Golden Pig Tales

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.

Some time during the day Ezra must have heard the word stupid because as we were leaving the coffee shop for Ezra’s gym Ezra decided to say, ,,Stupid,” to the police officers that he was excited to see. He said, ”Stupid, stupid, stupid…” from the coffee shop and out the door while smiling and starring at the police officers. I only asked what was stupid and why. He didn’t answer, and then he stopped saying stupid until he fell to the ground while running around the gym. Of course, the use of stupid was short lived, and our confusion of what inspired for him to say stupid so many times was soon forgot when he started to say, ”I play bass guitar at the bar.”

One day you’re liked because you help build forts then the next day you are not liked for some unknown reason. Tonight Ezra liked mom and the cats, but not dad. And for no apparent reason other than I was not mom or the cats because I was being a good dad as -v- said and offering to build forts, help him with puzzles or read him books, but nothing I could do could change Ezra’s mind. At one time, I was Bad To The Bone like the song that Grave Digger plays before he begins to do the freestyle over the stadium floor. But unlike Grave Digger, I was unable to please Ezra in anyway tonight, which didn’t make me feel bad to the bone, but was kind of sucky. He was tired, so I can understand. I reason that he was just preparing me for his teenage years.

There was a point last week when Ezra was fussing and not wanting to take his Amoxicillin for his hear infection. It was morning or night, I can’t remember. I do remember hearing Ezra tell me that he would take it if he could to it. And by it he meant injecting the syringe full of Amoxicillin into his mouth.

Now everyday, he has been taking his medicine. Which makes me part proud as a father to see he can take his own medicine, but also sad as a father to know he has had so many ear infections that he has learned how to take is own medicine.

There have been more than a few times during the past weeks like today when I was only trying to help Ezra, but he got fussy for, at the time, an unknown reason only to find and be told by Ezra that he didn’t want my help. Today it was when he wanted some blue berries -v- said he could have. I went to go get them for him, and he freaked out and had a mini-tantrum. I didn’t know why. I only was getting him some blue berries that he loves to eat, but then I discover that he wanted to get the blue berries from the container and put them in the bowl himself.

This was like last week when he threw a tantrum while we were playing in his room. He wanted a toy that was downstairs, so we could continue to jump monster trucks, so I got up to go get the toy that was downstairs and not in his room. And he freaked out and told me to stay in his room and that I couldn’t leave. I thought at first he didn’t want to play with me anymore, but then he calmed and let me know that he wanted to go get the toy. I said, ,,Okay,” and he left calm and happy and got the toy. Our play continued.

So I guess I need to let go of the few of the things I do for him and be a little bit less daddy.

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.

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.

Maybe it’s when he pushes on me and says, ,,Nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnno,” with a long dramatic push, when I try to help him instead of -v- like today when I said I would pick him up from the ground because -v- was cooking, and Ezra wanted to be picked up. Maybe it is when he gives me the hand and says, ”No,” when I say I will watch videos with him instead of -v-. Maybe it’s the squirming and fussing he has when I try to get him out of the car seat instead of -v-.

He says these Nos and Don’ts when it involves me doing something with him instead of -v-, I feel, because by me doing it means he will have less time with -v-. I feel as if he feels I am taking time from -v-, like I am competing for -v-’s time.

I was giving Ezra a snack of string cheese today. Instead of giving him the whole piece of packaged string cheese I cut off the end thinking we could share. Deep inside I knew, as I was cutting the cheese, that it was a bad idea. It was a bad idea because I knew that Ezra at times hates having his food (and other things like crayons or sticks) cut, torn or broke part and earlier while walking to the park a stick he found broke in two and he became upset until I convinced him that he now had two sticks.

Ezra likes whole things. Or things he believes are whole. And no matter how much I tell him that two is more than one or that it’s still the same amount food (or stick), Ezra some times becomes lost in a dramatic display of tears and pouting because of the now unwhole thing.

One time -v- cut a peanut butter sandwich in half before him, so half of it could be saved for his lunch. Ezra lost all sense of reason and emotional control. He even tired squishing the two halves of sandwich back together with his two hands wet with tears.

Today it was a piece of cut string cheese. I gave him a new whole piece but he wanted the one I cut. He tried to press the two pieces together and glue it with his tears, but no matter the pressure they wouldn’t stick. I even tried to press the two pieces back to one but with no success.

The story ended with me giving him his binky and both of us wishing I had not cut the cheese.

So Ezra was finally dressed and ready for playcare this morning. We finally got his diaper, pants, shirt and socks on without much fuss. Then there were the shoes. THE SHOES! The shoes were almost on, and he began to point to couch and say socks or something that sounded like socks and there were no socks on the couch, but he wanted something on the couch that sounded like socks, but there was nothing there! And then he wanted his socks off, so he pulled off a sock, and we thought he wanted another pair socks, and we just wanted to get the shoes on and go to playcare, but he really wanted socks from the couch, but there was nothing on the couch, and I showed him there was nothing on the couch. Then he began to say jacket and want his jacket. Then I got the wrong jacket, and he freaked and began to want his binky, binky, binky, binky and -v- got his shoes on as I went looking for his binky thinking that I want a suck or two of the binky to see if it would calm me before giving to it him.

