Disrobing

Big Poppa here. Well, we wrapped up a tough week, absorbing a couple of difficult losses, as Ash mentioned in our previous post. We take comfort in the warmth of family, and consider ourselves very lucky to have all we have. Someday we'll have to begin trying to explain this sort of thing to Ezra, which is terribly daunting. But, humbled, we soldier on.

Luckily, Ezra is such a source of joy, and caring for him is life-affirming. Not long ago we read somewhere that at this age they love to discover that they can do things we normally do for him. This article suggested letting him begin to undress himself before bath time. We gave it a shot, and as the video below indicates, we were not disappointed.

Also, a note from the Department of Delayed Gratification: since Ezra's birth, we have subjected him to somewhat regular dance parties. These were tolerated, for the most part. But in just the last few weeks, these have become major highlights of Ezra's day. He requests music at all hours of morning or evening -- often all too early in the morning, he'll start blurting out, "Myoogick! Myoogick!" When we oblige with the iPod and, I daresay, some sweet moves, he beams and chants, "Dancing! Dancing!" He's a big fan so far of The Pogues and Lucinda Williams. Also, in the car and at bedtime he has taken to requesting songs. There aren't many people who appreciate, let alone demand, our musical stylings, so we are especially gratified by this.

The weather here has been predictably grim, which adds up to a lot of cabin fever. We have been slow to discover many indoor activities outside the home around here. But Ash did shrewdly buy a membership to the Notebart Nature Museum, which readers may recall as the "butterfly place" from an earlier post. Ezra is a big fan, and can rattle off its attractions upon request: "Cockroaches! Bear! Turtle! Water!" You'd understand if you've been there. Anyway, that's been a welcome haven from our increasingly cluttered quarters.

In a few days we will greet Pop-Pop and Grandma as they make an encore appearance here in Chicago, and a week from today we'll mark Ezra's 18-month birthday. Ah, the sands of the hourglass ...

Much love,

Gabe, Ash and Ez

New Wheels!

Mom here, hoping the entire family has now turned the corner on the pestilence that has plagued our household for one long month. We've had enough! How many tissue boxes does one family need, anyway?

On to the fun stuff... Ezra is now the proud owner of one red Radio Flyer wagon, courtesy of PopPop and Grandma Spitzer for Chanukah. We inaugurated it on Sunday with a brisk walk to Lake Michigan and back. Ezra loves riding in it. He also very much wants to be in control - meaning he tries to climb out and pull or push it, which is fine at home but not so great when it's below freezing and we're out on a crowded sidewalk. But maybe he'll get the hang of riding leisurely when PopPop takes him for a spin in a couple of weeks.

Gabe's cousin Emily Spitzer

joined us for dinner the other night and kindly babysat for us while we saw Avatar.

She's a freshman at Northwestern.

Even though Ezra only wound up hanging out with her for about an hour before he went to bed, we got in some good story time, and now periodically he says, "Emily! Emily! Emily!" out of the blue without prompting.

I think it's a sign we need to have her over more regularly!

We also had Denise Gelb and Josh Herman over this evening for dinner, and when Ezra heard Josh was coming, he kept saying, "Unc-Osh, Unc-Osh!" I was sorry to break the news to him that his Uncle Josh is still in Montana and wasn't coming over for dinner.

Both Gabe and I are feeling sad for a couple of reasons lately. One is that a truly great former colleague from WBEZ, Carlos Hernandez Gomez, died yesterday after a year-long fight with cancer. He was only 36 and had just married not long before he was diagnosed. Even though I barely knew him, I knew OF him - he was legendary in our newsroom. Gabe knew him better and had recently visited him in the hospital. Our hearts are heavy as we think about the loss to the city and especially to his family. Here's a link to tributes from WBEZ colleagues.

And another coworker, Melanie, has spent the past half year in Cincinnati at the hospital bed of her daughter, Taylor, who had a bone marrow transplant in the fall and is now on a ventilator for her lungs after suffering complications. Taylor is just 4 years old. As parents, and as friends of Melanie, we can't imagine what it's been like for both of them and we're sending our love and prayers for a full recovery.

