Entries from November 2009 ↓

So, does she look like her mom. . .

or like her dad. . .?

This post brought to you by Meghan’s special request.

She’s been out in the world about the same amount of time she was in utero.
Aunt Coral gifted her with this fabulous sock monkey outfit and I thought she needed to wear it to celebrate.
That’s right, Ezri. You can blame (err, thank) Coral for this one.

Monkey-monkey is there for scale. Though, Ezri has decided to try chewing his eye off. Monkey cannibalism?

Ezri is really enjoying the Peekaboo series in from DK Publishing in their “For baby” line of books.

In the photo she is reading Bedtime Peekaboo. We’ve also enjoyed Bathtime Peekaboo and Baby Loves Peekaboo! All were checked out from the Downers Grove Public Library.
The books have photos of real babies which hold her interest. In the photo she is pointing at the baby’s face.
They feature very sturdy flaps that even Ezri can operate, so she can actually play peekaboo on each page.
The books also feature fuzzy, textured, and sparkly pages. She likes to pet the fuzzy bits. Ezri would also like to put them in her mouth, but these are library books so it isn’t allowed. The bright colors are appealing and the sparse page layout keeps her interest without being overwhelming like highly decorated books seem to be.  She will sit through the whole book more than once which is pretty amazing for a 9 month attention span.
The series also includes:
Playtime Peekaboo
Farm Peekaboo
Dress-up Peekaboo
Eyes, Nose and Toes Peekaboo
Baby says Peekaboo
So, we’ll be checking out more of these books at the library.

Ezri is listening to her grandpa play for her.
In addition to listening to music, Ezri likes to create some noise herself.
She has rhythm and loves to pound on things and beat things together – especially loud things like pans and spoons.

Ezri found one of the 24 gnomes hidden in the Children’s Garden at the Arboretum.

It is the Willow Tree gnome. Each gnome highlights a tree or animal living at the arboretum.

Oh, gnome! Ezri, gnomes are not for chewing. We decided it was best to admire gnomes from a little further away after this gnome incident.

She found the book her grandpa wrote. Is she going to read it?

No, she’s going to try to chew the corner, but I took it away.
I gave her a chewy teether instead.

I have read aloud to her sections of Adventures in Yellowstone: Early Travelers Tell Their Tales. She enjoys listening to me read, especially the parts where there are bears or Indians.

Our favorite book lately for me to read aloud to her is
Read-Aloud Rhymes for the Very Young selected by Jack Prelutsky and illustrated by Marc Brown (of Arthur book fame).
It’s filled with rhymes by the likes of Lewis Carroll and Dr. Seuss, but most of our favorites are by Anonymous (she comes up with the cleverest rhymes). Today we read a page featuring chicken and duck rhymes.
“Quack, quack!
We have two ducks. One blue. One black.
And when our blue duck goes ‘Quack-quack’
our black duck quickly quack-quacks back.
The quacks Blue quacks make her quite a quacker
but Black is a quicker quacker-backer.”
That one is from Dr. Seuss.
I’ve been reading to her from this book for a long time and with 4 -8 rhymes a page and around 100 pages we can keep reading for a long time to come.
We’ve read everything up to page 43 with some rereads on favorite pages like the ones about the weather.

Now that Ezri can crawl she is all about crawling over to places to try to pull up to standing. She has not yet developed the skills to correctly predict whether something can bear her weight or whether it is stable. Yikes!