Golden Pig Tales

I stipulated if Ezra was to watch two Caillou that he would have to let me change his pull-up diaper for a pull-up diaper without a night’s of pee with no fuss. I stipulated that we would change his diaper before watching the two Caillou. He negotiated with a whinny, ,,Nnnnnnnnooooooooooo,” then stipulated. ”After Caillou.” I wasn’t in the mood to negotiate, agreed and wrote the verbal contract by saying, ,,After two Caillou we are going to change your diaper.” Ezra said, ,,Okay.” We watched two Caillou. As the last one ended, I said, ,,Let’s change your diaper.”

He said, ,,No. Not yet.” And he walked away.

As Ezra walked around, ate a waffle, played with a garbage truck, sat under the table then walked to the kitchen while I followed and talked about the fact he needed to complete his conditions of the contract.

Then -v- reminded me that I never stipulated when after Caillou that we needed to change Ezra’s diaper.

I stopped talking.

Ezra ate his cereal. He walked into the bathroom, closed the door, took off his pull-up diaper and sweats and let -v- help him with pulling up his diaper with no fuss.

While we try to teach Ezra not to hit, and I feel we do good at teaching Ezra not to hit for he rarely swings to hit, Ezra does hit once during awhile. He has two main ways of hitting. There’s the wild swing of a floppy arm that is usually followed by him stepping away and saying, ,,NO!” Then there is his Tiger Claw.

The Tiger Claw is used rarely by Ezra and only on a kid and always because of a dispute over a toy he wants or doesn’t want to share. He’s pretty fast with the Tiger Claw and pretty effective at poking the kid’s eye then grabbing the kid’s face causing the kid to squint and miss their Tiger Claw.

After waking, eating, talking, reading, car riding, playing, fort building with Ezra all day long. After having built one chair fort for most his toys and many couch forts for Ezra, and after reading books, and after eating. After ABCs and counting. After watching Caillou as we sat on the couch and ate a heated frozen pizza, Ezra smiled and said, ,,I like you, dad.”

I want to vacuum the rug to suck-up the bits of card board that was recycling bits for Ezra’s Recycling Truck that we made Christmas day that are now bits of card board trash. I didn’t vacuum the rug because Ezra pleaded and insisted that the fire truck puzzle remain assembled and on the rug. I really didn’t want to vacuum anyway, and he let me move many other things to begin to cleanup from Christmas, and I didn’t have the talk in me to reason with Ezra to show him I only want to vacuum.  The fire truck puzzle will abide for now, and with the talking of -v- and me then Ezra will probably help put away the fire truck puzzle.

The cleanup from Christmas will continue tomorrow. Maybe we will take the lights and decorations of his tree tomorrow. Maybe we won’t.

There have been times during the past when Ezra has claimed my facial stubble as reason I could not read to him, hug him or do something. He says that I have a bumpy face. I don’t think he liked the rough feel of course stubble or the tickle of the short scruff. Lucky for Ezra, I have been shaving everyday for the past days, so now he has no fear of the bumpy face, and every time he says I have a bumpy face I have him touch my cheek or chin and he feels the smooth shave, which causes him to smile and say, ,,Daddy don’t have bumpy face.”

Ezra’s showing no sign of wanting to pee and poop in anything, but his diapers. And he never wants to change the diapers. Now he wants to wear only a certain type of pull-up diaper that has airplanes on the front, which are new today. The past week he would only wear the pull-up diapers with a police car and a fire truck on the front. There were nights when he threw the same type of diapers with only a firetruck on the front across the room because we had no more diapers with police cars and firetrucks on them. Then tonight he was wearing a diaper with a police car and a firetruck, but then he saw the new diapers with a plane the front and pulled the diaper with the police car and firetruck off in a fit insisting he wear a diaper with the plane on the front. I could only think of how much I hate diapers and wish Ezra would pee and poop in the potty.

Ezra has a step stool for bathroom, kitchen, dinning room. During the past, Valerie and i would usually need to carry Ezra’s step stool around from the kitchen sink, the dishwasher, his table, to the chair at the big table, so he could wash hands, unload the dishwasher, let -v- or I sit, or climb to his chair at the big table.

Now he carries his own stool.

Now he carries his own stool to new places like a movable cart in kitchen for fruit or to the drawers for a spoon or the the counter tops for his binky or for the sink in bathroom, to unload the dishwasher, for a seat, to use to step to the big chair.

Now he can get to those places where I thought he wouldn’t be for a couple more months or years.

Ezra told me, ,,Círculo,” to help him build a circle with the wooden train track. Typically this circle then becomes the boundary of a parking or living area for cars and trucks. So, we were building the círculo of track and then he said for me to, ”Do this,” but, ”Do this,” meant doing something that wouldn’t have helped create the círculo of track. So, I tried to explain to him that we couldn’t make a circle if we laid the track the way he was wanting it to be laid. He said, ”Do this, do this,” and laid the track to make a wavy train line away from the incomplete circle then he began telling me to, ”Círculo, círculo. Círculo,” but he also wanted me to, ”Do this,” and I didn’t know what to do because there wan’t enough track despite getting 100 new pieces to make a círculo while laying track away from the point of the original círculo plan.

