Obama Gains a Nobel - and the Attention of Our Son

Gabe and I, being public radio professionals, have a habit of leaving the radio on during almost everything we do.

So usually, after I pick up Ezra from Najiba's and have a little small talk about his day (did you play outside? Yeah! Did you take a nap? Yeah! Did you have fun? Yeah!), I flip on WBEZ. Usually Ezra keeps on babbling to himself in the back - mostly nonsense interspersed with words he knows. But last week was different.

"Congress is getting back to work on crafting a $1.1 trillion budget," the newscaster said.

"Congress!" came a small voice from the back seat of the car.

"Car bombs shook Baghdad today," the newscaster went on.

"Baghdad!" Ezra said.

"That's right, Ezra! Congress! Baghdad!" I couldn't stop laughing. Before this, the radio had always seemed to be white noise to him.

"President Obama will leave tomorrow for Oslo, where he'll receive the Nobel Peace Prize," the newscaster continued.

"Obama!" Ezra parroted.

This one took the cake. Ezra was just a tiny 3-month-old when Obama won the presidency. Obama made history, and for us, having a baby born that same year felt awe-inspiring. It's incredible just to know he'll grow up in a world in which traditional racial barriers are crumbling, and people really can achieve anything if they put their minds to it. And now Ezra's old enough to say his name.

"Yes, Obama's our president. Who's our president, Ezra?" I kept asking him. But he didn't seem to be grasping it. Still, after we got home he kind of wandered around muttering, "Obamama."

Then, later I told him it was the first day of Chanukah.

"Tonight we'll light candles, and then you'll get presents," I said.

"Obama!" he replied.

Hmmmm. Took me a second before I realized presents = president = Obama. Maybe he really was paying attention after all!

Anyway, we had a great Chanukah party last night, complete with latkes and matzoh ball soup (thanks, Gabe!). Mikaela Block and Isaac Mulcahy (and their respective parents, Mara and Nate Block and Rebecca Bohrman and Dave Mulcahy) came over and speaking of miracles... the kids all managed to stay in their booster seats for the entire meal without throwing a fit or pitching food or otherwise going bananas. They were entranced by the candles and even more so by the gelt. (Ezra's perfected a really irritating whine when he wants something, along with a plaintive, "Yeah? Yeah?" He may have incorporated "Obama" into his vocabulary, but "please" is still elusive.)

Mikaela generously lent Ezra her pretty ribbon barrette. And Ezra's Chanukah present (a $10 tent from Ikea) was a big hit.

We also had a delightful time decorating

gingerbread cookies the other day with Emelia, her mom Kelly and her friend/babysitter Caroline. It was deliciously sticky and yummy! And Caroline and Kelly captured some really sweet pictures, including Emelia deciding to unzip Ezra's sweatshirt.

And we just had to include the following video. It captures maybe the sweetest moment of parenthood yet. Usually Ezra is so much on the go that getting him to give hugs or kisses is kind of a struggle. But blackberries seem to be the key to his heart.

Love,

Ashley, Gabe and Ezra

The Family Band

I'll spare you the details, but the young lad has a bit of a tummy bug. Let's just say he's expressing himself out of both ends. I (dad) have been lucky enough to miss out on most of the action, but the extra laundry and the persistent odor tell the tale. Ez seems to be taking this more or less in stride -- definitely cranky and volatile, but in between those episodes he's his usual happy and energetic self. He hasn't learned to mope yet. In due time.

We returned on Monday from a really wonderful trip to Ohio for Thanksgiving, which in turn followed that great visit by the Gross grandparents. It was a whirlwind of grandparental love -- notwithstanding a few of the dicier moments of Ezra's second haircut, captured with a documentarian's eye by Grandpa Mickey in the adjacent photo.

