Golden Pig Tales

Ezra crawling on floor at YOU! (It could be easier to view by leaning head to the left. Or you could just imagine Ezra is Spiderbaby.):

Though it is not rolls and logs, Ezra now shits. The shit is thick enough to now need to scrape some of the shit off of the Fuzzi Bunz before they are put in to the wash. The shit has fibers and is like a thick wool blanket of poop that changes colors depending on what he ate. The loose poop that once coated the skin and took many wipes to clean off the skin is poop that is no longer. His eating solid food has evolved the poop. Now that poop is shit.

-v- was telling me today how the people at daycare said Ezra was pleasant and fun to be around today. This is the same Ezra that was fussing in the morning, fussing in the car seat, and (according to -v-) a bit fussy when they arrived at daycare. Despite all these signs and the past days of Ezra getting a bit fussy because of a cough and teething, once he was around other people at daycare Ezra turned on his charm and chilled out. This is not the first time Ezra has been moody when only around -v- and I only to be fun and happy when around other people.

I am happy that Ezra has been said to have been good at daycare and when other people have watched him when Ezra was fussy with us, but it leaves me wondering how Ezra makes this change from fussy Ezra when he is around us to cute and happy Ezra when around other people. This is something -v- and I have noticed very often. It is almost like he transforms into a whole another baby sometimes when people are around. This is not to say that Ezra is often a fussy baby. That would be wrong for all in all Ezra is actually happy and smiling a lot with us. It is just that are times when we think there is no way he will be happy and smiling because of his current mood only to be proven wrong when people are around and he turns on his Ezra charm.

Yo. EZ-O moved into his own crib this weekend! Awwww yeah! He’s livin’ large now. His spot is the best place in the whole house for shizzle.

Yes, Ezra made the move from the porta-crib to his real, sturdy comfortable crib this weekend. 

It all happened so quickly, at least according to Kalab. However, I’ve been working up to this for weeks. It just happened abruptly this weekend because I woke up on Saturday night 4 times before 3am-  Ezra was alternately snoring and talking in his sleep, or would lose his pacifier and wake up and decide he wanted a snack - and by 2:30am felt that he had to be moved right then and there. 

I have personally been trying since Grandma O left to only get up once to feed Ezra and otherwise have been trying to get him to soothe himself back to sleep when he wakes up(Kalab was just not informed of this). This is hard to do when he’s in the room with you and every move he makes causes you to wake up. And I think it’s hard on him as well - I’ve read that your baby can smell your milk from up to 2 or 3 feet away, so when they wake up and smell the milk, they probably feel like they might as well get some. Kind of like if you’re a coffee drinker, the smell of coffee brewing can wake you up and get you out of bed.

The other reason for the move is that I had this thought a week or so ago that took hold and wouldn’t leave me alone -  part of the reason he was so stuffy and snoring was because he was too close to the floor and the level of the heat vent, in front of which both our cats like to nap . So I imagined that he was inhaling a huge amount of dusty, dirty, cat-dander-filled air and this was causing him to sleep badly, and would probably lead him to develop allergies or asthma or some other lung problems later in life. This may or may not be true, but at 2:30am on Sunday this was all I could think about and this is what actually sparked the big move to Ezra’s big crib this weekend.

He seems to like his crib, and I think he’s OK with being in his room alone. Although he has been putting up something of a fuss at night, that could be attributed more to his teething - another of life’s abrupt changes he’s got to go through.

Ezra had his first taste of a food that is not breastmilk yesterday; it’s still unknown whether or not he enjoyed it.

I followed all the directions in all the baby feeding guidance - 1TB of rice cereal mixed with 3-4TB of breastmilk to produce a really liquidey milky rice broth. Yum…? Most of it ended up on the bib, on his shirt, on his face, and on the high chair. But it was fun for me! I had to try hard not to laugh when he would spit out everything I just put in, because I read somewhere that if you laugh when he makes messes while eating, he’ll be more likely to do it every time he eats because babies like to make you laugh. It was funny though. You can see for yourself, maybe tomorrow when I post part of the video Kalab made of the event.

In the game of Ezra versus Gravity, I think gravity is winning more matches and games now, but Gravity will not always win the matches and games. Ezra will win and learn to win matches and games against Gravity in Gravity’s home field of Earth.

Ezra now has an ability and tolerance for sitting upright. After minutes of holding self steady and up, he will begin to fall left, right or forward. Forward is actually the position he will fall when sitting upright more often than not because of his big and heavy head being pulled down over the span of a few minutes. This leaves his head between his legs near the ground. When tipping left or right, his arms do balance Ezra and his big head. Or his arms soften the fall to the floor helping ease the defeat of the match with gravity.

When stand practicing with -v- and I or holding himself up to stand with the help of the coffee table, Ezra doesn’t seem to understand that when moving forward he needs to lead with the legs and body and not with hands and arms. He seems to believe that gravity will not play to win the match this one time while he reaches for something too far to be reached from his current standing position. Ezra is getting to know Gravity always wants to win any game with it. Ezra can shuffle feet to an objective if there is an objective to reach like a pacifier or a blanket to chew on, so Ezra is learning to play the game with gravity. But sometimes passions overwhelms perception and he tries to fly to the pacifier or the blanket (to chew on). His balance does lose, and he falls like a board to the floor, but never hits because while the match is a game between Ezra and Gravity it is not a death match, and I am on Ezra’s team and won’t let Gravity win all the matches while Ezra is still a very young child learning to play with gravity.

