Golden Pig Tales

For various reasons, it appears I haven’t written anything on here for nearly a month. Yikes. It’s not because I love Ezra any less, but I think it’s because I have had to take care of two sick kids off and on over the last month! Ezra is mostly over his most recent cold, and Kalab is maybe going to get over his illness soon too. I hope. We just had a lovely visit with grandma O, Uncle Dylan and Aunt Summer. Ezra had lots to do the last week - showing off all his toys, having people read every book in his library, and going downtown on the bus and riding the city train as often as possible. But today it was back to pre-school. I had received a call from his teacher on Wednesday wondering when Ezra was coming back, because all his fridnds were missing him. I told this to Ezra, and his little face just lit up - he was so excited to hear about his friends and went to bed so quickly because he wanted to wake up the next morning to go to pre-school to play with them all and see his teacher. I think he had fun today, but I know he’s also looking forward to the next time grandma O can come and visit.

We went to the zoo today for the first time in a while. We renewed our membership, because it was almost exactly a year ago that we went with Ezra for the first time to the zoo. And this trip was sort of similar to that first trip - a nice sunny February day, a big crowd of people, and Ezra one again more excited by the non-animal aspects of the zoo. He was a little bit more attentive to the elephants and monkeys than he was last time, but by the time we had seen a few animals Ezra was ready to go see the big black engine that sits across the parking lot from the zoo. That thing is magical to Ezra. I think one time last summer we went to the zoo but didn’t even end up going in the zoo because we spent all our time on the big black engine. Anyway, even though I have mixed feelings about zoos, they seem to capture Ezra’s attention, so I’m sure it will be zoo time again soon.

When Ezra is in a good mood, the whole house is in a good mood. When Ezra is cranky, we get cranky. I’m not sure that’s a good thing? Anyway, tonight was fun. Ezra even sat through all of Wall-E!

Me and Ezra had a New Years’ resolution to go to the gym. Well, actually, I have a resolution to go to the gym, and Ezra ended up getting a special gift enrollment at this new “playground gym” for christmas (thanks uncle dylan for the $!). So far we have been twice, and Ezra LOVEs it. His friends jojo and tony also go to the gym, so they get to run and jump and scream their little hearts out for an hour twice a week, more if we take advantage of the open gym times. THe place is fully padded, and it is awesome. Meanwhile, I am going to the gym which is not padded, and is not nearly as much fun as Ezra’s new gym.

Without much fuss, Ezra completed a three hour plane trip and a two hour drive. He still hates the take off and landing of the plane, but he did lookout the plane window a couple of times before he closed the window shade. And he still likes the comfort of -v-’s lap than that space and freedom of sitting in his own seat on the plane, which keeps him calm, but tests the will and sanity of -v-.

We just got back from a long labor day weekend in utah doing hard labor in the dirt pits at grandpa’s and grandma’s house. Ezra was a tough pit boss. He made us dig and dig and dig to fill up buckets and wagons and wheelbarrows.

Despite all the dirty work, we had so much fun with the visit to grandpa and grandma’s house down in utah. It was sad to head back home today, knowing we were leaving them behind and heading home so that mom and dad could go back to work for much less cute bosses.

Ezra hasn’t really been happy about going to playcare after spending a fun week with Gramma O. Ohhhhh no. I’ve had to leave him crying, or  in today’s case, screaming. Even the arrival of his friend Maya didn’t make him happy. So, I feel pretty bad about leaving him. This is not easy nor a very pleasant way to start the day. The last time he cried about staying at daycare was months and months ago when his favorite teacher wasn’t there in the morning. The daycare is a little more chaotic the last couple of weeks due to some reorganization they’re doing and renovations at the preschool house, so that might be contributing. Maybe tomorrow I will stay a little longer with him in the morning. Hopefully he’ll get back to having fun times and waving ‘bye to me as he goes off to play with his friends. sigh.

Uf - more fun was had this weekend than any weekend in the history of the world!

OK, maybe not, but we had a great time with Ezra and our friends and family hanging out during the morning and on through the BBQ on Saturday afternoon. So many people to play with!  Today was a nice mellow Sunday with a little bike ride and some time at the park. Ezra is two!   But now we have to go back to work, which won’t be as fun as either Saturday or Sunday. Boo!

Ezra’s birthday was awesome!  We had fun at the park after eating the birthday doughnut Then we opened some presents (super awesome monster truck from Grampa O and a great train set from dad)! Then we went to Oaks Park and rode the train, saw some boats, ate fair food, rode the carousel, went to dinner, came home, ate cake and ice cream, played with the great new presents, had a huuuuuuuuuge poop, and then read a new book and went to bed. What a great great birthday! And tomorrow will be full of more fun, friends, and food. yay! 

