Flying Solo

By my count, Aiden and Reid were fed by 7 different relatives this week: me, Eric, my mom, my dad, great aunt Marita, cousin Julie, and cousin Adam. By this evening, their only choice was me.

My parents decided to head up to Casper for a brief trip after finding out last night that a former fellow teacher had passed away. Señor Giraldo was my Spanish teacher in 8th and 9th grades, while his wife, "Señora", was my Spanish teacher during all three years of high school. I loved their passion for teaching and learned a lot from them. Sr enjoyed telling us about eating cow tongue (which Candace made me try in Spain. Yuck!), paddling naughty students back in the good ol' days, and pretending he was drawing guns out of a holster when we conjugated the verb, ir: voy, vas, va, vamos, VAN, VAN! They took several groups of students to Spain through the years. While I wasn't able to go on one of their trips, I made sure to send them a post card when I finally did make it to Spain (twice!) with my friend and colleague Candace and our students. If the circumstance were different I would have liked to have made the trek up to Casper as well... to honor a great teacher, but to also have the opportunity to see many of my other teachers who will no doubt be in attendance. I'm glad my parents were able to go.

So tonight I was flying solo. I haven't had to do a monkey-chair bottle feed for quite some time. Reid quickly let me know that the milk was too cold. After a reheat, I discovered the milk was too hot. Eventually it was just right and Reid went to town. Aiden was a tougher customer. He just didn't want to drink from his monkey chair and I can't say I really blamed him. (I also think he wanted to watch the Rockies game which I had on in the background.) So I managed to cradle him in my left arm and feed him a bottle with my left hand while resting my right arm on my knee so I could feed Reid his bottle.



After a while Aiden settled down and I was able to return him to his monkey chair. Reid dozed his way through the rest of his bottle and I took him up to his crib. By the time Todd Helton hit his solo home run in the bottom of the 2nd, I was just starting up the stairs with Aiden. He quickly joined his brother in a deep slumber.


I'm constantly reminded how lucky we are to have these two little guys as well as all the friends and family who love them as much as we do.

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My favorite Spanish paintings-
Guernica by Pablo Picasso

Las Meninas by Diego Velázquez:

Charles IV of Spain and His Family by Francisco Goya:

The Burial of the Count of Orgaz by El Greco
(This was the image on one of the post cards I sent to Sr y Sra Giraldo. It was surreal to see it in person in Toledo, Spain.)

Vaya con Dios, Señor.