Ever since seeing Cars, he has wanted to see Cars 2. We have watched all the Mater Tales. We have Cars LEGOs of which I play Sheriff. He has shirts with Lightening McQueen and underware with Mater. He is wearing a new Cars 2 shirt from Grandma O. He is going to see Cars 2 today. He is excited. No matter the quality of the movie, it will be the Best Movie Ever.
I believe there are more than five different metaphors that could be written how a toy train set linked and built a bridge and track to guide a train to deliver a father and son relationship.
The train set for Ezra’s birthday has been a great gift. For a train fan, Ezra likes the train set. As a father, I love having Ezra come get me every time he needs a new bridge or needs help building the track. Yes, we have built a bridge with the train set. I have even mended the bridge and our friendship after we have been fussy because of something else. We have helped guide the train around the track. Ezra has even showed me how to build a better bridge by placing two and not just one of the wooden risers under the joint connecting the tracks of the bridge. And now I will be getting a few more few more pieces of train track for my birthday.
Ezra attended his first ever da vinci days gathering this weekend. As Kalab said, this experience included the Daddies show on Friday night. It also included more music, ice cream, french fries, bouncy walks, mazes, balloons, walking, carrying, running, crying, almost losing a binky, an aborted trip to the wave science research center, bike-sculptures shaped like cats, slugs, tiki bars, and other weird things, a lot of fish art, and several trips to the new Corvallis transit bus that was on display at the entrance to da Vinci days. All this in just 2 days!
I think Ezra’s favorite part was where we sat on this new bus, and I sang many many different verses of “wheels on the bus”
I am leaving Ezra and Kalab at home and taking off for a brief work trip. They will be without mom for about 36 hours. Hopefully they will not set anything on fire or lose anything important, and will have some time for fun father-son bonding. Ezra and I had our bonding time today - his daycare was closed for Veteran’s Day (really? Veteran’s Day? I didn’t know people outside of government, or Veterans maybe, got that day off). We stayed home together and played and played and played. And read some books, ate a little, and then played and played some more. Kalab came home and looked around at all the stuff everywhere. I think he was a little shocked-and-awed by the amazingly small amount of floor space left uncovered by Ezra’s toys, books, about 30 pages of newspaper advertisements, and miscellaneous other things that Ezra wanted to play with today and I didn’t have the heart or energy to pick up after he was done playing because I was sort of proud of the fun we had today.
This morning Ezra was crawling around with his new favorite toy: a big red plastic cup. The big red plastic cup is the most recent in a long line of kitchen utensils that has become Ezra’s toys. Before the big red cup, Ezra liked most to play with a whisk that he like to hit against the ground. (He still likes to play with the whisk, but after stepping on it a couple of day ago I have put the whisk on an upper shelve out of his reach for now.) There are plastic spatulas and big plastic spoons that he seems to enjoy hitting together and against the ground and try to bite and chew on. He still likes to toss around and hit the tops of tupperware bowls and containers. Wooden spoons, strainers, cutting boards and measuring cups are a few other kitchen toys. It is my hope that in the distant future he will have a fondness of these kitchen toys and see them as “toys” to cook and take over cooking duties for a couple of days a week. For now, it is good to see him get additional use out of “toys” that can be used for something else once he gets bored of them.
We bought Ezra a used baby walker to help Ezra walk around the house without the need to be supporting himself with a wall or door or a piece of furniture or the need to have full balance control all the time.
The baby walker is a vintage plastic Fisher Price Baby Walker. It looks like a right angle triangle on four plastic wheels topped with a single handle for both hands. On the front of the walker is a mirror next to turning circle with holes around the outside that looks like a rotary phone dial. Above the mirror and rotating circle are flat colored panels that spin. Below the mirror and rotating circle are colored cylinders that spin on a rod.
The toys on the front he likes, but the biggest show of pleasure and joy he expresses is when he is walking around the house with the help of the baby walker. His mouth is open wide with a smile letting loose short bursts of laughter.
Ezra has learned how to wave! He waves one hand and also waves two hands; he waves hello and I think he also waves goodbye. He waves to the big piles of blocks and containers and toys that have been stacked up by mom or dad or grandma right before he knocks them down, sending blocks and toys and other things flying every which way. And then he waves some more! Waving and destroying towers of toys are things that make Ezra happy these days : )