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.