Golden Pig Tales

Saturday, I introduced Ezra to building forts with sofa and chair cushions. We built our first fort using a chair and its two cushions, four sofa pillows and a blanket. Sunday, we built more forts. Today, we built another fort before bedtime after telling him this during morning that couldn’t build a fort before pre-school because we didn’t have time.

We are perfected our structures though Ezra does have a tendency to find joy in taking down the forts to build a new one. I find the joy in building forts with Ezra.

Ezra is in bed…not sure if he’s sleeping.
Tonight he didn’t want to stay in his room,
at least not at first. He said his bed was bad,
his room was bad, he was hungry, he wasn’t tired…
So after a trip downstairs for a slice of bread and butter
we went back upstairs and he started looking a
little tired but every time I thought he was sleeping
he was not. Eventually he let me leave the room but
I still don’t know if he’s sleeping

Washing Ezra’s hair use to be an event of pain and suffering for everyone. Ezra would suffer because he hated water being pouring over his head and having any chance of water getting on his face and eyes. We would suffer because would have to make Ezra cry and fuss as we poured water on his head to clean hair and scalp and rinse them.

We tried things to help with the hair washing fuss. We tried special water hat that diverted the pour of water from his face. We tried pouring water only on the back of his head. We tried covering his eyes and pouring water over his face. We tried jumping around and making faces, so he would look-up as water was poured over hair. We tried only using a wet rag.

None of these things worked at the time. Well, they haven’t worked for the past couple years. But now. NOW. Thanks to trust and imagination, Ezra doesn’t have much fuss with the hair washing because he doesn’t fuss much when a rag is put over his eyes. And he looks-up with the rag over eyes when -v- asks him to look-up and asks him what color a plane he sees. Last hair wash, the airplane was yellow. And his hair was cleaned without fuss or crying.

Ezra is at Grandma and Grandpa T’s with -v-, and he wanted to call me. He called and told me where he was then gave the phone to -v-. I believe it was the first time Ezra talked with me on the phone.

So Ezra poops and pees at Pre-school into their toddler sized flushing toilets, but does not poop and pee at home in either of his toddler sized non-flushing toilets. He sometimes sits down on the toilets at home, but only because he happens to be in the bathroom because he is brushing teeth or washing hands. We ask him through the day if he needs to poop or pee and if he wants to sit on the potty, but the only time he responds is if he had pooped or peed and wants a new diaper (because he doesn’t always want to change his diaper even after pooping and peeing). We  have tried a toilet for Christmas, so he thinks it a gift. We have tried letting him make the toilet his own by letting him put stickers on it. We have explained to him that he wouldn’t need to change his diaper as often as we do if he didn’t poop or pee in it. He has wanted to wear underwear and not diapers, but still doesn’t care that much to poop and pee at home to make the transition to underwear. We reason at least he poops and pees in toilet at preschool, but it wouldn’t be nice if he did it at home for we, like Ezra, don’t enjoy changing the diapers of a fussy Ezra.

It was nice and sunny today!Ezra and I wet to the Sellwood park.We hadn’t been there for weeks and weeks.It was fun but really muddy.It was weird to see how some of the thingsat that park that used to be kind of bigfor Ezra are now not too big at all!

Ear infection for the month is gone. The last of the Amoxicillin has been injected into Ezra’s mouth by Ezra. Things are good and happy. We are sleeping, playing, smiling, hugging and talking with only a little bit of fussing.

Ezra has began a habit of calling things bad by saying, ,,That’s bad.” I ask him why a particular things is bad, and his only answer is, ,,Because it’s not good.” Not many things have been bad. Usually only when he is fussing a bit then something is bad, but bad hasn’t been an issue during the past days because there has been a lot of good, which has reminded me there is more good than bad during life with Ezra.

For months and months, -v- and I have been having few to no issues getting Ezra to brush teeth, but that tooth brushing was Ezra sort of moving around a tooth brush in his mouth while he sucked off all the tooth paste then asking for more tooth paste. Ezra’s cleaning was followed by Valerie or me trying to help Ezra actually brush his teeth. This forced attempt to help Ezra brush his teeth only succeeded in making Ezra fussy and making Ezra tense up.

For a month now, -v- and I have had no problems helping Ezra brush his teeth after we have shown him the fun of making bubbles with the tooth brush and teeth. Now Ezra is more than happy to open his mouth before a mirror while -v- or I brush his teeth to create bubbles.

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.

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!

The day alone with sick and fussy Ezra was more work than my hardest days of money job. I said fuck four times. The forth fuck was a holy fuck that was said when I was starring out the window while sitting on the sofa mindless having had lost the mind talking with Ezra, playing with Ezra, trying to calm Ezra, feeding Ezra, changing Ezra, soothing Ezra from ear infection pain, convincing Ezra mom will come back and all during a few minutes.

After a night of sleeping with Ezra as he tossed, turned and kicked me then ask for milk, water and juice to drink to hydrate his fever warmed body at 3:30 in the morning, I feel like I need to sleep.

Ezra is sleeping now. His snotty nose and ear infection not giving him cause to wake. That is good. I need the rest.

Nothing could satisfy Ezra today except being attached to -v-. Even that had issues a couple of times when he wasn’t satisfied with the method of how he was attached to -v-. It is true he’s got a cough and a snotty nose. It is true the ear with the ear tube still inside was oozing fluid, so it’s not like its not without cause or reason. But still, I have to write that it has been a long time since I have felt this relieved that Ezra has finally went to bed.

The fire truck puzzle is now put in its box with no fuss from Ezra. Not because he does not prefer for the fire truck puzzle to remain solved on the floor’s middle, but rather it is because once the puzzle is in box he can solve the fire truck puzzle again and again and again…

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.

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.