Another Wedding

Alex and Tara got married today. I still remember when Alex was little and he did gross little boy things and got round brushes stuck in my hair. Now, he is a grown up and just found himself a wife. A very cute, fun, and good girl. We're happy to have Tara as part of our family and hope she can handle the Huber Clan.

The sealing was nice, the luncheon was tasty, and the reception in Aunty Geneil's backyard was beautiful. This was our 4th wedding this year and I think that we're done for a while...there isn't anyone else old enough that seems interested in marriage.

Rough Day

don't touch me, but feed me, originally uploaded by bookemdano1978.

In 7 months and one week, I can't say that Elliott and I have had too many rough days. We've had some bad hops here and there, but nothing disastrous. We even survived, just the two of us, for three whole days last week without any dad intervention.

Today wasn't exceptionally horrendous, but let's add it to the list of days we don't need to repeat again. Sort of like the whole month of July.

Starting around 4 pm yesterday, Elliott went on a bottle boycott. We couldn't get him to drink one for all the chew toys in the world. Instead of drinking a bedtime bottle last night, he went to sleep starving, woke up and at 10:30 at some fruit and cereal. He loves the tropical fruit medley!

Ross and I were hoping that after a good night sleep, the bottle boycott would be over. Boy were we wrong. In a nutshell, today was rough. Lots of crying, screaming, wailing and gnashing of teeth...and that was just me! Elliott definitely threw his fair share of fits today, too.

As we tried to eat dinner tonight aided by the serenade of sobs I took the grumpy monkey upstairs, took off his clothes and started playing his favorite song. After he calmed down, and we moved from the red chair to the floor, I got the idea to squeeze the nipple of his bottle into his mouth. It shot out like milk from an udder, startled him, made him laugh hysterically, and brought him back, begging for more.

After what felt like a lifetime of not drinking a bottle, we finally got him to drink one...on the floor, with Ross hovering above him and Elliott grabbing his toes.

The grumpy monkey is in bed, asleep. Not only will he not drink, he won't nap. He went down early tonight and all I have left to say is this. My favorite band, Guster, has a song and one of the lines in the that stands out to me tonight is this: "I am so damn tired."

Thank you Guster and good night.

so handsome in green

so handsome in green, originally uploaded by bookemdano1978.

The kid looks good in anything, but green is definitely a color to keep around.

I'm trying

In my attempt to become an interesting person again, I've decided to once again read history books. Not text books, but history books. Good, factual interpretations of historical events.

I've started reading a book called, "Blood and Thunder". It's by a great author, Hampton Sides, who wrote on of my favorite history books, "Ghost Soldiers". This book is about the settlement of the American West, and primarily documents the wars, trappers, and Pioneers following the life and times of Kit Carson.

Enough of a set-up, right? Last night I was reading a chapter about James K Polk, the 11th president of the United States and his attempts and successes to gain territory from Mexico in the 1800's. In the chapter, there were several interesting claims made by the author that the historian and former teacher in me found interesting.

Sides claims that Polk is the most effective American President that we've ever had; achieving all his goals that were set prior to taking office. I also didn't know that Polk died 3 months after he left office because of some health conditions that plagued him his entire life.

What conditions? The guy had severe urinary/kidney stones from the time he was a teenager. Here's the gory part, to directly quote from the book:

"At 17, after years of anguish...Polk was diagnosed with urinary stones. He was taken to a famous Kentucky physician, Dr. Ephraim McDowell, and there underwent what was then a state-of-the-art surgery. With nothing more than brandy for an anesthetic6ic, the future president was strapped naked to the operating table with his legs hoisted high into the air. Dr. McDowell bored through the prostate and into the bladder with a medieval-looking tool called a "gorget". The stones were successfully removed..."

How crazy is that? That's interesting, right?

I love history.

When they're good, they're good

Today was the first Hunter Wolverine Midget football game. They played Copper Hills and crushed their opponents 5 touchdowns to a big fat 0. Yes, the other team didn't score and in typical Hunter fashion, our team won in spite of all their penalties.

The game was fun to watch even though it was hotter than blazes outside. Most of the kids are returning from last year, and Willie really likes most of the kids and his coaches.

I know the rules of football, can appreciate the game on a little league level, but can't say that I care too much. I called Willie to tell him that he did a good job tonight and he didn't want to talk...too tired. However, Dad told me that Willie hit all his blocks today and that he was really proud of him.

I'm proud of him too, but I can't say I care about the blocks.