Ezra is going to be 2 in two weeks! I’ve started talking with him about his birthday, and how Gramma O is going to come visit, and he’s going to have some cake. I think he kind of just equates birthdays with cake, rather than aging. Maybe we should all just look at birthdays that way. Anyway, he seems excited because he also knows that when Gramma O comes back again, we will go to the amusement park! He sees the amusement park every day we go to playcare, and I can tell he is just dying to find out what this place is all about. Hopefully the birthday will live up to his expectations, whatever those might be.

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!

I have this animal matching memory game on my ipod that Ezra likes to play. There are maybe 25 different animals that show up on the board, and each makes a noise appropriate to that animal, more or less. Most of them sound right, although the koala makes a noise that seems much more aggressive than I would think a cute little koala would make. But then again, I’ve never heard a koala do anything but eat and sniff at my hand. Anyway, at first, Ezra really liked to see the monkey show up on the game board and it was fun to make monkey noises with him. The last couple of days he picked out a new favorite: the walrus. The walrus makes a noise like an abominable snowman. I’m hopeful that Ezra will move on to a new animal, because I don’t really like this walrus. Perhaps it just reminds me of that stupid song. 

We had a fun weekend with Ezra, which included multiple trips to multiple parks, and a trip to the Zoo. The zoo trip was intended to be a trip to the Children’s museum (which is right next to the zoo) to see the Bob the Builder exhibit. The first 20 minutes we were there, we investigated the train at the nearby forestry center. Then we walked to the museum. Ezra inspected the little front loader/bobcat that was parked outside. He had another fun 10 minutes of this, and we tried and tried to get him to go inside the museum, but he just had no interest. He did seem interested when we asked if he wanted to go see animals. So, we went to the zoo. This zoo visit was much better than the previous one, as it was a bit warmer and more animals were active. I think Ezra liked the sea lions the best, and we also got to see the baby elephant. The builder exhibit is at the museum for another couple months, so maybe we will try again some day.  

-v- went to the store for food near Ezra’s bedtime, so I was the lone parent to put Ezra to bed. The process began with Ezra looking out the window crying and saying, ,,Mommy, mommy, mommy.” After about five minutes of crying and starring out the window he calmed his crying, so he could hear me offer to read The Big Book of Trucks with him to which he replied with a, ”Yes.” So, we went to his room, and I opened The Big Book of Trucks then named and pointed to each truck or other vehicles on each page as he turned the pages until he closed the book and said, ”Bye, bye.” Then I began to ask him which set of pajamas he wanted to wear. He couldn’t decide on a top and he was refusing to left me take off his milk covered shirt, so things got fussy for a few seconds when I took off his milk covered shirt and put on his bulldog pajama tops. He was fussy until he saw the hollow cube with shapes cutout on all six sides. He wanted to push the shaped blocks into the hollow cube. We did this for about fifteen minutes while listening to Johnny Cash. Then he started to close his eyes and sway his head, so I put him the crib, turned off the lights and sat in the dark until he settled. Before I left the room, he said, ”night night, daddy.”

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!

We have Monday off for Prez Day, so this is a long weekend with Ezra. But even a long weekend is too short. It’s hard to stay on the same schedule we keep during the week, so on the weekends its sometimes hard to tell when and how long Ezra will want to nap or sleep. By the time you feel like you’re getting in a good routine and getting some good quality Ezra time, the weekend is over and it’s back to work. Boo! Friday Ezra stayed home and had a fun day with Gramma T, and Friday night we played race-stroller in the house with Ezra, which will probably some day come back to haunt us. Saturday morning we had breakfast with Gramma T, and then….no one can really remember exactly what we did the rest of the day after Gramma left.  Anyway, today I took Ezra out for an adventure. We went to the top of Powell Butte (an extinct volcano!) with the intention of going on a little hike. But Ezra indicated he was unimpressed after about 3 minutes of standing around outside the car in the cold wind, and wanted back in the car. So then we headed to Ikea, where they were giving away free breakfasts! But, we didn’t get that either because there were too many crazy people standing in line. Ezra tried to cut the line and got us in trouble. We ended up running up and down the sidewalk in the parking lot for 45 minutes, looking at cars, trains, and airplanes. I told Ezra we were at Ikea, and he repeated “Keea?” After Keea we went home, with Ezra falling asleep in the car on the way. This messed up his schedule for the day, because the nap was way too early and too short. I had a nap when he was supposed to be napping. Then when I woke up, I took him out for a walk, and he ended up falling asleep in the stroller with some sun on his cheeks, even though the weather forecast was for rain today. Even though Ezra’s sleep schedule was all weird, and he had a hard time falling asleep tonight, today was a fun day with Ezra. And we have a whole extra day for fun tomorrow!