**AN UPDATE ON TUESDAY, JAN. 19**

Taylor died this morning. We are heartbroken. It's very hard to understand why things happen the way they do.

Auld Lang Syne

Big daddy here. As we leave the oughts behind, Ezra now stands mightily astride two decades. Not bad for such a little squirt. We passed the New Year, by our recent-but-welcome tradition, with our friends Mara, Nate and the winsome Mikaela. We ate the traditional New Year's waffles, played on the carpet, and bailed by 7:30 pm. Crazy night, man. Crazy.

Before the calendars flipped, we spent a good part of December in Santa Fe with Team Gross. Ash went out (bravely) with Ezra, and then I followed several days later. When I arrived, I learned that Andi had gone the previous night to the emergency room. Culprit: kidney. Evidently she had a major rock up in there that was causing her all kinds of pain. It sounds awful. The sonic raygun machine that takes on kidney stones was, apparently, in use somewhere else, and would not be available for a full week. So Andi bravely collected her wits and prepared to endure the agony. Several days later she was back in the hospital, with pain she described as "worse than childbirth." To make the long, slightly gruesome story just a little shorter, she wound up having a minimally invasive surgical procedure done on Monday (instead of Thursday), and was home and smiling that very night.

The morning that Andi was to have the operation, Ash, Ezra and I were at the urgent care. Ezra, you see, had spiked a fever the night before of 103.2 -- his highest to date. The doc basically looked him over and told us to wait it out. That night, it peaked out at 103.8, and we were just on the edge of taking him to the ER. We put him to bed, and he seemed to be doing OK. Then he awoke, was burning up. and tossed his cookies on Ashley's fleece jacket. That was enough -- off to the ER we went.

The ER was a pretty unpleasant experience. We waited about an hour in the waiting room, then triage, then another hour. It was late. Ezra was wide awake by now, and actually seemed to be perversely enjoying himself. We, on the other hand, were ragged. Finally we saw the doc -- and it turned out to be the same doc who saw Andi days before! Small town. He was also a perfectly charming guy, with twin boys Ezra's age, and he set us more or less at ease. He basically told us the same thing: probably a viral infection, nothing to be done, just hang in there. The ER was another learning experience for us -- one we'd prefer not to repeat.

The fever finally broke after about 4 days, and along with it came that final missing clue of his diagnosis. He broke out in a lacy pink rash over his face and torso: Roseola. It had been going around among some of our Chicago friends in the previous weeks. All in all, it was mildly miserable, but he came out of it OK. As in past illnesses, he was actually not too ill-tempered most of the time. He'd crack easily, but he'd spring back quickly, too.

In the mean time, we managed to give and receive some fantastic presents (Ezra's train/truck/heavy equipment collection has grown substantially). He also delighted in all the attention from his grandparents and aunts. Even now, more than a week later, he's still asking for them.

We also, on a day when his fever was gone, dressed him up in his snowsuit for his first full-fledged romp in the snow. He adored this for about 12 minutes. If only we'd quit then. Instead, we pushed it an extra couple of minutes, which led to a small atomic freakout. When will we learn to quit while we're ahead?

Temperamentally, Ezra is testing the waters of the terrible twos. It is a time of great contradictions: he's unbearably charming, hilarious and whip-smart. But his "frustration trigger" is exquisitely sensitive. Whether it's taking away a "toy" (like, say, a Sharpie marker) or, you know, letting his mother walk out the door for work, his head pretty much explodes. luckily, he has not yet learned to throw things or wreck stuff. I think we're in for some epic tantrums. I've thrown a few in my day, and this kid has all the makings of a tantrum prodigy.

Anyway, we'll update on more language and skill progress in a future post. Meanwhile, we're once again grateful and humbled to enter another New Year with such a rich and entertaining family. We wish all of you the warmest, happiest New Year possible.

All best,

Gabe, Ash and Ez