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