gulp, wizz

So many goings-on lately. . . Two weeks ago The Ben attended his first barbeque at uncle Tony’s, his first birthday party at auntie Anna’s, then just last weekend he made his first trip to Lake Geneva after attending his first wedding. Then this past Sunday he gave his father the greatest Father’s Day gift there can be - he slept for almost 7 straight hours at night for the first time! I don’t even sleep that long!

Of course The Mife didn’t get to enjoy that sweet solitude nearly as much, as she spent half the night putting together a very skillful montage of The Ben's photos - a gift for me to put in my office. Now I can stare at one of the many visages of my son [it’s still hard for me to say ‘my son’ without remembering how cool it is to have one] whenever I get sick of one particular stressful or generally crappy moment at the office. Now when I get home in the afternoon, seeing that little dude in four real dimensions after glimpsing only memories and feelings throughout the day, I just want to grab him and cuddle him and figure out a way to bring him back with me to work the next day. Sounds a bit syrupy, I know, and I admit it’s sometimes the same sort of sentiment I share with my bed, though I’d suppose a baby at work would be received more approvingly than a box-spring and mattress.

The visit to Lake Geneva was pleasant for The Ben, even of his stomach would beg to differ. Just after the ceremony Ben demonstrated some of his upper management abilities, chiefly among them quality control. While his dear auntie Joy, merrily dressed in some bridesmaid shade of red, picked up The Ben and paraded him around the congregation of wedding-goers, The Ben made certain to inform his superiors [that being Anna and to some lesser degree, myself] that the new brand of diaper he was sporting was quite inadequate. After passing the knowing Benjamin [and I believe I saw a smirk on that little mischief-maker’s mug] to another baby-smotherer , Joy noticed a certain darkened spot running down the length of her dress just beneath where she, moments ago, bounced our little baby boy on her hip. Oh Ben, Ben, Ben. . . Couldn’t you just hold it for one more minute until someone NOT wearing a $250 dress was holding you? That’s what we around here like to call Good Initiative - Bad Judgment.

Things evened themselves out later when Joy drunkenly emptied the contents of her own wine glass over the suspect pee area on her dress. At least Ben can blame his mishap on his infantile lack of motor and bowel control. . .

Grandma C made the trip downstate from Canada to watch over him while his parents drained glass after glass after glass of gin-and-tonic and wine (never mind that the bulk of those glasses were distributed to only one half of the parental unit). The Ben loved every minute of her presense though was saddened briefly by her departure until he realized that this meant it was time to finally go home and leave behind the god-forsaken state of Wisconsin for the more civilized and friendly flats of Illinois.

Oh well, so much for that - this week The Ben is traveling back to cheese-world to do something he has been waiting his whole life to do – see a BASEBALL GAME! The Godfather (Anna’s g-father) has secured a handful of hard-to-get seats for this Wednesday’s CUBS game in Milwaukee, another ‘First’ for The Ben. We’ll be sure to take plenty of photos, so you can all see his successful auditioning for the team, where sometime next season, The Ben will be the most dominant lefty out of the Cubs bullpen (that shouldn’t be too difficult a title to assume).