In Ohio we did the usual Thanksgiving stuff (Ezra was more interested in our dinner hosts' big labrador than any of the food), went on lots of walks with Ezra in a little red wagon, and spent a ton of quality time with Pop-pop, Grandma (Ezra has jettisoned the initial moniker "Gaga" for my mom), Uck-osh and "Den" (Josh's special ladyfriend Jen). We made a trip to Warther's Museum in Dover, Ohio, which some consider the third-holiest site in Spitzerdom. Warther was a rather astonishing carver, and his wood-and-ivory trains are something to behold. Pop-pop is a fan, to say the least, and going there was a rite of passage for us all.

Ezra did begin a slow slide into sleep chaos a few weeks ago when he started cutting some new teeth. This descent accelerated as we had our houseguests and on through our trip to Ohio, so we had to take some difficult corrective action starting on Monday night. The so-called "cry-it-out" process is way, way harder when the kid is actually calling out our names, wailing "Mommy! Daddy!" This wrenches the heart, and it was one of our darkest nights of the soul in the sleep department. But, sure enough, major improvement was swift. Now, of course, he's sick, so there's no telling where we're headed next. Poor kid!

In happier news, Ezra's speech continues to improve. And he managed, while in Ohio, to join his mom and dad in our very first full-participation family jam session. I've included it in the video below, along with some snapshots of the Thanksgiving trip. That's my great friend Matt (Ezra's God-Uncle ... or something) on the swings.

And just for fun, here's a little clip from one of our rare dinners out. It might look slightly, um, cruel, but in our defense -- he desperately wanted to eat that lime wedge.

Well, here's hoping fortune smiles on Ezra, his sleep, and his GI tract. We hope everyone's Thanksgiving was as joyful, relaxing and meaningful as ours was. We are thankful indeed.

Much love,

Gabe, Ash and Ez

Queen's English

Ah-paeee! Ah-paeee! Sure, in retrospect, I ought to have understood that right away. Never mind that it's not English, that it's blurted out unbidden or that it's tucked amid gurgles and gibberish and what I can only assume are curse words in Esperanto. But clearly, Ezra expected me (dad) to comprehend that "Ah-paeee!" meant "high five!"and oblige immediately. I did eventually catch on, and now it's just part of our vocabulary.

This has become routine: we'll notice a couple of syllables recurring, and after puzzling over it for a while, we'll discern their meaning. "Teepee" is "sleepy." "Tookie" is "Cookie Monster." "Muhk" is "milk." This is most gratifying pretty much every time. And it's opened up yet another chapter for us, where Ezra has actually begun to regualarly communicate his needs and desires to us in words. He can tell us when he's tired, thirsty or defecating. He can also reject books he doesn't like, or -- more unwelcome -- songs (tonight as I was putting him down I sang him a song I've been singing him at bedtime since birth. He took his head off my shoulder, shook it vigorously, and said, "Noooo! Noooo!" I switched to Cat Stevens).

His walking progress parallels this -- every day, he is more able to act out his own will. This is, I gather, the basic drama of parenthood, playing out in a million different ways over and over. And yet, it somehow shocks us every time. Well, me, at least. But I'm pretty slow.

Anyway, Nonnie and Grampa Mickey are in town for a few days. Ezra now calls them both by name, asks about them when they're not around, and shows -- from my observation, anyway -- a clear grandparently bond with them. It's beautiful to watch.

Today we went to the Museum of Science and Industry, and Ezra tore all over the place there. It was my first time with him in a place like that since he's been really steady on the

walking/scurrying, and it was so, so fun. He went completely ape-poop for the model trains, especially. He has shown a stereotypically male interest in vehicles, especially trucks and trains. Almost every morning as we walk to the car to head to the babysitter's, he catches sight of an El train, and his face completely lights up.

In a couple of days, we'll head to Ohio for the

annual Thanksgiving pilgrimage. We've chosen to fly this time, rather than subject him to the car seat for 7+ hours each way. There he will catch up with his "Pop-pop" and "Gaga" (whom he can now identify by name in pictures, as well as in person), as well as his "Uck--osh." Um, what's that, kiddo? "Uck-osh!" Is that a word, or a gas bubble? "Uck-osh! Uck-osh! Uck-osh!"

Oh, I see. Uncle Josh. See you soon.

