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