Benjamin's Birthday Surprise!!!

Benjamin turned five in May!! But when your child takes three-plus years to get to the developmental age of a two year old... you have to start getting creative with birthdays and presents! Benjamin is just starting to functionally play with toys for two year olds and up. Although his skill set is really all over the place (he definitely has the attitude of a 4/5!!!) we really are in the very early stages of toddler play. That being said, we have so many toys for Benjamin to play with and many toys "waiting" to get their turn as he gets older developmentally. So this year we wanted to change things up a bit. Plus, we felt that with Benjamin's amazing progress and steady health, this five year landmark was a big, big miracle in our books and we wanted to do something extra special!  Our little guy has just come so far! Here's my little boy only days old when we were literally just praying our hearts out that God would let us keep him here:

And finally a few months being home after almost 11 weeks in the NICU: (video below)

To this cutie little boy!!:

For his birthday, we wanted to get Benjamin something that he would absolutely love and would continue to stretch him developmentally as well. Benjamin has a really hard time doing anything he doesn't want to (disability?? sounds like his mom actually!! ;) So what Benjamin's teachers and therapists have encouraged us to do is to let him engage in his most favorite activities and then integrate the therapy/communication/whatever we're trying to do into his favorite activity. Of course, his most favorite activity is watching movies and he is so zoned out when he's watching, that our whole plan doesn't really work. For Christmas, Benjamin's Grandma and Grandpa Tuter and Great Marcia-gram got us a family pass to the Portland Aquarium. That's where we found out that Benjamin absolutely LOVES fish!! LOVES THEM!! And wants to watch them for hours! We thought, "what a great way to spend time engaging and talking about something we all love and teaching Benjamin to care for them and communicate about them and NOT watching t.v.!" So Ben decided to start investigating what would work best for our family and took this entire adventure on.

Ben found a steal of a deal, 30 gallon tank on Craigslist. He cleaned it all up and then started researching fish. Boy was this a fun endeavor! These two boys of mine spent many delighted hours at different fish stores. I had no idea that fish were so high-maintenance. I'm use to the beta or goldfish in the bowl that you never clean scenario and we have to PH test our water and they have a heater and can be picky eaters and currently we're treating a sick fish!! (Ben does all of it, I don't have to... thank God... I can't do PH testing... I barely passed Chemistry!! :) About two weeks before Benjamin's birthday, Ben set the fresh-water tank up. He slowly started adding and building the aquarium so it would be ready for the big day!

We kept it covered until Benjamin's birthday party. We had a few accidental sneak peeks... once where I was out watering the plants and Benjamin was set up with a movie and all the sudden I heard this over-joyed yelling. I ran in to see what was happening... sure enough, the towel was down and Benjamin was standing at the tank shrieking with delight! Thank goodness, there were only a few small fish in there. We kept a better eye on him after that! And here's the big moment: (video below)

And here's a close up of his angel fish:

Benjamin's whole birthday party was themed after Nemo and fish (he is way into the NEMO movie right now and we can't wait til the Dori movie comes out). In fact, here is the incredible cake Grandma Anji made for him:

That whole Nemo on top is all mold-able chocolate and I just about ate the whole ding-dang thing! YUM!

Last but not least, I have to show you two little gifts Benjamin received...
My son is now officially cool with these socks:

And Benjamin received his first dog present from his best buddies:

Benjamin had such an incredible birthday party! Lots of laughs and "happy yelling" and "happy hands" and following his buddies around... We felt so blessed to be surrounded by family and good friends and see my little boy's face so excited. Of course, always in the back of my mind, thanking God from the bottom of my heart for one more year with our miracle boy - Benjamin Button!