Much love,

Gabe, Ash and Ez

Fair Is Fowl

You can have your ghouls and goblins and Spidermen... behold Ezra the Duck! Or just "kack, kack," as he calls it. We're not even halfway through Halloween yet and so far it's been pretty good. A plant nursery a few blocks away is holding a petting zoo (Gabe wouldn't forgive me if I didn't call it an "evil petting zoo," for all you Austin Powers fans out there). Ezra raced around, flapping his yellow feathered arms, calling out, moo, kack kack, baa, neigh to each appropriate creature. He was so excited we had to make sure he didn't get trampled by some hoof or an 8-year-old Tinkerbell.

Ezra and I had a great time in NYC visiting Aunt Nicky & Uncle Danny, cousins Carly & Jaden and Aunt Lisa & Aunt Katy. Ezra adjusted to life out in a part of Brooklyn best described as industrial wasteland hipsterdom.

Katy's apartment is surrounded by lots of mysterious warehouses, with trucks going by

24 hours a day. Ezra couldn't get enough of those trucks. The first word out of his mouth every morning was "tuck!" as he heard the diesel engines rumble by. We made a circuit of children's museums, visited the Natural History Museum with my friend Tim and his 10-month-old son Skye (check out their blog) and Lisa, Ezra and I had a marvelous afternoon at the Central Park Zoo. It was one of those perfect New York fall days - brilliant blue sky, yellow leaves,

horse-drawn carriages, an army of squirrels fighting over hot dog remnants.

Ezra led the way, and we careened after him. He was equally excited by polar bears and sea lions as by rocks, leaves and poles. We're sad we don't live closer to family, but this is still a big improvement over being a 6+ hour trip away in Alaska.

Speaking of family, Grandma Cheri and Grandpa John Spitzer paid us a visit before the New York trip. Ezra quickly dubbed Grandpa John "PopPop", but he used it to also refer to Grandma Cheri. But luckily it's hard to hurt Grandma's feelings. And Grandma, just so you know, now when we show him a picture of both of you, he calls you "Ga Ga!"

Our little man is very eager to express himself. He copies EVERYTHING we say, which means we're now starting to spell stuff out in front of him. It's harder to remember to hold your tongue when you get cut off by some supremo idiot Chicago driver. Ezra cheerfully repeated the s-word the other day after I yelled it in traffic. He is learning tons of socially acceptable words, though. But he has a few things mixed up. For example, he has a word that sounds like "dah-dee" that interchangeably means Daddy, teddy or doggie. And when we're holding him and he starts squirming, he says "up! up!" when he means just the opposite.

It is miraculous, though, to start to really communicate with him. He's able to tell us, "no, no, no" when he doesn't want us to read a particular book, or tell us he wants water instead of milk, or tell us that he's about to go Number 2 (he gets a serious look on his face and says sotto voce "poo poo"). True conversations don't seem too far off, and that's beyond exciting.

Lots of love and happy Halloween,

Ash, Gabe and Ez

Blackmail Material

Greetings all, with customary apologies for the delay. Papa here has been crashing on a big work project, so this will have to be a quick fix. Here's hoping the madre will save the day soon with a more satisfying entry.

I'm solo here at home for a few days, while Ash and the young prince hold court in New York. I'm told that in spite of a bad stretch of weather, Ezra has been working the society circuit pretty hard up there -- multiple museums and meals out. Sleep, by all reports, has been elusive, but the outings have been a lot of fun. Aunts Lisa and Katy, as well as Aunt Nicky and Uncle Danny and cousins Carly and Jaden have been gracious hosts.

I suspect that by the time they return tomorrow, I will notice appreciable progress in Ezra's ambulation. He's been taking to walking with great enthusiasm. To illustrate this, I have posted the following off-color specimen:



Ah, I can already smell the future resentment. Tough break, kid -- you're growing up in the era of YouTube. I bet you won't be the only one.

Very much looking forward to the family reunion tomorrow, and I'll cajole Ash into saving her family's good name by contributing a respectable blog post.

Until then,
Gabe, (Ash and Ez in absentia)

What Doesn't Kill Ya...

