Entries Tagged 'books' ↓

Mr. Eric, the author of Pete the Cat, and James Dean, the illustrator, visited Anderson’s Bookshop in Naperville.

Mr. Eric brought a guitar and harmonica and some great kids’ songs.
Mr. Dean painted a canvas with Pete the Cat during the performance and book talk.

Ezri doing some dancing up front.

The illustrator working on the painting.

Dancing in motion.

Thanks, Anderson’s Bookshop, Ezri loved meeting the creators of one of her favorite books.

My super-lovely co-workers threw me a fabulous SURPRISE baby shower.
I came home with so many lovely gifts for Baby Boy Blau – my favorite is a handknit blanket which is cozy as can be.

I brought in a “big sister” present that one person sent for Ezri.
Ezri spied it immediately and began to bounce.
“What’s that present, mama?”
“Is it for me?”
“OPEN IT! OPEN IT!”
She held out her hands and said, “hinga-hinga” this is the noise-of-wanting-something that she has made since she was just learning to talk and it appears these days only when there is a certain high level of excitement.

She spied the contents and said, “It’s a dolly. It’s a dolly!!”

This captures the joy of the present, though it’s hard to see the dolly who is the title character from the book Pinkalicious. Ezri noted immediately that the doll was a big sister since she had big sister ponytails.

Pinkalicious obviously needed a baby brother. Luckily, we had one.

Pinkalicious gave her baby bro a bottle and snuggled him.

Ezri read Pink and baby bro some stories.

Pinkalicious has a magic wand and she knows how to use it. She turned mama into a dinosaur and Ezri into a butterfly. This required that Ezri flutter about the house and I follow her around roaring. Luckily, Pinkalicious was kind enough to point her wand and turn us back into our ordinary selves.

Ezri then found Pink more family. Mom (Raggedy Ann), Dad (Andy), Grandpa (Darwin), and Baby Brother. She also has Madison her best friend (not pictured). So, no worries that this new doll will be lonely here at our house. Here is her family portrait.

Ezri and Pinkalicious seem to be doing everything together this afternoon.

And now they are napping together. I’d take a photo, but I don’t want to risk disturbing naptime.

After reading the book Leonardo the Terrible Monster at naptime, Ezri pointed to the author’s photo on the back flap and said,
“This is Mo Willems.
He has a penis.
He is a grown-up.
He pees in the potty.
He is the author of this book.”

She is ready to introduce Mr. Willems at one of those events where he picks up his numerous awards for writing totally awesome kids’ books. Did you notice how everything she said was accurate and stated in complete sentences?

Eric assembled a surprise for Ezri this morning.

It’s our new wagon with all terrain wheels.
Ezri declared it “perfect.”
We took it out for its maiden voyage to the park tonight.

We talked about several of Ezri’s favorite books featuring wagons.
The charming Red Wagon in which a simple trip of taking a wagon to the market turns into an imaginative adventure with storms, pirates, train, and a circus. And then there is Fancy Nancy who loads up her wagon in Fancy Nancy and the Posh Puppy. Ezri is pleased we have our own red wagon. She asked for her stuffed dog, Woof Woof, to come on our trip to the park. There’s plenty of room in the wagon for friends. We will have to have some over to ride. . .

I knew parents got asked hard questions, but I wasn’t prepared for how hard this one was to explain.
“Why did he bite me?”
Ezri has her first mosquito bite of summer and keeps asking over and over, “Why did he bite me?” She can’t understand why the bug would do such a thing. We tried to explain that it is in their nature and part of their life cycle and they bite other people and animals not just her. This prompted a story about a mosquito who bit an elephant on his bottom and made it itchy. Despite our best answers, I think we will be hearing, “Why did he bite me?” until this bite feels better. The last few weeks have brought out many “why” questions. We used to get “what” and “who,” but why is here in a major way.

As Eric strums the guitar, Ezri sings us a ditty. We think she’s made up the lyrics herself, but you can tell us if you’ve heard this one before.
“Panda be a polar bear
Panda bear be a polar bear
Polar bear gets to be a parrot NOW.”

Eric bought me a contoured pillow to help with the expected future back pain of the third trimester.
Ezri got the bonus present of this awesome box.

She was not interested in sharing it with the cats, so they had to wait until after Ezri bedtime to play with it.
Ezri requested to play hide and seek tonight.
“Mama, you count. I will hide in the box.”
Okay, but it isn’t going to be that hard to find you, sweetie. . .

She told us she was “bunny Ezri” and the box was her cage.
She roared and told us she was “Ezri lion” and the box was her cage.

At one point, I tried to huff and puff and blow her box house down.
She said, “No, no, it’s bricks!”

I can see why Ezri loves the book Not a Box by Antoinette Portis.

We waited by the door of the library and were the first ones to sign up for Summer Reading Club this summer.

Ezri wore her crown craft from a recent birthday party especially to sign up for the club which has a fairytale theme and is called “Into the Reading Woods.”

In the car and on our way to the library. . .

