minutes he finally decided on a John Deere Skid Steer Loader.

As we were getting into the car I said "Happy Birthday, I hope you like your birthday present from Uncle Todd and me". He said "No, this is just a toy from the Farm store, now we can go get my birthday present." It took a little explaining before he finally accepted that that was his birthday present. He tried to talk me into wrapping it up for him with paper, but I managed to convince him that wasn't necessary since he already knew what it was.

As I was taking him home I asked him if he had fun on the tractor and he said, "of course I did, What? Do I have to tell you a hundred times?"

So I guess he had fun. If Tony likes tractors half as much as Ben does I think it will be enough.

Happy Birthday Ben. I can't believe your already 4 years old.