Mom here. The weather has turned, and the germs are out in full force. I came down with what we were all convinced was swine flu - necessitating face mask, copious amounts of Purell and an ever-present hanky. Turns out it was a false alarm - just a run-of-the-mill cruddy old cold. Good thing, because all our efforts to prevent Ezra from getting infected seem to have been for naught. He's sneezing like crazy. Each time he does, he follows it up with a theatrical, "Ah-chooo!" And sometimes a fake little "cough-cough" for good measure.

The yucky weather has one upside. We finally get to bust out the sweaters that his Grandma Andi (aka Noni) has knitted for him over the past year, and now they fit him!

Love,

Ash, Gabe & Ez

That Toddlin' Town

Pops here. I'm pleased to report that Ezra's speech has progressed to the point where he now has a couple of stock catch phrases. One of them is: "Hi." OK, I didn't say it was a great catch phrase, but neither is "Git 'er done!" and that guy's a millionaire. Anyway, Ezra loves to say hi to, oh, just about anyone, including the vagrants guzzling malt liquor in our alley. This turns out to be a handy ice breaker, since I'm never sure what to say to those guys. But they seem to appreciate Ezra taking an interest, as Ash says they enthusiastically wave back and say hi to him whenever they see him now. "Hi" has also been a big hit at the office.

His other catch phrase is "bih-dah." This loosely translates to "what's that?" Or, "gimme that," or, sometimes, "This chalk is delicious!" We're not sure where these particular syllables came from, but it works for him. In general, his babbling has gotten more sophisticated, and often has the tell-tale inflection of actual human speech. This makes it seem sometimes like he is really speaking, just in a foreign language (or perhaps that he's got the Holy Spirit). I'm including an audio sample of it below, along with a few recent pics.


His walking is coming along very nicely, too. He can string together 10 or 15 steps now, and seems undaunted by his regular tumbles. Though he still gives up pretty quickly and takes off crawling. Hard to blame him, since he crawls at blazing speed. The other day I was playing with him in the living room when Ash came home. As she walked in the front door, he was so excited that he shot off crawling at top speed across the room. But then, at full tilt, he hooked his shoulder on the leg of the coffee table, and his body torqued down into a face plant on the hardwood. Luckily, he recovered quickly. We've been delighting in his walking progress, bumpy though it is.


Ez is also getting a couple of new teeth on top, which makes for a sore mouth and some pretty cranky periods. Yet, his sleep has come a long way in the past couple of weeks (after another round of Ferber, which was not that fun). Last week he slept through the night 3 or 4 days, and his night wakings are a little less agonizing than they'd been before. We've managed to more or less phase out the last night nursing, and we're hoping this pattern stablizes.

Not a whole lot else to report at the moment. We didn't do much for High Holidays besides have Shabbos dinner and apples and honey. But it's wild to now be beginning the second round of all the yearly milestones with him -- his second Thanksgiving, second Hannukah/Christmas, etc. Travel season begins again soon, too: Ezra and Mama will head to New York in a few weeks to see the aunties, then to Ohio for turkey, then New Mexico for Christmas. We hope we can manage to keep up.

Happy New Year to all -- may it be sweet all around.

Much love,
Gabe, Ash and Ez

Walk This Way, Talk This Way

Wow, five steps in a row today! Ezra's been working on improving his balance, steadying himself when he wobbles instead of just collapsing onto his diaper-padded butt. And today he made great strides, literally. He walked across the dining room floor to me (mom), twice losing his balance and almost toppling over, but he paused and then kept moving forward. His smile took up half his face. Hooray, son of ours!

Grandpa Mickey (Gross) swooped in for an impromptu visit on Saturday. We decided to take a trip to the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum in Lincoln Park - a place Gabe and I have been meaning to go to for a while. What an awesome place. We walked into their butterfly exhibit and felt transported to the tropics. Thousands (okay, maybe just hundreds) of butterflies zipped by us, landing on ripe pieces of watermelon or flowers for a quick meal. Ezra's eyes got big and he kept saying, "Bah-tuh", which basically has come to mean, "what the heck is that?"

