,,Zero,” is the answer Ezra gives sometimes to reinforce when he says, ”No.” For example, I ask, ,,Are you hungry?” ,,No,” says Ezra. Then I say, ,,Are you sure you’re not hungry?” He’ll some times reply, ,,No. Zero!”
I have not tried to stop him from using 0 to define no because having written many software progams that use 0 for no I reason Ezra is correct and just beginning a fad for humans.
-v- woke with me saying the words loud, ,,THERE’S A PIECE OF WOODEN TRACK IN EZRA’S EYE!” for when Ezra woke and came down stairs he had his right hand over his right eye. He kept saying he got track in his eye over and over, and I tried to get him to move his hand, so I could see, and he didn’t and wouldn’t move his hand, and he kept complaining, and then finally he moved his hand.
His eye was closed by goo and looked swollen.
I freaked out! Ran upstairs, and woke Valerie with, ,,THERE’S A PIECE OF WOODEN TRACK IN EZRA’S EYE!”
…There was no wooden track in Ezra’s eye. He only had gooy eye. Once -v- calmly applied a warm cloth Ezra’s eye the eye lide opened withoout a piece of wooden track in his eye.
Ezra likes to touch the computer screen when he points which Caillou he wants to watch or what picture he wants to see leaving finger prints all over the surface.
-v- and I have tried to teach him not to touch the computer’s screen to avoid having his finger prints all over the screen, but we have realized we are probably confusing him because we let him play educational game’s on -v-’s iPod Touch that demand him to touch the screen.
So, I suppose Ezra is just adjusting to the future of computing while -v- and I are living during the past.
I feel I am the one being trained. I feel (as does -v-) that we are doing everything wrong. I feel that he will forever be pooping in his underwear and not caring. Because he doesn’t seem to care about pooping and peeing in his underwear, and he feels to care only that we change his pants and underwear and clean his bum after he poops, which he hates more often than not.
We don’t feel it is an accident when he has pooped or peed in his underwear, but rather his preferred way of pooping and peeing. Not that I blame him, and I can understand because that’s how he has always done it. I only wish he’d understand that he would need to change his underwear and pants and wipe is bum much less if he pooped and/or peed in the toilet. But he is only two and a half, so I realize my wishes can wait.
We have two potties. We have two to go near the two adult toilets. We even have a seat Ezra’s size that would fit around the adult toilet seats. One of the toilets he has decorated with stickers, but for some reason he hates it and the other potty and the potty seat. Or he hates something about the toilets like the bathrooms, the placement, the type. Well, the type of toilet could be an issue because he will pee and poop in the toilets that are at preschool school partly we suspect because the preschool toilets flush. And it could be likely that watching other kids at preschool help him feel more comfortable.
I don’t know. We don’t know. We are confused. I just hope Ezra doesn’t enjoy to poop or pee in pants more than sitting on the potty for the rest of his life because of some psychological manifest we create.
My mind hurts from answering so many why questions today. -v- has a bit of a brain wear, too. I reason I need to learn more about physics because Ezra’s why questions can come down to the molecular level. I have also realized why my dad would some times just say, ,,Because I said so.” I have said that more than once this evening. I am all out of why.
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…