Golden Pig Tales

Ezra’s wondering what Ezra’s doing or where’s Ezra going by saying aloud, ,,What’s Ezra doing?” or, ”Where’s Ezra go?” This is said from morning to night and nearly every time we answer. We answer walking to the backyard, eating cereal, coloring, playing with trains, going toward the bathroom, playing with blocks, looking at books, going to the park, going up the stairs, eating noodles, brushing teeth…

While I don’t find the questions annoying, I do hope by the time he hits adolescence he no longer talks third person about himself for nothing annoys me more than a person talking third person about themselves. When Ezra does it now, it is cute.

Ezra tells me to, ,,Wait,” at the top of the steep and carpetless stairs for him to descend. Then he steps to the stairs, looks back to make sure I am far from the top of the stairs. He waits to makes sure I won’t be following him then he steps down.

Each step makes me nervous. He lifts foot and slowly lowers foot to the next stair. He leans against the wall and leans back while slowly bending the knee. The foot hits the stair below and the other foot slips from under and steps to the stair below with butt hitting the stair above. Then he stands.

When he is standing at stair’s edge, I get the most nervous because sometimes he just stands and stares and looks around. And while he looks around, I look at him and say, ,,Be careful, Ezra.” Then he says, ,,NO, DADDY. Wait.” He takes another step and another then another until he is at the bottom and then I am no longer worried he will miss step and fall head-first from wooden stair to wooden stair to wooden stair. Then I realize Ezra is grown-up and if anything I am going to cause him to lose focus and fall down the stairs because I am calling out his name and saying to him every step, ,,Be careful, Ezra.”

I bought Ezra an adidas track suit the other day at costco. It’s super stylin’ but we decided tonight that it gives Ezra a bit of a ‘tude. He got out of the car when we got home, and proceeded to throw a rock at the car. He threw something at me in the house. He got all snappy about his food. Maybe we can blame the track suit, or maybe he’s just testing boundaries and being a nearly two year old.

PS - I was impressed that Ezra slept through all the fireworks madness on Saturday night. I think it helped that it was super hot that day, and so we had all the fans on in his room creating a nice dull white noise that maybe drowned out the firework commotion.  Too bad none of that helped daddy sleep through the noise!

Ezra lead the walk from home to bus depot. He lead over sidewalks and streets. He lead and watched buses at the depot until no more buses left the depot. Then he lead the walk to the park where he climbed bar ladders and bar steps. He slid down the slide, walked away from the park saying, ,,Bye, Park.” He lead the walk home.

21 months! 21 months! 21 months! happy birthday to ezra who is 21 months today!

We talked back when Ezra turned 20 months about planning to get rid of Ezra’s binky this month…maybe we’ll start this weekend : )- 

21 months! 21 months! 21 months! happy birthday to ezra who is 21 months today! 21 months! 21 months! 21 months! happy birthday to ezra who is 21 months today! 

Ezra is getting bigger! It seems like he is bigger today than yesterday. Kalab and I both seemed to think so, so it must be true. Pretty soon, Ezra will be 6 feet tall.

We had so much fun hanging out with Ezra this weekend! It makes me sad that it’s Sunday and we will be spending the day at work, rather than going to the park, reading books, playing with toys and walking along the streets to look for taxis, busses, u-hauls and motorcycles. That sounds like way more fun than work : (

Ezra also proved his spanish vocabulary is growing! He wants mas mango, mas sesame street, and mas play time. He’s so cute when he says it : )

I can’t believe one little kid could be this much fun!

Ezra’s 18 month birthday was this weekend, as Kalab posted as a result of my forgetfullness when it comes to blogging. Anyway, on Ezra’s 18 month birthday, we had a family day out and about. Kalab and I took Ezra down to the Esplanade to look at boats, cars, bikes, and even a submarine! We ran around after Ezra as he explored the grounds of OMSI, and walked with Ezra up and down and up and down the boat launch/dock ramp by the fire station. It was one of those beautiful spring teaser February afternoons. We finished up our celebration with Burgerville. Ezra enjoyed the fries, and also the special sippy-style cup that was included with the meal that had an awesome straw. Alas, Ezra knows not his own 18 month old strength, and he threw down the cup today in a fit of discombobulation and cracked the bottom of the cup resulting in irrepairable damage to the cup and a 2 minute fit of inconsolability until he forgot about the cup and I was able to put the cup out of sight in the trash. But at least he still had the straw as a memory of his 18 month birthday.

YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I uploaded a huge number of photos of Ezra to my Picassa account today.

http://picasaweb.google.com/valeriester/EzraSBest2008?authkey=pP2wht0rp6U&feat=directlink

Ezra has grown so much just since his birthday! It was fun looking back on the last few months. I noted that there were very few pictures taken around the time following the tooth incident. Lots of photos from times when grandparents are visiting.

