This One Goes to 11

Yesterday was Ben’s 11^th birthday.  How is it possible 11 years have gone by since I held that baby in my arms and dreamed big dreams for him?

I’ve shared a lot of Ben with you over the years. His loves, his quirks, his fascinating brain and his befuddling (and often hilarious) behavior. I love his beautiful spirit and the wonderful weirdness he brings to our lives. I’ve shared stories about his love of music, his legendary iPod and his encyclopedic knowledge of all that resides thereon. I’ve shown you his lists and chronicled the adventures of his beloved Lego Guy. I once told you how he labeled with Post-Its all the spaces in our house when we moved in with the Crandells and showed you months later when I found the last sticky-note still stuck under the dining room table. It read, “Under Table.” I’ve been nearly run out of Facebook-Land on a rail for recounting his obsession with a truly creepy scary clown mask (mostly because I insist of photographing it, scaring the bejeezus out of unsuspecting visitors to my Facebook page).

But when I was considering what to write for Ben’s 11^th birthday, I started thinking I had nothing left to share. And then he forgot to take his binder to school today. He texted asking me to bring it to him and when I saw the binder lying on floor in his room, I knew exactly what to write.

Earlier this year, after watching the Oscars, Ben Googled, made a list and then printed a small picture of the movie poster for every Best Picture Oscar winner since the Academy Awards began in 1929. When he started the project he told me he wanted to decorate his binder with them. I pictured a sheet of paper (or more likely two) with several small images inserted into the clear sleeve on the front of his binder. I thought maybe he’d trade out the two sheets from time to time to display different posters. He did, in fact, print several images on each sheet, but then he meticulously cut them apart until he had 84 mini movie posters, each one about 1 ½” tall x 1” wide.

Every day he displays one (and only one) of the mini movie posters in the front sleeve of his binder. One barely-larger-than-postage-stamp sized image on the front of a binder that measures 10.5” x 11”.  Today: “A Man for All Seasons,” Best Picture winner in 1966. I have no idea where he keeps the 83 others not currently in use, but I have no doubt I’ll find out when I pack up his room this weekend.

Ben is not the 11-year-old I thought I’d have and my dreams for him have certainly changed over the years. But those dreams have by no means become smaller, because Ben is so much more—so much “bigger”—than the 11-year-old I naively imagined when I held that baby in my arms all those years ago (his diminutive binder decorations aside).

The Adventures of Lego Guy

When Ben was little, our lives were consumed with his line-ups and arrangements. He would line up and arrange objects all over the house that could not be disturbed without a serious tantrum. Any group of matching objects was an obvious target. A case of water from Costco stretched across my basement office. Matching black frames from the top of the piano wound around the living room. Jars of spices formed an ever-changing, but seemingly permanent installation in the doorway leading from the dining room to the kitchen.

But every now and then he would select a seemingly random group of objects with which to make an arrangement. Often these groups would stay together for weeks, cropping up in different locations in the house, arranged in different ways, but always together. For several weeks when Ben was two, he arranged a bottle of conditioner, a tube of hair gel and a lemon over and over again all around the house for about six weeks. Every morning I’d find the arrangement, squeeze out some conditioner before my shower and hair gel before blow-drying and promptly return the bottles to the arrangement.  When the lemon started to wilt we would sneak a new one into its place. And then one day, inexplicably, that arrangement was over. The conditioner and hair gel were returned to my bathroom and the lemon turned up in the refrigerator (naturally I squeezed it into a delicious vodka cocktail – it was still fairly fresh). I’m certain something new took the place of this odd, little arrangement, but I can’t for the life of me remember what it was.

For the most part, lists have taken the place of Ben’s line-ups with the occasional exception (those exceptions occurring exclusively in his room these days, a huge relief for the rest of the household). Arrangements remain, however, but they’ve taken a slightly different form. They have more personality now, and more humor than they did when he as two – much like Ben. The Adventures of Lego Guy, currently happening on the top of Ben’s dresser is the most current manifestation of this tendency.

Ben got Lego Guy at a flea market in the school parking lot. Some enterprising youngsters had set up a table where you could build your own Lego Guy for a buck. Ben was thrilled with Lego Guy and it quickly became clear he would be important in our lives when Ben reached near-panic at least three times before leaving the flea market when he thought Lego Guy had fallen out of his pocket. He began sleeping with Lego Guy which created a complete nightmare every morning when Ben was utterly convinced he’d been lost during the night. I had to add an extra 15 minutes to my morning routine for recovering Lego Guy from crumpled sheets, under the bed, lost in piles of stuffed animals, between the bed frame and the mattress, inside the pillow case or any number of other places a tiny Lego creation could get while a nine-year-old was thrashing about in his sleep. All while Ben broke out in a rash, cried, hyper-ventilated, wrung his hands and repeated over and over again that Lego Guy was surely gone for good.

The decision to buy Ben the Lego Dream House for his birthday was actually a difficult one. Legos aren’t cheap and the $59 price tag was quite a bit more than I would normally spend for Ben’s birthday. Add to that the fact that building large Lego creations had proven extremely stressful for Ben in the past, and my knowledge that any day, Lego Guy could be over. I looked at that set of Legos, walked away, came back, picked it up, put it in my cart, took it back and did the whole drill over again. But eventually, I paid for the Lego Dream House and took it home.

Ben was thrilled with his gift, but as expected, building it was a bit of a challenge. At least three times during construction of the Lego Dream House I sent up a silent, "thank you" to the universe for sufficient wine to get me through the process.  When it was finally done I carried the house to his room and Ben positioned it atop his dresser.  Lego Guy has been happily inhabiting the Lego Dream House ever since. He’s slept in his loft, gone head-first through his basketball hoop, roasted marshmallows over a campfire, hung by his toes from an upstairs window, checked his mail and replaced light bulbs while standing on the garage door.

With the recent addition of his new friends, who knows how long this bit might go on? Already they’ve installed a stop-light for people and had a dance party so rocking it rendered them immobile for days. I love Lego Guy and I will certainly miss him when Ben wakes up one day and decides he’s over. But even more than I love Lego Guy, I love, respect and admire the wonder that is Ben’s mind. I know when Lego Guy is gone, that mind of his will produce something else at which I’ll shake my head, laugh hysterically and no doubt marvel endlessly.

Thanks for keeping me guessing, Ben. Lego Guy rocks – just like you.