The Park!

Today Ezra and I hung out with the precious princess Maya. We went to the park and I shot this short video of the two of them running for the water fountain. Quickly they lose interest and are taken in by the ball, which Ezra so easily summons away from the owner.

Maya's mom takes care of Ezra for me while I work on Saturdays and then I watch Maya on Sundays. It's a good little system. I think Ezra likes having her around. She's a little younger than he is and he's used to being the littlest so it's taking some adjustments. I've noticed that he acts a little "manlier" when she's around. I don't know if that's possible but it seems like he does. He is not very good at sharing with her, and will snatch toys away and then when she cries out he gently rubs her arm and back. But doesn't give the toy back.

At first I was afraid that he would prefer to have me all to himself on my one day off, but I think it works out in his favor to have her around. If it's just Bunny Boy and me I totally try to be more productive, such as laundry, dishes, garbage, sweeping, organizing, etc. But when we have company I try to make things more fun for everyone. We were out in the yard with the sprinkler, eating watermelon, watching airplanes fly by. I got a sunburn. The babes were lathered. I guess I forgot myself.

Only two weeks left of school, and then I get two weeks off! Woo hoo. It will be nice to spend more time with Ez. I do have various things to do usually 6 days a week, but we're never apart more than 5 hours or so, so I'm still able to spend a lot of time with my handsome baby.

I'm going to be early tonight, happy June to you all!

Nice Hair

Ezra has a mohawk, whether I spike it up or not. So I figured why not spike it up! Here he practices drinking from a cup. He is so over the sippy cup scene. Practicing works best without a shirt on.

We're doing pretty well. Ezra is getting over being sick and I am feeling the crunch of finals approaching. I also picked up two extra shifts at work this week so I'm a little bird brained, but it will be nice to have a little extra dough, you know.

Grandma requested videos showing Ezra's signing abilities, and in the following snippet he shows off his skills of saying please. The sign for please is rubbing your chest in a circular motion, you'll see his clear demonstration multiple times. Unfortunately he is asking for the camera so I can't fulfill his wishes, even with a repeated please. I tried to get him to say juice, but that will have to be another video. He says juice "juicshch" with a heavy saliva slur on the end. It's pretty cute.

Here he is, pardon the screeches.

Soak City

Orange herachis? Yes please! We went to Lisa's wedding this weekend and Ezra got super spiffy. By the time we left he'd taken off his shoes and the bandana, and his pants were falling down because he's so much slimmer now that he's walking! Anyway, it was time to go when it was time to go. Unfortunetely we missed dinner, which I bet was spectacular. The appetizers were delicious: hummus stuffed cucumber, shrimp on crackers with doctored up cream cheese, and some sort of pita like sandwich. It was fun, I'll say. Here's another shot, of the two of us:



I got my dress from Tumbleweed, the other shop the owner of the toystore where I work owns. I love this dress. I look forward to wearing it to many picnics. Mostly people complimented Ezra on his outfit (which I put together). Show stealer.

Ezra and Usiah have been getting along increasingly. What follows is a video of the two of them rolling around in my bed the other mid morning. What a couple of lovey doveys.

Paper Products

Ezra squeals when I put his helmet on, so yesterday he showed me how he prefers to wear it. It does look way cooler. We've had a sunny, balmy, almost down right hot weekend I am happy to report. I am a little pink. Ezra, a nice golden dusting. We had a lovely day today. We went to the farmer's market this morning and bought some gorgeous strawberries. Then we came home and Ezra slept for 3 hours! Whoa. I think it was a combination of the heat and the fact that he did not sleep yesterday.

Why did he not sleep? Well, allow me to have rant #2 about the pains of child care. We show up 15 minutes before I have to be at work and they tell me they can't watch him. They give me a letter that's dated two weeks ago that says that Ezra is not a good fit for them. They gave me no notice what so ever and I was left scrambling to find someone to watch him. My neighbors took a shift, then two friends each watched him after that. It was so so so so so crappy. It made me so stressed out all day. Ezra did not sleep, no one applied his diaper rash medicine, so when I got home I had an insanely tired, chapped butt little man. I don't blame the people who helped me out, I didn't have time to explain where everything was. No I certainly blame Circle of Life, the worst child care facility in the world. I am going to make a post on craigslist (where they advertise) warning parents of this. Under no circumstance should anyone do that to a parent.

