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Southpaw BBQ and Southern Cooking
homebrew, whisky-brined chicken

Cedar Hill: Kitchen + Smokehouse

Best Places for Aged Beers

Birch and Barley, Washington, DC

Eleven Madison Park, NY
Monk's Cafe, Philadelphia

The Porter Beer Bar, Atlanta

Italian in New York

Parm
248 Mulberry St

Il Buco Alimenteri & Vineria
53 Great Jones St

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Louisville

Holy Grale

Every day you're hustlin'

I want to write to you again before Marlo is born- while you're still my only child. While I can still call you my favorite, my best. I know in theory that I will love this baby as much as I love you and that she is likely to be as smart and adorable, but at the moment I do not believe it possible.

We have six weeks (probably more like 8 if she is anything like you). I can't imagine how your life will change, can only begin to imagine how mine will. You love her right  now. You give her daily doses of raspberries on my stomach and talk about how she's a cute baby. You understand that the crib is her bed, the room it's in her room. The question is what you imagine going in there eventually. A baby? A doll? A stuffed animal? Maybe you just think we have an imaginary friend. I know you'll be a wonderful brother. I just hope you'll feel as loved and important as you do now, because you will be.

So, my brilliant two-year-old. Do you want to know what you're like now? You're funny and demanding and impatient and lovely. The iPad is no match for you. You watch YouTube videos every chance you get. Videos of Thomas the Tank Engine, Cars, garbage trucks, toys, toys, toys. Mostly you watch grown men who still play with toys talking about their latest acquisitions. A little creepy, yes, but they really do seem to be just major dorks- no detectable pedophilic undertones.

Wednesday we returned home from a 4th of July trip to Reynolds Plantation. You spent the week swimming, playing in the arcade, riding boats, talking to everybody. Fireworks are not currently your friends, unless they are silent.You invented the name Zazu for a girl on your Cracker Barrel cup on the way there. Since you wouldn't stop saying it, Uncle Ben decided that KK is Zazu. The poor woman was tormented by you two all week. She wanted you to know her real name so bad. You do know it, of course, but will do anything to get a laugh, including dance and make funny faces. Now that KK has a super hero alter ego (Zazu the Skull Crusher), I think we need to make a Zazu beer with an image of a cane crushing a skull on the label.

Eating is still a major issue, speaking of KK. The lady is convinced that you are starving. You aren't. You are healthy and growing, not even small for your age. The number of foods you are willing to eat, however, seems to have halved in the past few weeks. We went from very few to almost none. I guess you're perfectly fine living on milk, fruit snacks and soup. Oh and rice and noodles. You will no longer eat grilled cheese, or even most breads. Really anything that you have to take a bite off of is now off limits. Eh, the phase will pass and I imagine if you get hungry enough you'll eat something from the unapproved list rather than starve.

Our house is disgusting right now because I have no energy and I try to use what energy I do have playing with you. But, I want to add some pictures to this, so I'll go take some now. Ignore the layer of filth covering everything in the background- we do not generally live like this. (*Grr, your father put the pictures I took on the computer upstairs and erased them from the camera. I am too lazy to go up there right now, so here are two super lame new ones taken on the fly. The house is now clean, though!)

Oh! The hustlin' thing is because you're obsessed with that song and will immediately do a one-footed hobble dance while yelling, "Hustlin'! Hustlin'!" if you hear even a few notes. Does that song have notes? Anyway, we turn it off before the actual lyrics start.

18 Months Tomorrow... Will we make it?

Seriously? If you're going to pretend like you don't need naps and like you can wake up at 6:30 without a problem, at least also pretend to be in a good mood to make it convincing. Time changes are not a parent's friend. I remember all the years before you when fall back was like heaven- a total excuse to stay out until practically dawn on Saturday night even though there's only one extra hour of sleep. Now it means waking up unbearably early and two weeks of exhaustion while you get readjusted.

Why the time change made you stop napping, I don't know, but if I ever come face to face with that thing, only one of us is coming out alive.