Ezra’s play with Gravity continues. Soon Ezra will begin to win more and more matches and games with Gravity while becoming more injured from losing an occasional match and falling. Soon I will not be there to catch him and there will be one less game Ezra plays with me.

Ka Boom! It’s Ezra’s first tooth!

He’s been teething, supposedly, for the last month, so I’m always looking at his mouth trying to see a tooth. Usually I just see spit and maybe some regurgitated milk.

I was looking at his mouth today while he was lying on his blanket by the window, and talking to me in his special way. I could see something on the bottom right of his gumline - a little white bump. I thought I saw something there last night, but wasn’t willing to bet that it was a tooth. Having now looked at a bunch of tooth eruption charts today on the internet, I am almost positive that the little white bump is a tooth about ready to erupt!

Yay! Yay! It is Ezra’s birthday today.

Yay! Yay! It is Ezra’s birthday today.

Yay! Yay! It is Ezra’s birthday today.

Yay! Yay! It is Ezra’s birthday today.

Yay! Yay! It is Ezra’s birthday today.

I realize that thumb sucking is thought to be a replacement for sucking on mom’s nipple or the nipple of a bottle or the pacifier, but Ezra has already began to use his thumb to do something other than substituting a thumb for a nipple.

I have been noticing Ezra uses his thumb to press upon his upper gum. When he does this, he looks like he is sucking his thumb, but really he is focusing pressure upon one location of his gum.

When he is not using a thumb to press upon his gums, and there is no other object to put in his mouth, he tries to jam his fist into his mouth, so his knuckles rub against his lower and upper jaw. I believe this technique does cover more area and spreads the pleasure of dull pain with each bite numbing the sharp pain of teething, but this technique doesn’t seem to offer the same focused intense dull pain that a well place thumb can when the teething pain increases in a specific location.

He does put two fingers in his mouth like he is trying to catch his tongue. He puts the thumb and forefinger in mouth and chews. This two-finger method appears to be being replaced with the thumb-only method, which I have noticed as his thumb gets bigger and is able to better shove thumb in mouth and better guide the thumb to those teething intense areas.

Ezra is now beating on surfaces with his hands or objects in his hands. Today has been a good example of this. During stand practice, he was smiling and beating on top of the coffee table like it was his own personal drum set. Later, when sitting on the floor, Ezra was holding his stuffed animal giraffe by the neck and banging it on the ground and on his head. During the walk around with Ezra, his fists hit chest and arms. While breast feeding, his arm not pinned between his body and the Boppy was flailing like a loose fire hose slapping against -v-’s chest. He was also laying on the floor hitting the floor with hands and feet making sounds with the hardwood floor like a pro wrestler makes when simulating getting hit by another wrestler. We can only hope this hitting doesn’t continue and lead to a life as a pro wrestler because the length of a pro wrestler’s career is too short and wrecks the body. If he does become a pro wrestler, I will be the first help him with his pro wrestling costume and name.

Ezra is shuffling his feet forward while stand practicing. If his stomach muscles were a little more built, he could be walking. Ezra is almost crawling…Sort of. When he does move across the ground while on all fours, he looks more like a caterpillar and doesn’t get very far. The rolling over from front to back is easy now for Ezra, but the rolling from back to front is always stopped by one of his arms.

Teething is now another cause of fussiness, so it too must be inserted officially into Ezra’s Fussiness Discussion Chart

Bored? —> Yes —————> Play
    |
    No
    |
Hungry? —> Yes ————–> Feed
    |
    No
    |
Need Burping? —> Yes ——-> Burp
    |
    No
    |
Diaper Change? —> Yes ——> Change Diaper
    |
    No
    |
Tired? —> Yes ————–> Nap or Sleep
    |
    No
    |
Snotty Nose? —> Yes  ——-> Suck Snot From Nose
    |
    No
    |
Teething? —> Yes ———–> Clean Up Drool; Find Teething Toys; WAIT!
    |
    No
    |
Fever? —> Yes ————–> Call Doctor
    |
    No
    |
Other? —> Yes ————–> Call -v-

As -v- said yesterday, „It’s like Ezra discovered he had a lower jaw today.”

When he moves his lower jaw, his lips almost form a rectangle. If he had teeth, they would be showing.

The jaw movements look more like exorcising or exercise than talking. The movements look more like a mouth workout than movements for effects for the stories he tells with his beatbox sounds and gesticulation. His talk has more bass and sounds more like Human talking than whistles or Humpback Whale talking.

One-Poop-A-Day Ezra is filling diapers with what is evolving from poop to shit.

The sour-milk-with-cottage-cheese-dyed-yellow-brown poop is now delivered in the form of a thicker and stickier and darker single poop mass that forms a clump of poop.

The clump of poop I believe is another sign Ezra’s poop is becoming shit.

The faint poop smell that does exist still reminds me more of sour milk than shit.

Typically when loud noises escape Ezra’s butt we can expect to find lots and lots of poop. While Ezra has been know to fart, it is a rarity and usually not something that happens often.

Today, however, Ezra has been a fart machine. And not those soft and silent farts, but the hard and exploding farts. Every time we had to check his diaper for poop. Every time only the faint smell of poop and a clean diaper is all we found.

This can only mean that Ezra is now becoming more of a man because everyone knows farting is the first stage of manhood.

I am sad to see Ezra’s mullet is thinning. I fear within the coming week that the mullet will be gone. It has been rubbed away after weeks and weeks of cradling and pivoting head back and forth.

I am happy to write that the hair on all his head is growing even and strong. But as much joy as this may bring, the sadness of seeing the disappearance of the mullet lessens the joy of a baby with a full head of hair.