Anyway, at least today he had a good long nap and lots of butt medicine and he's looking better from top to bottom. I did give him some air out time as you can see in the following video:

The toilet paper is so tempting. He really can't resist it. Well, I have a paper to write and my eyes are crossing so I'd better sign off. Hope you had a great weekend!

Video Vault

He really wants to get his hand in that camera case. He does succeed eventually.

Here's Ezra's first short film.

Ezra trying to decide which bop he'd like to read, coming to find he'd rather clobber Mama.

His newest word, Up, is a favorite. Pick me up, pick it up, put me down, it's the word for everything!

My son: the booze hound.

Matchers

I had it on first. I put on my overalls and he just had to wear his too. We tooled around all day in our matching get-ups. Later we added red bandanas around our necks. Some people noticed; more amazingly, some people did not. It's just a lot of stripes.

Tomorrow is Mama's Day. I have no idea what Ezra is planning. He won't tell me. I hope it includes a long nap, solid movements, and laughter. Not too much to ask for. We are going for a picnic with some friends. We are bringing strawberries, bbq'd golden beets, blood oranges, peaches, and pears to share. It is to be sunny and 74. Yes please! We'll ride the bike to the waterfront. I've been meaning to tell you that we do indeed both wear helmets now. Mine is blue and Ezra's is yellow. He is always taking his off! It is such a pain, and then I have to buckle it under his poor little fat chin even more. So far I've only caught him in the buckle once but oh my did he shriek. I got a proper baby seat for the back, it's very nice, German made.

We are set to ride.

Here's a short snippet of my dear boy taking the garbage out. What a helpful little man he is.

New Hat

Little Darling leaves his new owl hat on for roughly one minute, which is substantially longer than the normal immediate removal of other hats. I guess he likes it as much as I do. He's finally feeling better today, thank the good Lord. I've spent the whole week home with him, which initially really stressed me out (to be missing class) but with every day of lolly gagging around with Ezra I minded it less and less. Luckily my teachers are all very flexible this term, and I don't think I'll fail or get a worse grade because of missing this week.

Child care stress continues. I don't know how much I've gone into it, but I had been taking Ezra very far, 3 hours on the bus every day. The woman who was taking care of his is absolutely wonderful, so it was worth it. I got a lot of reading done on the bus as well. But, about two weeks ago I found a new place on four blocks from my house. Great! I thought, and they are fine people, but I recently learned that they have NO experience with babies. Children ages 3-5, yes, babies, no. Which, yes, you learn as you go, but... I just don't know about them learning about babies with my baby. I wouldn't be good at all with babies previous to my recent intensive training.

It struck me when the lead gal was asking me why Ezra cries so much. Excuse me? Cries so much? At the last place the woman knew how to keep him content. I don't want to hear that he cries so much. Forty minutes on the bus thinking about him crying is way longer than 3 hours knowing that he's happy, fed, and loved.

So, I found another place that's close by and run by a mom. The only glitch is that they don't do cloth diapers, which is a better glitch than being so far or Ezra crying for sure. So $40 extra dollars a month in disposable diapers and that much more trash. We are going to try it out this week.

If it doesn't work out I'm going back the original. She was so good at getting him to eat, he was so delightfully chubby. Not that he's skinny now, but he's certainly thinner. I can see his ribs. I want his rolls back.

In the process of all this 3 new grey hairs sprouted from behind my bangs. Hmph. Then of course this week makes me just want to be with him all day every day. Oh the trials of mama.

Let's hope the new place works! Phew.

Saunter

Doesn't he walk like a cowboy? He's got this funny little swagger. His legs seems to rotate around his belly. It is very amusing. For the first couple of days of his walkingness I would day dream about him walking while I was in school. What a Mom. He has been under the weather this weekend, which means both of us have been rather shut up in the house. Today was a good day to be in, we got horizontal hail! Yikes. Tomorrow it is supposed to be the same, so we're in for another cabin fever session. I got out my guitar and he even let me play some.
Previously when I had tried he would get jealous, why are you holding that instead of me? Are you actually nursing that crazy looking contraption? Take me! (Flails himself in my direction.) It does mean that I get a three day weekend, which I usually have a one day weekend so that's nice. Maybe we'll go to the mall tomorrow. Something indoors.
Hope you're having a great weekend!

Here's a bonus shot of the little mohawk man: