We began 2025 with Jake visiting for a few more days. We started the year off with a nice long walk down Riverside Park, stopping at the playground on the way back so Elle could play on the swings and slide. The next day I went and had a very minor surgery. I had take the time off from work and Jake was nice enough to stay in town to take me so Jenn could watch Frasier and Elle. Everything went perfect and we were back home eating bagels from Ess-A-Bagel by lunchtime.

Jake left early the following morning and we were back to work in earnest on January 6th. With us both back at work we had Tamar start full time and its been going great. She has easily slotted into our schedule and the first month has been better than we could have ever asked and Elle loves her. We’ve had some very mild winters the past few years but I can’t say the same for this year. There’s been a fair amount of snow and freezing days. Unfortunately Frasier hurt his paw and Jenn and I made it worse. We thought since it was bleeding we should wrap it, but unfortunately that caused it to get inflamed and we had to take him to the emergency vet at midnight to get it under control. He ended up wearing the cone of shame for a week while it healed.

One of my favorite memories from January was taking Elle to The Metropolitan Museum of Art. It's one of my favorite places in the city, and I think Elle agreed. Jenn and I love to watch Elle light up when she sees art. The older she gets, the more she seems to be taken by it all. We spent over an hour there before she started getting tired, and we walked back through Central Park to get home. We’ve been struggling to get out of the apartment with the frigid temperatures, but the life the three of us felt after this short jaunt across town was exactly what the doctor ordered.

Elle grew up so much in January. Her two bottom teeth are entirely in now, and she’s progressing quite a bit with solid foods, graduating to proteins on top of fruits and vegetables. But January has been the month of her doing everything she could to crawl. She wants to do it so badly, and she gets a little bit closer every day. She takes after me a bit and gets frustrated when she can’t figure it out, but she has her Mom’s unwavering determination. By the end of the month, she is now scooting all over the place, and I predict she will be crawling by the time I write this next month. She also started Gymboree this month which Tamar takes her to twice a week and she loves.

Jenn and I realized that we hadn’t been on a date in a while, so we asked Tamar to come on a Saturday to watch Elle. We had lunch at one of our favorites, Ci Siamo, and saw Gypsy on Broadway. It was so lovely to get away with Jenn. She’s been working so hard, and we’ve been so focused on Elle that spending a few hours with her was nice. The meal at Ci Siamo was great, but the performance of Gypsy was unbelievable. It’s one of those performances I will never forget, and we watched it from the front row.

Towards the end of January, Elle came down with what we think was a cold. She stopped eating her bottle for most feeds, and her nose was so stuffy. What’s amazing about our daughter is that it didn’t stop Elle from being the most amazing little girl. Even when she wasn’t feeling well, she just wanted to be around Jenn and me, held in our arms, played with, and given love. She was never very fussy and continued to sleep pretty well. We got so lucky with her. It was tough, but I left for Europe on January 31st with Elle still battling her cold but looking like she was turning the corner for the better.

TV WE WATCHED

We’ve reduced the TV we watch in a month, limiting ourselves to 1-2 shows before bed each night or whatever we can stay awake for. Mostly that has been going through 25-minute episodes of A.P. Bio, but on rare occasions, we have watched the final few episodes of the brilliant second season of Silo and the first few episodes of Drops of God. A few nights this month I watched The Penguin and The Lincoln Lawyer while Jenn worked late into the night but most of the time we slept as soon as Elle fell asleep.

BOOKS I READ (OR LISTENED TO)

I have a lofty goal this year of reading 50 books. As I type this a few days into February, I feel cautiously optimistic that I will be able to hit it. I had a great start to the year, finishing five books, almost all I enjoyed. I will skip talking about Prophet Song, which I found oddly written and incredibly depressing. In One Year was such a clever way to do a diary. It’s Stanley Tucci’s year, but told through the meals and food he ate. I just loved that as a concept and found it very readable. The Little Liar by Mitch Albom was a phenomenal book. I’m a bit tired of the WWII genre, but this one was so cleverly written and elegant in how it weaved the stories of two brothers that I ate it up.

MOVIES WE WATCHED

When writing my year-in-review posts for 2024, I watched fewer movies than I used to. Going to the movies was one of my favorite things growing up. And so, in January, I put on a movie when I found the time. I ended up watching seven movies this month and it was glorious. My favorite was A Real Pain, which deserves all of the Oscar buzz it’s getting. It’s my favorite kind of movie, travel, discussions of life, loss, and everyday struggles. The acting is exquisite, and it doesn’t overstay its welcome. There wasn’t a bad movie this month, though; I thoroughly enjoyed Maria, Gladiator II, Saturday Night, and Skywalkers: A Love Story. the other movie that truly spoke to me this month was American Symphony which , was such a beautiful documentary on the brilliance that is Jon Baptiste and balancing that with the health struggles of his also insanely talented wife.

GAMES I'VE BEEN PLAYING

I didn’t play many games in January, but that will likely change in the next few months as so many games I’m very excited about are released. When I got time this month, it was to play a few matches of one of the sports games or skirmishes in Age of Empires.