I wuv you

So many times I've wanted to sit down and write lately because Oliver is changing almost by the nanosecond, and I don't want to forget what he's like right now. He's learning words so fast that if we don't stop now to write his baby-isms down, they'll just be gone like "sand through an hourglass." (Ha ha, anyone else ever waste time watching Days of Our Lives? I did, during high school summer vacation.)

For example, just a couple of weeks ago I jotted down that he was saying "buh-WAH-nuh" for banana. But now he enunciates it perfectly. Ba-NA-na. He still says wa-guh for water and ba-ba for blanket. Also muh-muh for breastmilk. A common refrain from him: "I WANT MUH-MUH! I WANT MUH-MUH!" Weaning that kid is not going to be easy. I weaned Ezra before he knew how to ask for it. It's so much harder now that Ollie can express exactly what he wants!

But here's an example of how fast he's learning stuff. Just a couple of weeks ago he started saying, "nine, ten!" for any quantity of anything. One day he said, "Nine, ten animal crack!" It wasn't hard to figure out what he meant as he grabbed huge fistfuls of animal crackers and stuffed them in his face. Now, he can count to ten. Not that he necessarily can sit and point to ten objects and count them up, but he knows the words one to ten in the correct order. His vocabulary is also greatly influenced by Ezra. He knows Buzz (Lightyear), Batman, Superman, robot, and can gurgle in the back of his throat, a la Chewbacca. (That last one he learned courtesy of Gabe.)
And here's the absolute best - the acme, pinnacle, zenith of cuteness. Ollie just learned to say, "I love you" unprompted. It sounds like "I wuv you." And he goes around saying, "I wuv you, Mommy. I wuv you, Daddy. I wuv you, Ez-wuh." Seriously, could there possibly be anything cuter?

Ezra also cracks us up. (When he's not bringing us almost to tears because of some terrible fight we're having over him not eating his dinner or some such.) I mean, doesn't everyone think the following joke is hysterical?

Ezra: "Do you know about the guy who didn't have any syrup? He just ate chickens!" (hysterical laughter - at least, from the joke teller) (Where does the kid get this material?)


And here's one that probably would find a more receptive audience... at PopPop and Grandma Spitzer's house over Thanksgiving, we had a nice Shabbos dinner with tablecloth, nice plates, etc. Gabe says something about us having a fancy dinner. Ezra retorts, "We're not fancy, we're Jewish!" Big laughs ensue.

We had a pretty rotten January, honestly. Oliver got a stomach bug that lasted a week, and managed to combine it with a cold/cough/fever that developed into an ear infection. I wound up taking him to the ER at 1 am one night, worried that he was dehydrated from diarrhea and throwing up. He was borderline, but that's when they found the ear infection (just the latest in a long string of ear infections). The medicine only made him throw up and poop more, so we had to hold off till he could keep stuff in his tummy. He went a whole week with no solids and looked really emaciated by the end of it. :-( Luckily he's now back to his old self, just in time to get hand, foot and mouth disease from his big brother! Everything they say about preschools being one big germ factory is true.

Took Ezra to see his very first movie on the big screen today - Beauty & the Beast 3D. ("I'm just going to sit in your lap and close my eyes for the scary parts, okay, Mommy?" "Sure, Ezra.") Turns out he only had to close his eyes for one part in the beginning and then realized it wasn't as scary as he thought. He was absolutely transfixed. Especially enjoyed the buttered popcorn and also climbing into the race car video games in the arcade afterward.

We just had lovely visits from Grandma & PopPop and then from Lisa. (And over New Year's, we had Mickey, Noni and Katy visit! we've loved having so much family here.) Hit the Nature Museum with Grandma & PopPop. Gabe, Grandma and I were enthralled watching a butterfly try to kick its way out of its chrysalis. We watched and watched, but kids operate on a different pace than a butterfly, so we didn't get to see him actually spread his wings. With Lisa, we enjoyed particularly balmy weather for Chicago in February and walked around Lincoln Square and went to the Field Museum... don't want to get too cocky or complacent about this weather yet, but just a few months ago, they were predicting this. Enough said - I will try not to jinx us by saying anymore!

Anyway, that's it for now... I am posting quite a few great pics that Katy took. How nice to have our own professional photographer in the family who does free shoots for us!

Love,
Ash, Gabe, Ezra & Oliver