I can't describe how much fun it is that he now notices everything and gets excited to find out more. I remember taking him to places like the zoo as a newborn and all he'd do was sleep. I kept

waiting for the chance to show stuff to him, and now that chance has arrived.

Speaking of showing him stuff - we stumbled upon a group from a local herpetological society

who had brought along their pet pythons, boa constrictors, iguanas and turtles. They let people pet and even hold their reptiles. Gabe was over the moon - he's been in reptile withdrawal ever since the untimely passing of his dear Mitka the snake. Grandpa Mickey and I were pretty fascinated, and Ezra... well, Ezra to be honest was way more excited to crawl in and out of the turtle enclosure than to look at or touch the reptiles. Go figure.

We also managed a quick trip to the beach, three blocks from our apartment. Ezra fulfilled his baby duty by shoving as much sand in his mouth as possible. Gabe took him for a quick dip in the (um, kinda polluted) lake, and we discovered the joy of making sand castles for our son and having him smash them. A lovely weekend, all in all.

Love,

Ash, Gabe and Ez

(Never) Mind Your Manners

Dad here, and I fear that we have reached the stage where we are at risk of being banned from several neighborhood restaurants. Some time ago we enjoyed a tasty brunch at a local place called Pauline's. The outdoor table was too small to move our food out of Ezra's reach. So toast, pancakes, hash browns and egg were fodder for merry destruction. He'd reach over and grab fistfuls of flapjack, and knead them vigorously into a dough ball and mill the oozy stuff through his clenched fingers. He'd bite creamer cups until they popped. By the time we left, the floor around our table looked like a compost heap.

So it seems we've reached a new phase of toddlerhood, wherein we dine at home. Not that meals here are much better. We've wondered from time to time when the appropriate point is to begin teaching table manners. The video below offers some hint as to what we're up against:

Though it's not obvious in the video, Ezra has made some progress in establishing a few socially acceptable eating habits. He's finally managed to take charge of his sippy cup (though he still chucks it on the floor now and then), and he's actually learning to use a spoon -- only, he doesn't always use it for eating. Sometimes he uses it as a drumstick, makeup applicator or pry-bar. But we take these as steps in the right direction.

He continues to home in on walking. He's taken wobbly steps a few times, and can stand for long stretches unassisted. In speech-related news, he's added a few words as well: "baby," "taco" (seriously), "bath" and possibly "water" round out the vocabulary. He also enjoys picking up objects -- remote controls, wallets, etc. -- and holding them to his ear as if they are a telephone. We've had some delightful conversations and we're thinking of adding him to our "Friends and Family" plan.

--> time lapse <--

OK, a few hours have passed since I began this post, and we just wrapped up putting the child to bed. We have a big Curious George book that we open up occasionally. It's one of those sorts that has no story, just a page of, say, different animals or fruits or tools or whatever, labeled. There's a page of vehicles, and we started asking him to point to different ones. "Ezra, where's the motorcycle?" Nailed it. "Ezra, where's the boat?" Bingo. Over and over -- train, truck, tractor. It's just wild -- I had no idea he knew some of those concepts. We've been reading to him since day one, and I got kind of used to the idea that he abstractly

enjoyed story time, but had no idea what anything in the books meant, let alone the names for them. It's just a reminder that there's so, so much going on in his little brain that we only get glimpses of every once in a while. It made us intensely proud.

Onward,

Gabe, Ash and Ez

Feeding a Lamb, and Other Fun Stuff

Wow, we've packed a lot into the last couple of weeks! (This is Ash typing, and man, it's slow because I sliced my ring finger while cutting onions and it's now wrapped up in a big hunk of gauze.) So I may keep it short, but it's not for lack of material.

