Entries from July 2010 ↓

Bathtime has gotten to be very fun.
Ezri helps with the washing.

She lets me give her silly hairdos.

Ezri’s vocabulary is growing each day.
Here are a few words heard during bathtime today:
bubble, duck, book, towel, hair, shower, wet, chin, toes

There may not be any red tomatos since Ezri has decided she likes to pick and eat the yellow ones.

In our backyard. . .

Here she comes.

It would probably be better to ask the master of the bedtime story, Eric, what Ezri is reading. However, we read a lot during the day too.

Before naptime today we read:
Silly Sally by Audrey Wood. This one was by special request. Ezri pointed at her pile of books and said, “Sally.” Ezri favorite pages seem to be the ones where all the animals are tickled awake. Even at Ezri’s age, she seems to understand how silly it is to go to town “walking backwards, upside down.” The repeated phrase “Silly Sally went to town, [walk, dance, leap, sing]ing backwards, upside down” rolls off the tongue and makes a great read aloud.

What’s Your Sound HOUND the HOUND? by Mo Willems Ezri says something like, “How the how.” But she is great at woofing for Hound the Hound’s sound. She particularly likes the page with the cow and the very long, “Mmmmmoooooooo!” The story ends with a group hug which Ezri’s recognizes. It is short enough for repeated readings. I was asked twice to read this one, “ah-Gen!”

Say Moo! by Libby Ellis
This slight book of farm animals is fun for playing identify the animal and make its noise.

Counting Kisses by Karen Katz
Different family members kiss the baby on different body parts. I admit I ignore the countdown aspect of this book. The mama gives “ten little kisses on teeny tiny toes” and “nine laughing kisses on busy, wriggly feet,” I edit this down to one kiss per body part when reading because then I am up to the challenge of giving Ezri the kisses just like the baby in the book. She likes to point out the cat in the illustrations and the grandma who is wearing glasses – which, given her family, Ezri is sure is appropriate for grandmas to do.

We ended our pre-nap reading with Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes, a perennial favorite especially at sleepy times.

Ezri wore her hat for our whole visit to the arboretum today. This is a first. She loves to put hats on, but usually after a few minutes they are off and she is onto the next thing.
Today she actually complained when the hat came off.

Here we are playing peekaboo around a pillar.

Ezri loves bark mulch. It is so much fun to pile, shovel and move from place to place. She also loves puddles for splashing in. But, wait, what genius combined these two into the perfect Ezri plaything? It is a puddle full of bark mulch. We were here a long time (for Ezri this means about 15 minutes) moving the mulch around and splashing.

Here is the expression I got from Ezri when I mentioned there was a slide at the top of the walkway. She moves fast when there’s sliding to be had. We went down the slide many times.

They were handing out watering cans and letting the toddlers help water in the Creative Garden. Ezri enjoyed helping water the flowers and also her feet, her hat, and other toddlers.

We also took a photo with our favorite acorn tunnel.

Her attention span may not be as long as the song twinkle, twinkle little star, but she loves to request her favorite songs.

You will also hear me singing. Apologies.

Meghan took Ezri to the Splash Park yesterday to beat the summer heat.

A morning at the pool, a nap in the carseat and a little bit of lunch used as hair product left Ezri with this look.

Ezri visited the Museum of the Rockies twice.
They have a new play area for children 0 – 8 that is called Explore Yellowstone. It’s a good thing this was available since Ezri got her head caught in part of a display of a DaVinci machine model and had a small panic. She was not truly stuck, but needed to turn her head to get out and was, instead of turning her head, panicking. It was nice to have a more toddler proofed area to explore after the panic.

The Yellowstone Experience has a play foam river with colored blocks that Ezri enjoyed collecting and taking to her Grandpa Mark to have him build her a pyramid.

She also enjoyed decorating Mark.

The area had windsock-esque faux geysers that erupted from constructed landscapes. Ezri was uncertain about the honking noise of the geyser you pumped up with a pump like a bicycle pump. Here she is after an eruption.

Later she was fascinated by the geysers. Here she is watching Old Faithful with her dad.

After visiting the museum we played a game with Ezri where we’d say “geyser” and then raise our arms up in the air and make a rushing noise. Geyser is a new word for her this trip though she’ll have limited opportunities to use this vocab in Illinois.

Here’s the whole gang (minus me, the photographer).

This dinosaur skeleton model has no brain. If he did, he’d be thinking that Ezri looked like a good snacksize morsel.

We have just returned from a week in Montana visiting Ezri’s grandparents.
Yesterday was a big travel day.

Ezri made a friend at the Bozeman airport with whom she held toddler races to work out some preflight energy. They also played some peekaboo on the plane too, as he was in the row in front of us.
Above they confirm that they are the appropriate size to be carried on by their parents.