Reinforcements Arrive

Well -- quite the woolly weekend here at Rancho Spitzero / Casa Grossa. The Spitzer grandparents made it into town Thursday afternoon, fresh off their conquest of Italy. We celebrated by eating Laotian food. Ez now weighs about twice what he did when Grandma and Grandpa saw him last (a half-ounce shy of 11 lbs, last we checked!). It was touching to see grandparents and grandson reunited, and they lavished him and us with many gifts of Roman origin.

Friday I worked all damn day and begged people for money all evening (become a member here!). Saturday we breakfasted together and did a fair amount of sitting around, then we let the grandparents babysit while mom and dad went on a run together. This was the first joint exercise of its kind in ... oh, let's see ... a year. It was beautiful out, with the leaves changing in Lincoln Park, and we felt like a million bucks. We were phenomenally grateful for the chance to do it. But wait -- it gets better. That night, we actually went to a movie together! We had attempted to do this once before with baby in tow, the result being that I watched almost all of Tropic Thunder while Ash and Ezra haunted the lobby. Big fun. Anyway, this time we left the kid with the grandparents again and took in a flick all by ourselves. This was the longest Ash had ever been away from Ezra, the first time we had someone other than us feed him, and -- weirdest of all, to me -- the first time we drove together without Ez in the car seat. I kept checking the rearview to see if he was back there somewhere.

Today we embarked on Ezra's first walk in the woods. We headed out to Morton Arboretum to take in the fall colors. However it seems like we, and about 500,000 other Chicago families, mistimed the peak colors a tad, as most trees were still pretty green. But hey -- we like green. Anyway it was a beautiful day, we saw lovely foliage, we ate roasted corn and we saw gourds carved into cat shapes by middle-aged liberal women. Can't think of a better way to spend an afternoon.

The grandparents return to Ohio tomorrow, and back to the office for Papa. And now, to bed.

Much love,
Gabe, Ash and Ez