No Boundaries

What do JK Rowling, Harry Potter and Ben Elwy all have in common?

They were all born on July 31!

There are many similarities between Ben and Harry. For one, they both have scars (although Ben wishes he had a cool lightning-shaped one). They both like moving fast. And they both have parents who adore(d) them. In fact, Ben’s parents (ahem) love him so much they were up until the wee hours of the night to prepare for a literal bash as soon as daylight poured in.

This is how Ben woke his sisters today…

And later, we celebrated over sushi at Ben’s favorite Japanese restaurant Yama, where they surprised him with a birthday candle in his favorite fried ice cream.

Eleven years ago today, Ben was born fast–I started delivering after having been at the hospital for only half an hour (see what I mean about fast?). It was not an ideal situation. Most of our belongings were enroute to Michigan from London on a boat that didn’t realize that Ben had a different timetable than it did. So I delivered a newborn without the benefit of lots of cute baby clothes and blankets, and with no crib or changing table in sight. As the hormones kicked in, this lack of material goods devastated me.

I didn’t realize at the time that this was Ben’s first of many lessons for me. Number one–all you need is love. Sure, it would have been nice to have a plush baby room, a soothing rocker, some cute pictures on the wall, and a safe place to lay Ben down. But I certainly wasn’t the first mother to give birth to a child without these luxuries.

Sherin and I remembered this lesson of “all you need is love” as we struggled, over and over, to put that darn drum set together last night, taking apart pieces as we realized we put it together wrong, watching the time getting later and later. This was one of those our-marriage-survived-this-episodes–which I put up there with our one time decision of moving the piano. If you want to stay married, don’t move a piano or put a drum set together. But if you do attempt these things, remember the love lesson. We sighed, paused, remembered that we loved each other and Ben, and this is why were doing this crazy night time activity.

And when Ben woke up, noticed the drum set, stared at it for a minute, and then turned and gave me a HUGE hug, I knew it was all worth it. Ben, you are always worth it. Happy Birthday my love.