First, we discovered a place that I swear is more fun than Disneyland and Six Flags combined - and all it is is a dinky little "water playground" with some sprinklers, geysers and various other devices that shoot streams of water. We went on a 90+ degree day, and Ezra was in ecstasy. And Gabe and I laughed more than we have together probably ever. Ezra couldn't get enough. He was not at all content to sit and play in the little baby zone. He kept crawling at breakneck speed for the Old Faithful of the place and didn't care a bit that much, much bigger kids were running right past him, slippin' and slidin'. We seem to have an adrenaline-junkie on our hands. I'm a little scared about the implications of that.

Then, Aunt Katy and Noni (as Grandma Andi would like to be known) dropped by on their way from the desert to the Big Apple. They came bearing some really cool gifts, including a handpainted stepstool and a handknit cardigan, both Noni's handiwork. This child has more handmade, beautiful, one-of-a-kind possessions than an art collector! He has, of course, his awesome handmade motorcycle rocker (made with love by Grandpa John and Grandma Cheri), many crocheted blankets by Grandma Cheri, and now also a hand-sculpted fish-mobile that just arrived in the mail from Aunt Lisa. I'm told that Aunt Katy is working on something, too. Get on the stick, Katy!

We joined our friends, Pat, Sarah, Arthur and David Briscoe last weekend in Door County, Wisconsin. It was a blast, beginning to end. (Except maybe the car rides to and fro. Ezra reverted back to his nonstop crying. Ugh.) Pat and Sarah won a gift certificate to a pretty fancy resort in Egg Harbor - overlooking Green Bay - and decided to share it with us. (They were that eager for a rematch in the board game Taboo.) We frolicked in the pool, hung out in our two-story suite, cooked yummy food, drank lots and lots of Wisconsin cream soda (and some other brews with a little more kick), and made one fantastic field trip to a place called the Farm.

Going to The Farm was like waving a magic wand and bringing to life one of Ezra's board books. There were lambs, kittens, pigs, calves, horses, geese, goats, donkeys, peacocks, bunnies, and a bull with a scarily long tongue. We got to bottlefeed a lamb, and Arthur and David fed corn to the calf. We all got to take turns holding teeny-tiny kittens. I think it must have kind of blown Ezra's mind to see that these creatures exist in real life.

It was so fun to see Arthur (6) and David (almost 4) with Ezra. They didn't seem to mind when he'd swipe their toys - in fact, they were kind of fascinated with him. Arthur even began lobbying for Pat and Sarah to have another baby. David drew the line at that, though. And the time it took two hours and nonstop crying to get Ezra to bed one night probably tipped the scales for all of them against that idea.

Anyway, this wound up longer than I thought it would. Sorry again for the delay, and thank you to the readers who have hung in there with us!

Love,

Ash, Gabe & Ez

P.S. Lots of advancements in speaking lately! Mama, Daddy, chee (cheese), tuh (train), buh (balloon), buh (bear - depends on context), hi, yeah and he's repeating lots of stuff without necessarily understanding what it is. No walking yet, though.

Happy Birthday, Mr. Ezra James

To quote one of my (Ash's) favorite They Might Be Giants songs: "You're older than you've ever been, and now you're even older. And now you're even older. And now you're even older... Time... is marching on. And time... is still marching on!"

And so it is - especially when you've only just completed your first circumnavigation of the sun. Ezra celebrated that achievement with a

big birthday blast last Saturday, Aug. 1st. We were delighted to have 100% turnout from the Spitzer side (and even a bonus person - Josh's girlfriend Jennifer, who gave Ezra a stylin' pair of baby Chuck Taylor All Stars).

Grandpa John and Grandma Cheri came loaded with gifts - and the prototypes of some cool homemade wooden toys. Uncle Josh proudly presented Ezra with that time-honored classic, Walter the Farting Dog: Banned from the Beach.

We wanted to have a low-key picnic in Lincoln Park near the lake, but the weather didn't cooperate. So we welcomed into our small apartment 12 adults and 6 babies/toddlers, plus the seven of us - it was the most people we've had here since Ezra's bris a year ago tomorrow! Luckily no one seemed too bothered about sitting on the floor. Grandma Cheri brought bubbles, and I had bought a bunch of helium balloons and those pretty much kept all the little ones entertained. Ezra didn't go as bonkers over the birthday cake as we had thought he would, but he definitely seemed to like it. Gabe daubed frosting on his nose just to make him look more legitimately messy.

