When Emilio woke up from his post-breakfast nap today, he had quite a case of bed-head, which had already calmed down some by the time Mari took the photo below on the right. I don't think he gets his bed-head tendencies from me or from my dad (certainly not anymore, he doesn't). Any theories out there?
At today's well-baby appointment weigh-in, 26-plus inches of Emilio tipped the scales at 20-plus pounds, sans hat (and everything else). That's about 2.5 gallons of milk, folks.
Yesterday, Emilio got a visit from Kristin of Kristin and Bob fame (that's her on the posing couch in the photo at right) and she gave him his first lesson in pat-a-cake.
Kristin and Bob are in the process of moving into a new home, which, like their current apartment, will be within walking distance of our Foster Home. We walked Kristin part of the way back to the ex-, where she and Bob were finishing up with their evacuation labors. On our walk back through little Saigon, near the Argyle stop on the Red line El, we came across a big mural on the side of the supermarket where we used to buy pomelo--yòuzi, in Chinese--before they started selling it at Jewel. According to wikipedia, some pomelos can weigh as much as 22 pounds, but I find that hard to believe.
María José made a special effort to make my first Father’s Day as a father a good one and she succeeded. While I was sleeping, she invited the sticker elves into the house and they left stickers with messages like “#1 Dad” and “Happy Father’s Day!” near my toothbrush, on my cell phone and sundry sites that I came across over the course of the day. She also gave me a number of carefully chosen gifts, including: 1) a book about World Cup history and a run-down of this year’s teams; 2) a book called About Me, which contains hundreds of fill-in-the-blank interview questions (I have since bought her one, too, so we are going to be an open book to each other); 3) a collection of baby sign language cards (point to your nose if you want to ask Emilio if he’s wet); 4) two $10 movie gift certificates (maybe this will inspire me to actually go to the movies some day . . .); 5) two white Tees from the Gap; 6) Sid Maier’s Civilization 4 (which, we learned this morning, is too powerful for my little ole' laptop since it requires a 1.2 Processor and mine is a 1.19 model, so I’m going to have to save it until we bring the next generation of computer power into our house); 7) 3 chocolate-chip cookies from Sweet Occasions; and 8) two children’s books which I have now read to Emilio: Papa! and Why Is Daddy Bald?. Jaime and María Rosa also sent me The Street and San Man’s Guide to Chicago Eats written by an employee of Chicago's Department of Streets and Sanitation so that I can further my studies of this town’s prole-friendly eateries (I now know that Wikstrom’s Deli on 
For breakfast, Mari served me a cheddar cheese omelet and while Emilio enjoyed his first siesta of the day, we made some initial headway on the “radical re-organization” of the house that we’ve been fantasizing about. For lunch the three of us trucked up to Evanston (see photo above on the right) and Emilio slept while Mari and I made our way through half a plate of nachos, half a country-fried steak, a corn cob, a slice of Texas toast, some mashed potatoes with gravy, some ribs, some grilled shrimp, some mixed veggies and—the piece de resistance—a chocolate molten cake. We would have down some more walking around Evanston, but cloudy skies began to sprinkle, so we headed back to the Foster Home, where I called Dad (that's him in the photo at left) to wish him a good one (the highlights of Dad's day: I-HOP breakfast and a new desktop computer!), and enjoyed a long stretch of play time in the bed with Emilio.
Yesterday, when I went to Potbelly in Evanston (my first visit in a month), Andy, the shift manager, wished me a happy father’s day and paid for my lunch!
Friday was María José’s last day at work before summer vacation (Yeeeaah!) and in honor of the occasion, Emilio got up early and rode the bus with her to school so that he could meet all of her students and colleagues (the ones he hadn’t met yet). The evening plan was a Mari’s-choice restaurant visit and the winner was: Angel’s. We had hoped to eat on the patio, but it was full when we got there around 
(That's a quote from The Blues Brothers, for those of you who don't know.)I’m not sure the little girl would have been up for a separation from her dad, but the woman of the table might been more open to Emilio’s proposition. She told us she thought Emilio was “charming.” 
Some time this afternoon while Blogger and I were going at it, I realized that Emilio, who was in the crib beside the bed I was then sitting on, was engaged in an equally absorbing task of some kind. 
He had for some time been unusually quiet--active, but quiet. Turns out my suspicions were correct: when I looked in the crib, he had unhitched the adhesive hitch of his diaper and removed his right leg from its Pamper manacle. Some time within the last day or so, I had noticed that he was working on an initial study of the adhesive hitch problem and had successfully unhitched his hitch on two successive occasions. I initially believed that these successes were the result of random luck and would not be easily repeated. As events have shown, I was wrong. When I put Pandora back in his nappy box, he was a good sport about it, realizing, no doubt, what they say about the train and the station.
Since we last saw Emilio in this space, he has enjoyed a number of evening strolls around the neighborhood with his mother and me, including a visit to young Mr. Than Lewis (see photo below). I think I can say we were all impressed by Than's swinging ride and if Emilio could, I'm sure he'd be asking us, "Can I get one of those?"
to be that Emilio couldn't hold out for very long on these strolls, but his resistance levels have gradually built up and now he makes an occasional comment and lets us know when he needs a pacifier or wouldn't mind taking a ride in the arm carriage. And we still break out the Baby Bjorn on occasion--as when our stroll took us to Andersonville's annual Midsommarfest this past weekend. This year we limited our purchases to a purple tie-dye t-shirt for Emilio and a lemonade for Mari and we looked pityingly on the people buying turkey legs--which look great, but don't taste great. 
Emilio's hair is not thick and bushy by any means; he's got a thin patch than runs around the crown of his head that makes you think he has been wearing a baseball cap all of his life. But he's got enough hair on top, now, that he can get bed head from time to time.
This morning he woke up with a Tintin cowlick, which you can just make out in these photos. He had a lot of kicking and galloping to do this morning, activities that may or may not have been inspired by dreams of Captain Haddock and the search for Red Rackham's treasure.
