Spending Labor Day with Papa Wayne

On Labor Day Monday, me and Ben went to Thousand Oaks to visit my dad. This gave Ana a whole day to study at home alone and gave Ben a chance to visit his Papa Wayne. It has taken a while for Ben to warm up to my Dad. My Dad is a big tall guy with a really deep voice and I think that scared Ben a little. It used to be all we had to do was walk in the house and Ben would start crying at the site of Papa. But to Papa's credit he never let it bother him. He knew that Ben would come around as he got older. Now, while he sometimes acts a little shy, after he's been there a while he is usually fine. It helps Ben to know that when he goes to Papa's house he gets ice cream. Ben got his love for ice cream from his dad (me). :) The other day we had barely arrived when Ben walked straight to the freezer and pointed to it. He knows that ice cream is on the freezer side. Sometimes he'll get a Smoothie made for him from Letecia and other times it is straight ice cream from the carton. It doesn't seem to matter what flavor it is. I have seen him eat several flavors. Also when he goes to Papa's, Ben loves to go to the backyard and run around. Ben is a "free range" kind of boy who has to walk all around the backyard to see what's there. He especially loves to help Papa pick up apples that have dropped from the tree. When Papa takes the rake and knocks apples from the tree, Ben just starts laughing as hard as he can. The best part of raising Ben is seeing life through his eyes. Ben, like all kids his age see life alot simpler than adults do and they actually take time to "stop and smell the flowers". When Ben sees joy in the small things it makes me happy and makes me hope that he can hang onto as much of that for as long as he can. Real life will come at him fast enough. After he does all of these activities, Ben likes to take a nap on Papa's lap. But anyways, we had a great visit with Papa Wayne on Monday and we will go over again this weekend sometime.