The one real bummer of the weekend was that Ezra's sleep regressed A LOT. Gabe and I were sleeping on the futon in his room, with him in his crib. Once he realized this, at 3 in the morning one night, we were done for. I tried nursing him and putting him back down but he stood right up, whining and peering over the side of the crib. I tried to get him to sleep with us on the futon, but instead he wanted to crawl

all over the place, babbling nonstop. So in frustration, I put him back in the crib and laid back down on the futon. He whined and cried and stood there looking at us plaintively. Gabe and I lay there pretending to be asleep. Then Ezra said very clearly, "Mama! Daddy!" It was just about the cutest thing I've ever heard. I had never heard him say mama and daddy with such clear intention before. Unfortunately, the next one and a half hours weren't so cute - lots of crying, Gabe and I exhaustedly fleeing to the couches to try to sleep, taking turns trying to soothe him, and Ezra falling asleep FINALLY at 5 am. And I had to be up before six to go to work. Oh joy. Anyway, he seems to be getting back on track with his sleep... let's hope!

He seems like he could walk within days. He's very good at getting around while holding onto stuff, and I've managed to coax him to take some steps toward me - holding my arms out for him to grab onto. He kind of lurches forward like Frankenstein. Today he actually fell once trying to do that but he didn't seem to care. As for words, it's still pretty much just mama and daddy, but he appears to be saying "chee" for "cheese" and "tuh" for "train." I think, or it could be wishful thinking.

He's eating a lot better, which is a giant relief. He went to the doc earlier this week and weighs a couple ounces shy of 18 lbs. That's pretty darn puny for a one-year-old, but we're learning not to care too much. He's in the 1st percentile for weight but 32nd for height, so that's fine. The doc says he "looks like an angel, just not as fat." S'okay, we love our little skinny angel.

This coming week, Grandma Andi (aka Noni) and Aunt Katy and possibly Grampy Mick will come visit from Santa Fe. Katy's en route to the Big Apple to start grad school and my mom is helping shlep her junk there. That will be fun to see them - I bet they'll be amazed to see how much he's changed since May. Then next weekend we're looking forward to a little getaway to Door Couny in Wisconsin with our good friends, the Briscoes. You can read about some of our previous exploits with them here and here.

Love,

Ash, Gabe and Ez

On Two Wheels

I choose to think that I am, sort of, handy around the house. I persist in this belief despite much evidence to the contrary. But yesterday, I finally acknowledged that I could not manage to install our new baby seat on the back of Ash's bike. Or rather, I could -- only my usual jury-rigging method seemed a bit risky when it comes to vehicle travel and toddler safety devices. So off to the bike shop we went, which allowed us to finally realize the longed-for dream of taking Ez out for his first bike ride.

He seemed to do OK in the seat, though we soon discovered that they don't really make helmets for one-year-olds with a head size in the 5th percentile. So it flopped around a bit. Nevertheless, we strapped everyone in and headed out for the lakefront trail.

We took a modest ride down to a nifty playground a few miles away. When we got there, Ezra showed far more interest in playing with grass and leaves than in playground equipment.

On the way back, he got pretty fed up, so we walked the bikes home the last half-mile or so. Kind of mixed reviews from the kid all told, but we're hopeful that as he grows into the gear he'll learn to love it.

Back at the ranch, we seem to have happened upon the greatest toy ever invented. When the box arrived a few months ago from Ashley's Uncle Thru and Aunt Lucy, we were under the impression that the lovely lamp inside was the gift. It turns out, the real gift was the packing peanuts. These are something like baby crack, as you'll see in the video below. You may also notice in there that the kid is really getting the hang of standing ...

Next weekend, Ezra turns 1! We're still wrapping our brain around that one. On the one hand, the time has absolutely flown by. On the other, it's hard for us to imagine life without him. Grandma and Grandpa Spitzer, along with Uncle Josh and his companion Jen, are coming in to town this week to help fete the jolly good fellow. We're planning a picnic in the park with some of Ezra's diminutive pals from around the neighborhood. Should be great fun. And many moooooore!

