Ezra is officially a category 2 Infant! He’s moving up in the ranks of daycare.
Today was Ezra’s first day as a full resident of the Infant 2 room. This is the room with the mobile, solid-eating babies. Now Ezra can crawl and pull up on things without having to worry about getting hung up or tripped up on all the little immobile baby bodies scattered across the floor of the Infant 1 room. Now Ezra can sit in a high chair next to other babies eating solid foods rather than sitting alone across the room in the high chair in Infant 1. He’s also been reunited with Even. Even and Ezra were often laying or sitting next to each other, playing with toys back in Infant 1, and Ezra seemed kind of sad when Even left because Even started crawling. Even doesn’t freak out when Ezra makes noize, and Even is just as grabby as Ezra. I think Even is Ezra’s first friend!
-v- and I have been talking for months how Ezra will probably be able to easily maintain a flat top, a mowhawk, or some messy chatic emo kid hair do with his natural cow licks.
Ezra’s cow lick on the left side of his head twists counter clockwise. Ezra’s cow lick on the right side of his head twist clockwise. Both cow licks meet in the middle of the head and push hair to flow up and stick up on the back top half of head. Even as the hair grows longer the hair remains sticking up from the back of head sort of like peacock plume. But this plume fans forward and lays flat before the brow.
We have tried only water to tame Ezra’s crazy hair, but mere water will not tame Ezra’s hair. For now, we don’t mind is crazy hair. Hopefully, -v- and I will be able to help Ezra come to love and find ways to style his crazy hair.
Ezra hasn’t been sleeping well the past couple of nights. And he just woke up a few minutes ago crying and screaming and doing everything he can to shove his whole fist in his mouth and bite down upon it in an apparent attempt to numb the sharp pain of teething.
At least, we suspect it is teething. There are no signs of ear infection, and his passion for wanting to bite hard on something is convincing enough that some sort of teething is going on in that mouth of his. He has also been drooling buckets today. And because teeth #5 and #6 are protruding enough that it’s unlikely those two new teeth causing the teething, so maybe teeth #7 and #8 are on the way?
Ezra and -v- are sleeping on the couch right now. Ezra’s back raises with each breath. He lay there still and calm.
It’s times like these that I wish Ezra would not grow up because he looks so much at peace and cute, but with life there is time and with time is growth. I suppose during times like this it is best to capture the moment any way one can.
His big head almost always hits first for his big head his heavy. And the big head being proportionally bigger than the body, and it being wider than the span from back to chest, it leads the way down to the floor. And even when the body hits first the head usually whips fast to the ground to give a quick smack to the face or back of head that can shock me.
Most of the falls now are when crawling or sitting on the hardwood floor. The falls are the result of Ezra slipping and falling fast on the floor. …On the hardwood floor, one can see the head bounce. Thankfully, this doesn’t happen often, or I would probably be buying Ezra a helmet, which given the fact he has a healthy skull could be a bit much. The body needs to learn to take a knock on the head from slipping or stumpling because after a slip or a stumble Ezra is a little more careful performing the same maneuver and more aware of gravity.
I believe Ezra likes to sit and crawl on hardwood floors more than rugs or carpets. I believe this because when Corralling Ezra he always crawls to the hardwood floor if there are no power cords to play with on the rug.
I don’t know if he likes the smooth surface of the hardwood floor. Or if he likes how the hardwood floor is easier to slide the knees over. Or maybe he likes the challenge of the slippery surface of the hardwood floor that probably makes the sliding of knees easier, but causes the balance and hold of hands and knees difficult because it has more slip than the rug? He does not fall more when on the hardwood floor, but when he falls he falls fast and hard. He always crawls back to it even when I put him on the rug after a fall. Maybe he likes the hard surface? Maybe he likes the fact the corral’s only moving door is a journey over the hardwood floor?
Ezra appears to like the hardwood in part because it is where we some times put our shoes and bags, which are other object Ezra likes to play with and try to put in his mouth. But now that we are Corralling Ezra in this area, the bags and shoes are usually moved to another location, and he sits on the hardwood floor and crawls on the hardwood floor and some times hits head the hardwood floor.
Ezra had his first Easter in Corvallis with Grandma and Grandpa T. Grandpa T was very excited to dye Easter Eggs with Ezra. And here’s what Ezra wanted to do with the eggs:
He’s still got to learn that you need to take the shell off first! We tried feeding him the yolk of that egg a little later for dinner, but he didn’t seem to enjoy it very much. On Easter morning, Ezra got some pictures taken with this old stuffed bunny that I also had my picture taken with on my first Easter. Somehow he seemed to know better than to chew on that old thing. Grandpa T got Ezra(’s parents) some Easter candy, which he seemed to enjoy (chewing on the wrappers of). Next year maybe we can try the whole hiding things for him to go find part of Easter. And maybe someday several years down the road, someone will try to explain to him the biblical story of Easter, which will seem very strange to him after all the years of eggs, rabbits, and candy.
