Entries from January 2010 ↓

Ezri used to just push the wagon. But, she’s learned how to climb on in and hope a parent gives her a ride.

This week Ezri has been enjoying 2 books with cut-outs in their boardbook pages.
Peek-a-Who? by Nina Laden
and
Zoo Faces: A Book of Masks by Lucy Schultz & Ana Martin Larranaga

Peek a Who? features a cutout with a pair of eyes in it. You turn the page to reveal an owl. Peek a Who! There is a cutout with a train track in it that opens to reveal a train for Peek a choo choo. There’s a ghost for peek a boo and animals for peek a zoo and a final page with a mirrored surface for peek a YOU. Ezri enjoys turning the pages back and forth and peering through the holes.

Zoo Faces has eye cut outs and you can peek out of the hippo page at baby or through the lion page. This is a very fun way to interact with Ezri.  Ezri enjoys feeling the round holes that go all the way through the book so she can put fingers through to the other side.

Our best direct video evidence of Ezri’s amazing new skills.

Some more videos, by request.  We’ve been trying to get a good video of Ezri walking (did we mention that she’s walking independently?), but we haven’t been able to get any really good video of it yet.  But, to tide Ezri’s fans over, here are a few clips of day to day activities:

Ezri has a new snack container

Crawling with Woof-woof

Ezri and her ‘meow book’

Ezri is pulling down books from her bookshelf.

This week a particular favorite book is Margaret Miller’s What is on My Head? This has full page photos of babies with items on their heads. One baby wears a fancy hat. One wears a firefighter’s hat. One has a stuffed puppy on her head. Another baby has a rubber duck on his head. Ezri is learning the parts of her face and enjoys pointing at the eyes and noses on each baby in the book.

Margaret Miller has a series of board books for babies called Look Baby! Books. We will have to check out some of the other titles like Baby Faces or Baby Food. All seem to feature big photos of babies’ faces which is perfect for Ezri.

In other exciting news, Ezri is taking unaided steps – up to ten at a time. She’s almost a toddler! She stands more like a walker with a less swaybacked stance. She stands up from sitting by herself without pulling up on objects sometimes. She is AMAZING.

It’s storytime day for Ezri. It’s also the day for the announcement of the annual winner of the Caldecott medal for children’s book illustration.
Congratulations, Jerry Pinkney! The Lion and The Mouse which won the award for illustration is a beautiful book.
Ezri is wearing famous children’s book illustrations on her dress today – courtesy of Grandma Tam.

At the library. . .

It’s taken us awhile to get the pipeline figured out, but we now are able to move videos from our camera to the world at large.  Witness Ezri walking with her Radio Flyer walker!

Mike and Erin visited and taught Ezri a whole new game – passing objects.  Sushi also really appreciated the laptime.  It’s great to have friends who entertain Ezri.  She was delighted with the attention.  Eric and I liked catching up with the doctor and the professor.  I am always reminded on evenings like this one that my friends are super cool.

This is Ezri’s first bath, almost a year ago.

This is a bath photo from this week taken by Grandma Liz.
11 months changes much for our baby girl.

Ezri is enjoying her board book of Brown Bear, Brown Bear by Bill Martin. The repetitive chanting is a favorite and we use the “What do you see? I see a (insert animal here) looking at me” chant on her other wordless books with pictures of animals in them. I’ve read her Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, which is also by Bill Martin, this week and she likes the rhyming cadence and nonsense words.

In terms of tactilely enjoying her books, Rhyme-A-Round from Little Scholastic seems to be one of the favorites right now with its holes through board pages and assorted textures and patterns. It centers on familiar rhymes that are fun to sing and chant (Row, row, your boat & The wheels on the bus & Pussycat pussycat). The fuzzy cat page is the favorite for the obvious reasons.

In other book related news, Ezri tore up our phonebook this past weekend, but we mostly used the internet not the yellowpages anyhow.  She went to her first Early Walker storytime on Monday and thinks being greeted with bubbles is awesome.  Miss Sharon also fascinated her with puppets and the book Flip-a-face: Baby Animals by SAMi.

When I started to take that photo it looked much more innocent. Ezri has been reminded not to pull on tails.