Today it took some topical cream in Ezra’s bum, two diapers changes to find the right diaper Ezra wanted, reading three books, playing with his trucks, fussing it out for a few minutes, then another diaper change for the diaper he selected, then have -v- and me  help build a car garage, then he was near happy. To get him finally out the door, it took him looking at a big book with stickers in the book and getting a sticker of a transport truck stuck to his favorite John Deer tractor t-shirt, which he had been wearing since yesterday, but this morning was no morning to ask him to take off his favorite shirt and put on a new shirt.

Ezra’s new favorite movie is Cars. It combines some of his favorite things like cars, noises and cartoons. He likes it enough that is even subduing any fussiness he may have from not being home and for it being too cold to go to the park, and the movie even subdued him during plane flight. The only thing I don’t like about this like of the movie Cars is the fact he may want to watch it often and every time we let him watch videos, which means I have to watch it or hear it.

Just as a clingy tired-looking whining Ezra was excited to eat his hamburger and potatoes, mommy had to leave. What followed was not expected…

He then didn’t’ want to eat the hamburger, the potatoes, a waffle, a pancake, an egg, cereal, cheese, apple, peaches, raisins, a fig bar, a tomato, crackers, ham, olives or a cookie. A cookie. EZRA REFUSED TO EAT A COOKIE! He didn’t want to play trains, read a book, watch Youtube, watch television, play with Play-Doh, listen to music, eat. I thought maybe he had a fever, but his temperature was and is fine except for the fact he was heated with crying emotion as he looked outside for mommy, as he picked up mommy’s keys and cried for mommy, as he sat on the couch and cried for mommy, as he stood by the door and cried for mommy. So I offered him a puppy. He said, ,,No puppy.” Instead, he insisted on crying loud and long and clear creating a loud song for the entire neighborhood. It was a song of crying with the lyrics. ”MOMMY, MOMMY, MOMMY. I WANT MY MOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMY!” It was song that had me speechless and wanting to scream, which I did into a pillow, after I sang a song using the music from Twinkle Twinkly Little Star, but with different lyrics because if I sung the lyrics to Twinkle Twinkle Little Star Ezra sung his song louder because mommy sings Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. …Actually, his wasn’t a song. A song is too short. It was more of an opera that lasted an hour and a half.

Whaus = Ezra’s Speak for, ,,What is this?” Or ,,What’s this?” Whaus is usually accompanied with a point of finger at an object or to his ear (to represents the object is a sound).

It was learned over time by Ezra saying, ,,What’s this?” with a binky in his mouth.

Every time whaus is said, I say, ,,What is this?” Or at least I try. Ezra can say Whaus for many object before I can say, ”What is this?” making me feel it is more important to clearly define all the object he is curious about than use time to help unlearn a non-standard word.

Ezra’s potty training is slow going. So far, the only time he has any desire to try to sit on his potty to pee or poop just happens to be as he is laying in his bed, against his desire, to go to sleep for the night. No other time does he really express the desire to go to the bathroom and sit on his potty. So for the past to nights as we laid him down he’s expressed a desire to go pee in the potty. Both times it resulted in us all sitting in the bathroom waiting for something to happen. What has happened is Ezra sits on the potty for a few seconds. Then he stands and walks around. Then he sits on the potty. He will try to play with the toilet paper. He will try to leave to go run around. Every time we tell him that if he wants to go pee in his potty that’s good, but it is not a reason to avoid going to bed. So we sit. We wait then we go back to his room, lay him on his bed and just about when things are calm he will ask again to go pee in his potty.

He wants to lick his hands free of liquid soap when washing hands. He likes to drink soapy bath water. He sucks suds from wash cloth and likes it.

I suppose the liquid soap does look similar to the food condiments that we use for food, so I don’t fault him for wanting to try soap nor would I believe he liked soap if he happened to lick or try to lick the liquid soap from his hands once or twice, but he wants to lick his hand free of soap every time he washes hands rather than rinse the hands free of soap with the water flowing from faucet.

Ezra may have become a Stair Master more than a year ago, and now he is a Stair Mater 2.

Yesterday, he earned his second Stair Master title after climbing and descending stairs without supervision from -v- and me. We were eating dinner, and he was roaming around. We heard him from afar asking something. I walked up the stairs to find him wanting into his room for he is still unable to open the high, old and stiff door knob. He entered his room, but refused me entry. He wanted -v- in his room, but not me. We wanted to eat, so we went back downstairs. Soon Ezra followed thus completing his solo ascent and descent of the steep wooden stairs without knowledge or supervision.

We still don’t have gates installed before the up and down entrances of the steep wooden stairs.

Ezra tells me to, ,,Wait,” at the top of the steep and carpetless stairs for him to descend. Then he steps to the stairs, looks back to make sure I am far from the top of the stairs. He waits to makes sure I won’t be following him then he steps down.

Each step makes me nervous. He lifts foot and slowly lowers foot to the next stair. He leans against the wall and leans back while slowly bending the knee. The foot hits the stair below and the other foot slips from under and steps to the stair below with butt hitting the stair above. Then he stands.

When he is standing at stair’s edge, I get the most nervous because sometimes he just stands and stares and looks around. And while he looks around, I look at him and say, ,,Be careful, Ezra.” Then he says, ,,NO, DADDY. Wait.” He takes another step and another then another until he is at the bottom and then I am no longer worried he will miss step and fall head-first from wooden stair to wooden stair to wooden stair. Then I realize Ezra is grown-up and if anything I am going to cause him to lose focus and fall down the stairs because I am calling out his name and saying to him every step, ,,Be careful, Ezra.”