With the help of vertical surface or a small platform, Ezra can lift self from sitting position to crawling position to standing position. He uses his ever evolving crawling techniques to climb the side of a vertical surface, so he may stand.
Last night he want to crawl to stand a lot. In fact, he seemed to wanted to crawl to a stand all night, hours past bedtime. He was happiest when he was standing with arms braced against some surface helping to balance self.
We have sectioned off a part of the main living area using a couch, a coffee table, a chair and the walls creating a corral for Ezra. Electrical cords once laying around on the ground of the corral are now put high out of reach or outside the corral area. The pile of shoes once stacked in the corral area have been moved to areas outside the corral area. The corral has been cleaned every other day, but the corral floors don’t seem clean enough. No matter how much I clean he has an ability to crawl and find little bits of carpet fuzz or small pieces of paper hidden under the couch or the coffee table. The corral area has been good to help control Ezra as he learns to crawl and keep him safe, but soon Ezra will leave the corral area, and then the real fun will begin.
Ezra has two more teeth that he’s been teething! It was quite a surprise when I first spied the two new teeth on Tuesday (or maybe Monday) while we were playing on the floor. He opened wide to laugh after I flipped him upside down, and I took the opportunity to look inside his mouth, thinking that at most I’d see a couple of swollen spots on his gums. But! Behold! There were two new whitecaps on either side of Ezra’s top two front teeth! So now he’s got six teeth that we can see. We’re going to have to start feeding him chunks of things like steak and apples and other grown-up foods so he can put all these teeth to good use!
With ear aches possibly killed off with White Strawberry Smooth Flavored Amoxicillin / Clavulanate Potassium, and with Ezra eating solid foods, and with Ezra crawling and moving more and more, and with the teething not being too bad, Ezra has been sleeping longer and deeper during the night. …YAY!!! Ezra sleep during most the night!
Ezra was sitting by Baby J today while I was getting all his stuff put away. Ezra started screeching and making his Orca sounds, while reaching out towards Baby J and trying to grab him. J started crying! His mom was there, and said that usually he’s the loud one. But once she left, Miss M told me that Ezra did that to J last week too! And J is just really sensitive, she said.
I hope Ezra’s not turning into a bully!
Kalab reminded me that today is St. Patrick’s Day, and maybe Ezra was trying to pinch J because he wasn’t wearing green! In honor of the day, Ezra wore his Packers outfit. “Or maybe Ezra put the Pack Attack on him,” Kalab said.
Yesterday, Ezra, -v-, and I had an hour long sign class to further assist -v- and I to teach Ezra sign language to help communication with Ezra before he can speak. The class was a fun class and was helpful in showing technique and expectations. One of the most important signs learned was the sign for stop, which is holding the left hand open palm up and then bringing the right hand down upon the left hand like the right is copping the left hand.
The stop sign is an important sign and the one I have used often today. Often because Ezra’s seems to want to play with power cords. He wants to grab and pull and bite them. This is bad. During the past, it was easy to keep power cords away from Ezra because he was unable to move sans rolling around, which never got him far. But now he can crawl. And though he can’t crawl very far most of the time, he seems to get a lot of motivation to crawl when the crawling is for a power cord. So if -v- and I keep up the sign language, I am sure the sign for stop will be one of the first learned.
Early this morning, Ezra was hanging-out on his blanket playing with some wooden blocks and a few books and some plastic chew toys. Then he seemed to be bored with the toys. So he laid on his side, lifted himself up on hands and knees. Then he began to crawl. He crawled across the blanket. He crawled to the floor. And he crawled to some power cords. It did take me awhile to calm my excitement caused by the crawling and realize he was playing with power cords. Once the excitement was under control, I told Ezra not to play the power cords and then set him on his blanket.
I realized now begins years of Ezra moving around and playing with things like power cords and me trying to not have Ezra play with things like power cords.
Ezra learned about the goodness that is cheese today! I gave him some good old Tillamook cheddar cut into little baby bite-sized pieces, and he had some of the pieces in between bites of sweet potato. He seemed to enjoy the cheese - and maybe even enjoyed the sweet potatoes a little more than usual…because he has already figured out that everything is better with a little cheese!
