it's cold here in the new world

Oh European settlers of Massachusetts, how in the heck did you do it? I've obviously been totally softened by only 2 winters in mild central Europe and can't get over how cold it is here. Maybe I am just too slow at dressing Ellis, but the time it takes to get him dressed for this weather is a serious obstacle to us ever leaving the house.
In Germany, mildew was our winter enemy and now we're fighting the opposite battle in the cold, dry air. The laundry crackles coming out of the dryer and no amount of lotion seem to be enough to keep my hands from peeling and cracking. When Ellis crawls into bed with us in the dark of night, his fuzzy pajamas create visible sparks of static electricity.
And now Ellis has a cold, despite his preternatural love of grapefruit and accompanying high vitamin C intake. He's coughing like a kid instead of those tiny baby coughs and since he's talking, the congestion is apparent in his voice. Worse, he's sleeping very restlessly and has been in almost constant physical contact with me for the past 36 hours. And now Trey may be getting sick too.
Hurry up spring!

insert witty reference to snowy stuff here

Well a lot of the news here is bad, but the pictures are cute and so we'll stick with that. Here's a record of our morning in the snow yesterday.

Clothing layers 1 though 3 in place. Proceed with snow protective layer.

What exactly is so fun about this?

Dad! Dad! The protective layer has been breached!

Phew! Can we go home now?

yikes!

How many violations of house rules can you spot?

The Dangling Conversation

Scene: Dinner
Topic: Our wonderful exciting days.

Rachel: So I watched the weirdest cartoon today. I wanted something to keep Ellis near me while we had our popcorn snack.
Trey: (Silent day dreaming.)
Rachel: There was this polar bear that had a still born cub and her partner went and got another...
Trey (interrupting): Wait now, it was a lesbian polar bear?
Rachel: No, it was a gay-male identified porcupine trapped in the body of a female polar bear. It was a tragedy.
(Actually, Rachel doesn't think animals have husbands and wives and as it turns out it was a pretty sad cartoon.)

Scene: Dinner
Topic: Ellis attempting to communicate he wanted something

Ellis: (pointing at Dad's plate) Wa, ba. sumadat?
Rachel: You have the same things that dad has.
Ellis: (continues pointing at my glass)
Rachel: Do you want dad's beer?
Ellis: (nodding) I like beer.

This may have been a fluke, but it was the clearest three words I have heard come out of his mouth and they mean so much more, like, "I love you", "you are my real dad", "I don't just pretend to like Johnny Cash", "I can't wait to learn how to cast a fly-rod with a metronome" and "when can I have my first gun?"

I love you too, little man.

Unannounced Hiatus

This is just a short post to apologize for the lack of posts. Things here are stressful. I am working way too much and we are trying to figure out how to navigate things. I can't say much about work except that things aren't at all what we expected.

We continue to enjoy the area where we live next to West Medford Square and we had a lovely dinner this Sunday with our buddies Ben and Elissa. I was too tired to photograph the master piece that it was, but it was good. We had ribs with ginger lemon glaze and and asparagus. For each of these we used the new grill pan that Rachel's dad got her for Christmas. We filled the house with smoke seasoning it, but the results were delicious. We also had baked beans and some nice corn bread. Rachel wrapped it up with a lemon curd-blueberry tart. Ellis enjoyed the blueberries and left the rest of the tart to me.

Ok, I am off to now to another 12 hr. day in the salt mines.

things that are awesome

• Gain detergent- Those commercials with people who "love Gain for the smell" are no joke. Sheets I washed in Gain 3 years ago still smell freshed when I unpacked them last week. Too bad Gain doesn't seem to make a high-efficiency version.
• Netflix- Awesome that is, until your queue takes a hard right towards your husband's documentary tastes.
• Trader Joe's/Elissa- When we got back to America, I discovered that Target is no longer selling my beloved chocolate coated-peanut butter filled pretzels. I wondered why we'd even bothered to move home. Thank goodness Elissa alerted me to the fact that Trader Joe's sells these puppies. Yum.
• The Children's Discovery Museum/ my mom- With our spanking new gift membership, Lindsey, Ellis and I visited for the first time today. It's called a museum, but it's kind of like an indoor playground, since the "Children's" part is especially for younger kids (birth-4 or so) . My favorite part was the room-sized kugelbahn, into which kids could feed lacrosse balls. Ellis loved the museum so much the he forgot to drink anything while we were there, then drank ALL his juice in 2 minutes flat in the car, then threw up.
  
• Febreze- Took the vomit smell right out of Ellis's car seat.
• Pictures of our trip-

Happy day- let's dance!