Ezri was fascinated by the giant footprints leading to the children’s desk. She liked looking at the fairy houses that decorate the desk. The dragon hanging over the desk impressed her as well. She got to be the very first to sign up. We knew the #2 and #3 sign-ups from park district programs. Ezri enjoyed pointing out where to post her paper dragon with her name on it to officially enter her in the club.

Here she is with a fairy wall.

The library is decorated all over. So we took a tour looking at all the new things. She liked looking at the three bulletin boards one for each of the little pigs. There is a room filled with princess dresses. Ezri is interested in wearing them all especially the white one, good thing they are secured higher up than she can reach. She said, “ponytail” for the Rapunzel braid hanging down from a tower window. She also enjoyed spotting gnomes and the library puppet, Miss Mouse, in her own version of princess and the pea. I am glad “gnome” and “giant” are now firmly in her vocabulary.

We then proceeded to read enough books to fill a whole level of the club which is ten books. Though, I’ve decided each day she will pick a favorite book of the day to write down because writing down everything we read would take us through the process too quickly at this age. This is the first year that she has the idea that she is in the club which after many years working to put these clubs together is just too cool for me.

Flap books continue to be flaptastically awesome.

The book Ezri is reading above is Go, Maisy, Go! by Lucy Cousins.
It has more than 40 flaps. Each spread features a kind of transportation (train, plane, bus, tractor, firetruck). I really enjoy that under one of the flaps in each spread the reader will find a pink frosted cupcake (or cupcakes as the case may be). Ezri has pretty much memorized where the cupcakes are at this point. She also knows the names of all of Maisy’s friends (Cyril the Squirrel, Charlie the Crocodile, Tallulah who I think is a chicken).
There are other Maisy books with and without flaps. Currently, we prefer with flaps.

She now has a preference for books where she knows the characters. I guess this means she’s becoming a series reader. The garage sale purchased bunch of Clifford books of varying quality is a hit – because it’s Clifford and he’s a big, red dog. I think characters in books are becoming like friends to her and she wants to revisit her friends over and over. As a parent, I am grateful for multiple titles or else we might be re-reading the same Clifford book too many times for me.

Another character she loves is Spot by Eric Hill.
He has flap books too which combines Ezri’s love of a recurrent character and flap-based peekaboo (still a great game at age 2).
Who’s there Spot? by Eric Hill
This has only one flap per page and you find Spot’s friends in various places.
Very simple, and while Ezri can do more complicated plots she still loves peeking through the pages looking for friends.
Spot also appears in books with and without flaps, Ezri prefers flaps but enjoys flap-less Spot books too.

Ezri runs to the futon upon getting up and grabs a library book to read. Her first words this particular day are, “Look, Mama, book.”

The most requested book of the past two days is The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle. There is something about the holes in the pages as the caterpillar works his way through fruit and food in this classic tale of eating and transformation that Ezri just loves.

I haven’t posted much on Ezri’s reading habits, because we are mostly reading the same things over & over.
I am reading A LOT of Babybug magazine. Ezri has them memorized and will tell me what is coming on the next page before I turn it.

Ezri has in the last couple months started really liking Fancy Nancy by Jane O’Connor.
She loves the original story and seems sympathetic when Nancy slips getting ice cream sundae all over her fancy attire. We just got Fancy Nancy and the Posh Puppy today and after reading it she spent the night waving her two stuffed puppies around and talking about them. “Puppy says arf! arf” Ezri brought the puppies to dance while Eric played guitar. Ezri assured Eric of his musical skill by saying, “Puppy likes it!”
I don’t know exactly what it is about Nancy, but she definitely appeals and if she thinks puppies are cool so does Ezri.

This is disco time at the children’s museum. She’s chasing the gobo lights around the floor and every once in awhile she’d scream, “polka dots!” and point at the disco lights.

Yep, there ain’t no party like Ezri’s tea party!
The attention span on Ezri is growing. Half hour tea parties, forty-five minute play dough sessions and fort building adventures. . .
Ezri will also sit through much longer books these days.
The possibility of actual plot increases.

Clifford’s Puppy Days by Bridwell is a current favorite. Ezri likes when Emily Elizabeth bathes Clifford in a soup bowl and when he gets covered in whip cream after in an incident in the local bakery.

Hairy Maclary Scattercat by Lynley Dodd
Another requested title. In this one a dog named Hairy Maclary is out chasing cats until he runs into Scarface Claw, the meanest tom in town, who proves too much and chases Hairy Maclary all the way home. Ezri delights in the appearance of Scarface Claw and the turnabout of the chaser being chased. Come to think of it she likes Scarface Claw in the original Hairy Maclary too.

Tuck Me In! by Dean Hacochen
This book is a clever one that makes me think I really should’ve thought of that. Each page features a baby animal in bed who needs to be tucked in. The next page is a half page that is the animal’s blanket that the reader folds over the animal by turning the page. Now the animal’s head is still visible but the rest of the animal is tucked in under the blanket. The text simply asks who needs to be tucked in and then says goodnight to the tucked in animal. Ezri enjoys tucking in the baby animals. I enjoy the detail that the front endpaper has the animals awake and the final endpaper shows them asleep. Ezri likes to flip between the endpaper pages saying, “asleep, awake, asleep, awake.”