Blasto + Moose = Double the Fun, Double the Chaos

Well, Ez, you've got six more months at the center of the universe. On or around Aug. 15th, make way for Moose! (See picture.) We are excited to announce the impending arrival of Blasto II, gender: male. We dubbed him Moose because when we learned of his presence about 6 weeks ago, he was about as far away from Moose-size as you can get.

So far Moose has been a chill little fetus. Hasn't caused me (Ash) any morning sickness or made his presence felt to any degree, besides starting to make buttoning my pants a challenge. But I know this calm is temporary. After talking to friends with two little ones, I admit to feeling kind of terrified. Coping with one sometimes seems about all we can handle, especially on those days when we can barely drag ourselves through the accumulated mess enough to wash a few dishes. But hopefully we'll muddle through like all those parents did before us.

In the meantime, watching Ezra learn new stuff is a constant reminder at how fast time moves. Just last summer he was still a baby - and now he's this little boy who tells us what he wants and doesn't want, throws fits and goofs off. Every day he does or says something new that cracks us up. The latest is that he throws one of his cars on the floor and then says "Accident!" And, according to Gabe the other morning in the middle of uncontrollable crying, Ezra paused long enough to say, "I'm freaking out!" Now, I am skeptical as to whether he actually uttered the complete sentence. But I'll give my husband the benefit of the doubt because it makes me laugh.

It's been so long since we posted... it would be amazing if anyone other than our immediate family still checks this site. Grandma and PopPop Spitzer came to visit at the end of January and brought along the most INCREDIBLE wooden push-sled, handcrafted by PopPop. It is a thing of beauty and Ezra loves it. We had fun visiting the Skokie cousins (Cathy and Joe Gluck, and their kids, along with Emily Spitzer). And one afternoon, Ezra showed his grandparents the nature museum (I'm sure Grandma especially was thrilled with the cockroach exhibit!) and he finally got the hang of going down a slide on his own and then didn't want to stop.

We also visited our pals, the Briscoes, in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. Ezra dove into their collection of Transformers and robots and weird things I'll have to learn one day - like "Bakugan Battle Brawlers." Arthur (6) and David (4) were so sweet to him, I am still in awe. They actually WANTED to show him their toys and didn't mind him touching their stuff. And we all went sledding down "Mount Garbage" (I'm told it's not actually garbage). I thought Ezra might be scared, but as soon as we got to the bottom, he said, "Again! Again!" and cried when we left.

This Friday Nonni and Mickey Gross arrive, so Ezra's getting a good dose of grandparental love. We're looking forward to some good visits to Ezra's favorite place, the "museum!" (This can be any museum, as long as there's a lot of space to run around in and some animals to look at.)

Love,

Ash, Gabe and Ez

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

Obama Gains a Nobel - and the Attention of Our Son

Gabe and I, being public radio professionals, have a habit of leaving the radio on during almost everything we do.

So usually, after I pick up Ezra from Najiba's and have a little small talk about his day (did you play outside? Yeah! Did you take a nap? Yeah! Did you have fun? Yeah!), I flip on WBEZ. Usually Ezra keeps on babbling to himself in the back - mostly nonsense interspersed with words he knows. But last week was different.

"Congress is getting back to work on crafting a $1.1 trillion budget," the newscaster said.

"Congress!" came a small voice from the back seat of the car.

"Car bombs shook Baghdad today," the newscaster went on.

"Baghdad!" Ezra said.

"That's right, Ezra! Congress! Baghdad!" I couldn't stop laughing. Before this, the radio had always seemed to be white noise to him.

"President Obama will leave tomorrow for Oslo, where he'll receive the Nobel Peace Prize," the newscaster continued.

"Obama!" Ezra parroted.

This one took the cake. Ezra was just a tiny 3-month-old when Obama won the presidency. Obama made history, and for us, having a baby born that same year felt awe-inspiring. It's incredible just to know he'll grow up in a world in which traditional racial barriers are crumbling, and people really can achieve anything if they put their minds to it. And now Ezra's old enough to say his name.

"Yes, Obama's our president. Who's our president, Ezra?" I kept asking him. But he didn't seem to be grasping it. Still, after we got home he kind of wandered around muttering, "Obamama."

Then, later I told him it was the first day of Chanukah.

"Tonight we'll light candles, and then you'll get presents," I said.

"Obama!" he replied.

Hmmmm. Took me a second before I realized presents = president = Obama. Maybe he really was paying attention after all!

Anyway, we had a great Chanukah party last night, complete with latkes and matzoh ball soup (thanks, Gabe!). Mikaela Block and Isaac Mulcahy (and their respective parents, Mara and Nate Block and Rebecca Bohrman and Dave Mulcahy) came over and speaking of miracles... the kids all managed to stay in their booster seats for the entire meal without throwing a fit or pitching food or otherwise going bananas. They were entranced by the candles and even more so by the gelt. (Ezra's perfected a really irritating whine when he wants something, along with a plaintive, "Yeah? Yeah?" He may have incorporated "Obama" into his vocabulary, but "please" is still elusive.)

Mikaela generously lent Ezra her pretty ribbon barrette. And Ezra's Chanukah present (a $10 tent from Ikea) was a big hit.

We also had a delightful time decorating

gingerbread cookies the other day with Emelia, her mom Kelly and her friend/babysitter Caroline. It was deliciously sticky and yummy! And Caroline and Kelly captured some really sweet pictures, including Emelia deciding to unzip Ezra's sweatshirt.