Much love,

Gabe, Ash and Ez

Ahh, This Is the Life...

Oh we're movin' on up, to the Lake Side, to a deluxe apartment in the sky.... Ah, we wish. But we did get to taste a little of the good life last weekend at our friends Alexandra and Enrico's Mies van der Rohe lakefront highrise. And that included a dip in their pool - Ezra's first time ever! He took to it with as much splashing, writhing excitement as we could have expected.

Other than that, we've been settling into post-wedding, post-honeymoon "regular life." The biggest excitement around here these days is observing the almost daily changes the little guy is going through. He babbles nonstop, even in pseudo conversation, responding to our queries. "Oh, did you go to the playground with Najiba today?" "Boo, bah, bah, boo, blah!" "No kidding! And then did you have some yogurt for lunch?" "Ah, goo guh guh blah." "Great!" And on and on till we get bored and turn on the radio.

His top two teeth are almost in. And he is soooooo proud of them! He's picked up a new, kind of unpleasant habit of grinding them against his bottom teeth. He also loves feeling our teeth and then his own. It's fascinating to observe him make the connection that he has the same parts as the rest of us and start to discover what everything's for. He loves biting Cheerios in half these days, as well as chomping off bits of thinly peeled carrot. And although he hasn't taken any steps yet, it's not too far off - he's getting way better at standing without holding onto anything and is cruising around tables and couches (not to mention climbing up couches and onto windowsills! Luckily we finally got around to tying up the windowshade cords.)

In just two weeks he'll turn 1! It's so hard to believe. It's bizarre to think back to last year at this time, when we had no idea who the little being in my tummy was - what he'd look like, what his personality would be. And now we have this third member of our family with very clearcut likes and dislikes, a curious, happy (if sometimes pretty needy) little boy, very purposeful and singleminded, but also goofy and full of smiles. Gabe says he'd sometimes like to freeze time and keep him the way he is now, but I feel more excited than sad about the changes. I can't wait to hear him start to talk more and have real conversations... it's all coming soon enough, I guess!

Land of the Midnight Son

Note to self: red-eye flight from Alaska + already sleep-addled baby = bad idea. Boy, even on paper that sounds foolish.

Actually, it could have been worse ... Ezra took the travel largely in stride, though he managed to lose about 9 hours of sleep on the return trip. Just poof: gone. You'd think he'd sleep it off at some point and catch up. Nope. When it's gone, it's gone. We've spent the last week trying to sort him back out. Results are mixed.

In any case, though, Ezra (and his parents) had the adventure of his very short lifetime. I won't go into the full blow by blow right now. That is because I am lazy. Hopefully Ash will pick up my slack in a bit. But I will say Erza managed many firsts: he slept in a yurt. He saw a sea otter. He hiked to a glacier. He stopped in Wasilla ... several times. He witnessed an engagement ... and a wedding (reprising his role as ringbearer!). He got his first haircut. He took a water taxi, slogged over tundra, and traversed glacial morraine.

You'd think he'd be kinda sleepy after all that. But not so much.

He is, howvever, galloping ahead in terms of developing skills. He now says "mama" with pretty convincing purpose (it sounds exactly as angelic as you'd imagine), and he's homing in on "da-da." Just today he's made progress in

standing unsupported, though still just for a few seconds at a stretch. And he's starting to mimic kisses. So, so cool.

It's a little weird to have someone so close to you change so fast. This person in your house is new -- all the time. I'm learning there's a kind of Buddhist thing that happens to parents: the kid's nature is change. You have to just embrace the flux and not get too attached to the way he is at any particular moment. It's hard, though: it's like I want him to keep growing and maturing, but I want to keep the old versions around somewhere where I can visit them once in a while. I'm sure this feeling only gets more acute as they grow up.

Anyway, we'll try to fill in some of the blanks on our trip soon. Happy Independence Day to all.

All the best,

Gabe, Ash and Ez