Benjamin Godfrey
Davis was born January 26, 1993 at Alta Bates hospital
in Berkeley. He was exactly on time, arriving on his due-date, and
quickly became a very popular addition to the family. He was our first
child, and it is a joy to be his parents. We love
learning with and from him. He has taught us to be young again, and
we have taught him far too much about devices electronic.
Ben was about 3 years old here and charging around like
a rhino on a rampage. Here he was at Dillon Beach, just up the coast
from Pt. Reyes, California, doing exactly that.
Ben loves swimming, and has already won
the "Gertie Goldfish" award from the Oakland Parks and Recreation
infant/toddler swim program. Ben's other hobbies include reading and
nude gardening. He also is facinated by anything involving vehicles.
His favorite song right now is Daddy's rendition of "Friend of the Devil".
Dad hopes to soon learn some more appropriate material.
Ben likes to look at cool stuff on the 'net. Some of his favorite sites are at
Ben is fascinated with animals, and has quite a few around to choose from.
There are five cats in the house, a family of raccoons, several squirrels,
and an old opossum in the back yard. He knows all of the houses on the
street by the names of their pets. His grandmother believes that all of
our neighbors have strange names...
Ben wants to know the name of everything now; he wonders aloud at the purpose behind each new thing he grasps. What wonder he brings to our world. So often, we go by a place every day and fail to notice some simple thing which he will pick out and need to know about. As his parents, we try our best to explain, but sometimes even the simplest explanation of ours provokes so many more questions. For example:
"What's that, daddy?" "A broken-down truck" "What's in its back?" "Some junk" "Why's it there?" "Because someone put it there" "Who did it?" "I don't know" "Where does he live?" "".....This was an actual conversation we had the other evening, looking into a friends back yard from the porch of their apartment in North Oakland. The beauty of three-year old conversation is parltly due to the surreal nature of their perceptions of the world. The other day we saw some tapes in a music store. Ben asked what was on the cover of one. "Oh, that's the Pope" I replied. Next to it was one whose cover had a pair of hands emerging from a toilet. Ben asked "what's he doing in the potty?". Cracked me right up. So it has become impossible to summarize his statements as simple utterances any more, as we did at the start:
Mommy, which one of my teeth is my sweet tooth?
"Fidel! Come here" - he hasn't learned that calling cats doesn't work.
Mippsie-Doodle Ping-Pong Cat?"
Ben is eight now, and going into third grade in a week. His page is terribly outdated now, but interesting as a relic of a bygone web-era. His new favorites are: NeoPets. He also finds amusement at Lego . He likes fish: catching them, preparing them, eating them. He is a wiz at science and math, and has a rather extrodinary vocabulary. He is kind to small chilren, including his sister Genevieve (most of the time) and his little sister Eleanor (always). He is the neighborhood champion at RoofBall, a curiously local game involving a recess ball and a sloped roof. All in all, an outstanding young guy.
For more of his favorite sites, see our link page at Bens Links