Ben and Me

This is a guest post from my hubby who wanted to share the details of a special night.

A few months ago my employer rewarded us with Dave and Busters gift cards for all our hard work on our conversion. Our group decided to redeem our reward last night. As an added benefit, I decided to bring Benjamin with me. (Sorry Samuel - I would have loved to bring you too, but I don't think I could handle two in there. Your outing with daddy is coming this weekend.) After a long day at work, I rushed home to pick up Ben. When I walked in the door to get him, I was greeted by all of my family dancing around the living room and singing Feliz Navidad. I, of course, couldn't be left out, so for the next few minutes, the four of us happily sang and danced until the end of the song. (Side note here for the artist - he does not end the song correctly. Doesn't he know that after a song like that, you have to end it with "Cha Cha Cha!"?)

After our dance party, we headed out with out a hint as to where we were going. Benjamin waited anxiously as we drove there, asking questions such as "Does this place serve food?" "Yes Ben, it does." "Are we going to Panera?" "No, this place is much better than Panera."

We finally arrived and he was astounded at all the lights and sounds. He glanced back into the game room and excitedly asked if we get to play games. A coworker gave us a game card so we headed back to check out the games until the rest of our group arrived.

I think the phrase "sensory overload" would be a bit of an understatement. After seeing the game area, he didn't know where to go first. We walked around a little bit and he said he wanted to play one of the racing games. Unfortunately for me, he couldn't reach any of the peddles, so he sat on the chair steering while I contorted myself to be able to help steer and keep the gas peddle pushed down. (Of course he wanted the seat all to himself.) Then I talked him into a snowmobile game where he did share the seat with me.

That wiped out the remaining credits on the card so we headed back for dinner. I must say that I was very impressed with Benjamin during dinner. He sat at the table, talked with everyone, drank his pink lemonade and ate all of his dinner, all this with out constantly asking when we could go play games.

Not only did dinner come with a $20 game card, another coworker gave us her game card. Score!

The next hour was filled with racing games, skee ball, air hockey and various novelty games where you can win tickets to redeem in their gift shop. The highlight of the night was when I won him a small teddy bear from the claw game. After I won that, he didn't let it out of his sight for the rest of the night. And, my little boy, who hasn't wanted to sleep with a stuffed animal in close to 5 months, slept with it all night, and has carried it with him all day at home today.

When our play card was finally exhausted, we went to cash in our tickets to redeem a prize. As we were going up there, a coworker handed us tickets that she had won over 8 years ago. And they accepted them! That put our total to a little over 2000 tickets, which was enough for us to get a big water gun and a claw sucker. (I don't think Benjamin knew it was candy, and I'm not spilling the beans.) Since it was already past his normal bed time, we headed out after getting his toys.

On the way home, I offered to give him one song and a dance before bed since that has been a night time activity that we have done for the past couple weeks. He was very excited about all this until we got home when he told me that he was too tired to dance and he just wanted to go to bed. This floored me, as this is just not something that I would expect to come out of his mouth. We got ready for bed and sang a couple songs. (The boys are great at stalling bedtime, and who can say no to those little faces asking for songs?)

I must say I had a great time, and I have no doubt that Benjamin did too. I know that he can be tough at times, but then there are evenings such as this that make me remember what a blessing he is. He can definitely bring a smile to my face, and reminds me that even a teddy bear that was won from a carnival game can be a treasure. I love you Benjamin, and thank you for a wonderful night. I can't wait to do it again.