The longer Ben is home with us, the more “firsts” that he has. It is so much fun to watch him try new things and experience new things. These last few days have been big ones for him.


On Saturday, Josh’s parents came up for Marcus’ birthday, and along with Marcus’ presents, they brought up a bicycle for Ben. We are a big bike-riding family, and my kids will ride for hours on any given day, and Josh’s parents are both bike-riding enthusiasts (they do crazy things, like ride for five days over mountains and things) so having a bike was a must for Ben, now that he is a Henderson.

He had definitely never been on one, but my oh my, did his eyes light up when he saw it. It is black and neon green and he thinks it is totally awesome. He is a pretty cautious kid, and the whole pedaling thing was completely new to him, so he started off really, really slowly. He got the hang of it pretty quickly and spent hours going around and around in slow and careful circles on our driveway, with his skinny little arms and legs shaking with concentration. I thought for sure he would get tired of it, but he was in heaven.

That day Josh also put up our trampoline, which had been stored away for the winter. Our trampoline is caged in with a heavy-duty net (Josh can bounce off of it) and it is a whole lot of fun. Ben watched his brothers go nuts on it for about three seconds before he had his own shoes off and was climbing on. I thought he would get nervous once he was up there, but as I stood there watching him bounce all over, he grinned from ear to ear and yelled, “Mom! I am like a basketball!”

That day we also played baseball, football, soccer and Frisbee, and had a whole lot of fun with these little flying helicopters that Grandma and Grandpa brought up. But at the end of the day when I asked Ben what had been the most fun, he said without even thinking, “I love my bike.”

Today, we had even more excitement for Ben. He got his first loose tooth! He told me he wanted to eat an apple, which I knew was because Shane had advised him that this was a good way to get rid of a loose tooth. The apple didn’t work. He played with it and played with it and sure enough, half way through his peanut butter sandwich, out that tooth came.

To say he was excited is an understatement. “MOM!!! I was eating sandwich and tooth fell out!” He then went on to tell me that in Ethiopia, when the kids loose their teeth, they sing a little song (which he then sang to me and was adorable!!) and then they throw their tooth up on the roof. Then a bird is supposed to take the tooth off of the roof and “give” the child a new tooth. How cool is that? I thought it was incredible that his English is good enough after only two months home to explain that to me, and I love learning little things about the Ethiopian culture. I told him that in America the kids put their teeth under their pillow and that in the morning the tooth will be gone and there will be money there. He thought that sounded like a pretty good deal! (Although with nine kids and who knows how many teeth, Josh liked the idea of saving the money and throwing the teeth up on the roof!)

So, it has been a big week for Ben. He has his very first bike, his first bounces on a trampoline and he lost his first tooth. Life is good.