Trying to put Ezra to bed tonight was….trying. It all started when I tried to brush his teeth after his bath. Bad Idea. Nothing would go right after that. He didn’t want me to put his clothes on, but was too frustrated to try to put them on himself, and too cold not to put them on. Finally he calmed down and we got the PJs on, and then he let me pick him up, and then we listened to some johnny cash for a while…Hopefully this was just a tired tantrum and nothing is wrong…

Today was another day of trying to find what Sesame Street segement Ezra wanted to watch. While he once loved to watch I’ve Got Two, now he can’t say, ,,No,” fast enough until I’ve Got Two is turned to another Sesame Street segement (which is too bad because it was really cute to see him mimic Susan and Bob). There is the one with Little Bird and Big Bird he liked for about two days. He didn’t like that one today. He didn’t like the segment from the first episode about milk that he use to love to watch.

In fact, he didn’t want to watch more than a few seconds of anything today except the segment about the number three, and then he only wanted to watch it once, which is fine, but it is not like he wanted to watch it once, stop and do something else. That was not the case. Instead he expected -v- to skip through the segments with him watching a few seconds before he said, ”No.” If she waited for a few seconds more before she hit the remote to show the next segment then he said, ”No, no, no, no…” until it was turned. So one would think that he didn’t want to watch anything, so we turned it off and he said, ”No, no, no, no…” and became fussy as if he only wanted a few seconds of everything.

Ezra loves sweeping. This fact was proving again today when we arrived home from playcare, and he wanted to sweep the front porch. Well, not so much sweep, but move around the broom with one hand moving a few leaves here and there. This went on for about five minutes.

A couple days ago he when I was sweeping up the pine needles that had fallen from the X-mass tree Ezra was near fussy until I gave him the broom, so for the next minutes he swept the floor with one hand by maneuvering the broom over the floor. He actually did sweep few pine needles into a pile. And he had to be distracted by -v- to let go of the broom and let me quickly finish the job.

This sweeping love is nothing new. Neither is his want to swiffer the floor. And given his new obsession with rearranging the canned food in the pantry and his want to toss things in the trash, I am believing maybe he will become a janitor, a nearly recession and depression proof job. And if not a janitor maybe he will believe helping clean the house is cool until he become a teenager and pure pressure informs him otherwise.

Ezra takes his sippy cup, turns it upside down and shakes out water on a plate or on top of his table. Then he slams an open palm in the spreading pool of water and watches the splash. Then this action is performed again until either there is no more water or inspiration has waned.

He also likes to take some of his food from his food plate and put it in an empty cup. Then he takes his sippy cup and shakes water from the sippy cup to the inside of the cup with food. He will then look inside the cup and reach inside mixing the food and water together. Most the time he is satisfied with leaving the mixture of Food Art and Water Art in the cup, but other times he wants to use a different canvas, so he spills the cup’s contents upon a flat surface allowing the food and water to flow and the art to spread.

At first, I would criticize his Water Art regardless if it was on his plate, his table or the floor. But now, after following the wisdom of -v-, I have chosen to limit my criticism of Ezra and only criticize his expression when his canvas is the floor.

Ezra climbed the stairs to go play in his room, which doesn’t happen often. I believe that he climbed the stairs to play in his room because his room was clutter free, and he wanted his room’s floor cluttered like the floor of the main living area and the dinning area cluttered with an alphabet drum, plastic shopping cart, purple striped truck with smiley face on grill, shape blocks, plastic bowls, a lunch box, a cotton banana, cotton blocks, books big and small, Ezra’s Packer Cheese Head, a toy hard hat, a scarf, two pair of Ezra’s shoes, pages of a free news paper, tissue box, the red white blue four wheeled walker, pillows, plastic bins, rings of a cone, the cone with base and cone detached, crayons, a small cotton giraffe, the cars with smiling faces that roll forward when pushed back, a wooden train attached to yarn (the toy Ezra likes watching me pull around and make noise), a plastic lid to something, a small cotton animal head attached to a wrist band, more books, a pink ball and a small baking sheet.

Ezra has been shaking his head side to side like he is saying no periodically through the day for the past couple of days. He usually does this side to side head shaking when we talk with Ezra and move our heads. He is usually sitting down. It doesn’t seem like a twitch or some baby Obsessive Compulsive Disorder act, but rather a mimic of an act -v- and I do. Well, an act I know I do when saying no. Ezra doesn’t shake his head up and down, which is movement I don’t do when saying yes. Since Friday, we (Grandma O, -v-, and I) began to shake heads up and down when saying yes, so maybe Ezra will begin shaking his head up and down like he is a baby with OCD needing to say yes.

There have been moments today when we were both sitting on the floor shaking our heads in different directions because the other was shaking their head.