Here is one of my favorites, from sometime this summer:

Isn’t he cute?????

And here’s another good one,though not quite as flattering it shows off Ezra’s natural flowing mullet : )

Ezra’s been perfecting his scowl. It went from looking like Frankenstein being stumped with a question to Ezra looking pissed-off. It is all in the eyes. He can peer with his scowl. And his lips become tense too. And the way he looks away with his scowl makes you feel like you are a fool or rude.

He scowls when he doesn’t get his way. He has been scowling a lot because he wants to play with the oven, the fridge, the cat’s tail. He scowls if he doesn’t get his pacifier; if he can’t brush his teeth for the sixth time during the day; if he can’t go outside right now. He scowls the more tired he becomes. His scowl is still cute for it is his scowl.

Evenings with Ezra lately are fun, then not fun, then fun, then not fun….all in the span of maybe 20 minutes. I’m not sure if it’s because he’s tired, cranky because he doesn’t get the breast anymore, uncomfortable due to fluid or infection in his ear, entering into the terrible twos terribly early, or a combination of all of the above. He has of late been extra prone to tears, tantrums, and breakdowns in the evening between the time we arrive home from playcare and bedtime. Most of these breakdowns are due to him not getting what he wants or not being able to play with whatever object he picks up.  I’ve read that this type of behaviour could be due to being cut off too quickly from nursing - I hope I didn’t pull the breast out from under him too fast. But all those other reasons also seem like  viable reasons for the tantrums he has been throwing, leading me to think that it most likely is some combination of two or more reasons.  I’m hoping that perhaps in another couple weeks the ear tubes will do their part, Ezra will begin to forgive not getting the boob, and we will have the fun Ezra more of the time, who likes to run around and explore and play and laugh with us.

During a span of calm yesterday, I heard Valerie saying to Ezra, ,,One. Nine. Three. Four. Seven. Seven. Eight. Night. Zero. Zero. Wall. Door. Floor. Stair…” and continue until she was able to distract Ezra with the fact I was near. This happened again this morning, but I was the one naming the object pointed at by Ezra, which happens every day.

It’s fun to do most of the time, but some times he points at the same object over and over and over and sometimes I only want to say, ,,Truck, car, tree, tree, tree, limb, tree, tree, leaf, leaf, leaf, leaf,” so many times, but what I want is second to giving Ezra what he needs for a better understanding of the world by connecting objects with words that he will hopefully someday use to communicate.

I also consider this pointing and naming of objects a warm-up to the Why Phase I have heard so much about.

I came home from my work trip and decided it was an opportune time to close Mom’s Milk Bar for good. He has been a little upset at the closure of what I think is his favorite hang-out/chill-out spot. Ezra last nursed on Wednesday morning. When I woke up with him on Friday, he didn’t really try to nurse so I thought the shut-down would be easy. Friday after we came home from playcare, however, Ezra really reallyreallyreally really wanted to nurse, and it was hard to tell him no while he was wailing and crying. But I didn’t give in, and today we had a couple of requests and pouting when being denied but it wasn’t as extreme as Friday. I think Ezra might be able to get over the end of this era quicker than I will.

I can tell when Ezra is growing because my arms and legs hurt more at the end of the day. My muscles are getting bigger as Ezra gets bigger. I wonder if the relationship between Ezra’s growth and the ginormous gunz I pack on each arm could be correlated by some fancy mathematical equation? hmmm…..if only I hadn’t slept through calculus so often.

Ezra is getting so big, he is able to crawl up on the couch, on chairs, and on the guest bed.  He is also able to walk up the stairs, one foot per step, just like a big kid, as long as I am holding his hand. We’ve had to bust out the 18 month old clothes and I think we’re about ready to go up a shoe size. I’m glad that throughout the ear infections, teething and such, Ezra’s still been eating enough to keep growing big and strong!

Ezra pulled his own red wagon today after he rode in it. He began by pushing the red wagon with me steering, but then we showed him the handle and -v- showed him and helped him hold the handle until he moved her hand off the handle and pulled the red wagon.

-v- said Ezra pulling the red wagon was like seeing Shetland pony pulling a prairie wagon.

Ezra points. He points at the walls. He points at the ceiling. He points at the numbered sheep jumping over invisible fences. He points at the couch, the stairs, the sky, the trees, the peach tree, the rosemary, the garage top, cement, cement with plums on it, plums, plum seeds, another tree, a pear tree, a fence, the squirrel on the fence, the flowers, the dirt, the rocks, the leaf, the apple, the hoop, the step, the branch, the bird, the squirrel on the wire, the CD, the block, the rug, the vacuum, the cat, the person, the diaper, the toy, the blanket, the wall, and he points at those numbered sheep jumping over the invisible fence.

When he points at things, a sound that sounds to be him saying, „Huh,” proceeds.

He points. And I talk about what he may be point at.