And we just had to include the following video. It captures maybe the sweetest moment of parenthood yet. Usually Ezra is so much on the go that getting him to give hugs or kisses is kind of a struggle. But blackberries seem to be the key to his heart.

Love,

Ashley, Gabe and Ezra

The Family Band

I'll spare you the details, but the young lad has a bit of a tummy bug. Let's just say he's expressing himself out of both ends. I (dad) have been lucky enough to miss out on most of the action, but the extra laundry and the persistent odor tell the tale. Ez seems to be taking this more or less in stride -- definitely cranky and volatile, but in between those episodes he's his usual happy and energetic self. He hasn't learned to mope yet. In due time.

We returned on Monday from a really wonderful trip to Ohio for Thanksgiving, which in turn followed that great visit by the Gross grandparents. It was a whirlwind of grandparental love -- notwithstanding a few of the dicier moments of Ezra's second haircut, captured with a documentarian's eye by Grandpa Mickey in the adjacent photo.

In Ohio we did the usual Thanksgiving stuff (Ezra was more interested in our dinner hosts' big labrador than any of the food), went on lots of walks with Ezra in a little red wagon, and spent a ton of quality time with Pop-pop, Grandma (Ezra has jettisoned the initial moniker "Gaga" for my mom), Uck-osh and "Den" (Josh's special ladyfriend Jen). We made a trip to Warther's Museum in Dover, Ohio, which some consider the third-holiest site in Spitzerdom. Warther was a rather astonishing carver, and his wood-and-ivory trains are something to behold. Pop-pop is a fan, to say the least, and going there was a rite of passage for us all.

Ezra did begin a slow slide into sleep chaos a few weeks ago when he started cutting some new teeth. This descent accelerated as we had our houseguests and on through our trip to Ohio, so we had to take some difficult corrective action starting on Monday night. The so-called "cry-it-out" process is way, way harder when the kid is actually calling out our names, wailing "Mommy! Daddy!" This wrenches the heart, and it was one of our darkest nights of the soul in the sleep department. But, sure enough, major improvement was swift. Now, of course, he's sick, so there's no telling where we're headed next. Poor kid!

In happier news, Ezra's speech continues to improve. And he managed, while in Ohio, to join his mom and dad in our very first full-participation family jam session. I've included it in the video below, along with some snapshots of the Thanksgiving trip. That's my great friend Matt (Ezra's God-Uncle ... or something) on the swings.

And just for fun, here's a little clip from one of our rare dinners out. It might look slightly, um, cruel, but in our defense -- he desperately wanted to eat that lime wedge.

Well, here's hoping fortune smiles on Ezra, his sleep, and his GI tract. We hope everyone's Thanksgiving was as joyful, relaxing and meaningful as ours was. We are thankful indeed.

Much love,

Gabe, Ash and Ez

Queen's English

Ah-paeee! Ah-paeee! Sure, in retrospect, I ought to have understood that right away. Never mind that it's not English, that it's blurted out unbidden or that it's tucked amid gurgles and gibberish and what I can only assume are curse words in Esperanto. But clearly, Ezra expected me (dad) to comprehend that "Ah-paeee!" meant "high five!"and oblige immediately. I did eventually catch on, and now it's just part of our vocabulary.

This has become routine: we'll notice a couple of syllables recurring, and after puzzling over it for a while, we'll discern their meaning. "Teepee" is "sleepy." "Tookie" is "Cookie Monster." "Muhk" is "milk." This is most gratifying pretty much every time. And it's opened up yet another chapter for us, where Ezra has actually begun to regualarly communicate his needs and desires to us in words. He can tell us when he's tired, thirsty or defecating. He can also reject books he doesn't like, or -- more unwelcome -- songs (tonight as I was putting him down I sang him a song I've been singing him at bedtime since birth. He took his head off my shoulder, shook it vigorously, and said, "Noooo! Noooo!" I switched to Cat Stevens).

His walking progress parallels this -- every day, he is more able to act out his own will. This is, I gather, the basic drama of parenthood, playing out in a million different ways over and over. And yet, it somehow shocks us every time. Well, me, at least. But I'm pretty slow.

Anyway, Nonnie and Grampa Mickey are in town for a few days. Ezra now calls them both by name, asks about them when they're not around, and shows -- from my observation, anyway -- a clear grandparently bond with them. It's beautiful to watch.

Today we went to the Museum of Science and Industry, and Ezra tore all over the place there. It was my first time with him in a place like that since he's been really steady on the

walking/scurrying, and it was so, so fun. He went completely ape-poop for the model trains, especially. He has shown a stereotypically male interest in vehicles, especially trucks and trains. Almost every morning as we walk to the car to head to the babysitter's, he catches sight of an El train, and his face completely lights up.

In a couple of days, we'll head to Ohio for the

annual Thanksgiving pilgrimage. We've chosen to fly this time, rather than subject him to the car seat for 7+ hours each way. There he will catch up with his "Pop-pop" and "Gaga" (whom he can now identify by name in pictures, as well as in person), as well as his "Uck--osh." Um, what's that, kiddo? "Uck-osh!" Is that a word, or a gas bubble? "Uck-osh! Uck-osh! Uck-osh!"

Oh, I see. Uncle Josh. See you soon.

Much love,

Gabe, Ash and Ez