Entries from November 2010 ↓

Our local bookshop runs a Book Angel program where you can buy discounted books for children in need as holiday presents.
The tree of kids to gift with books included a tag for a two-year-old girl. Ezri is inching up on her second birthday so we selected this girl to gift books. She seems much more two than one these days.

I am hoping each year Ezri and I can pick a book she likes to donate to someone around her age. Here’s what we did last year.

This year I picked (and Ezri approved with a loud “YES”) the purchase of:
Time to Sleep Sheep the Sheep by Mo Willems
and
Here Comes the Big, Mean Dust Bunny by Jan Thomas

Not knowing the girl’s particular interests, I went with universal humor and re-readability. The Book Angel tree does make me feel festive. I will probably revisit it and pick books for one of the teens on the tree – a tradition of mine that predates Ezri. Thanks, Anderson’s Bookshop, for being part of my holidays.

She’s grown enough hair to get some serious bed head going.

What is Ezri reading? These are some titles that are for reading, but also for playing with.

Carrots or peas? illustrated by Anthony Lewis.
This has a baby on each page whose face can be turned to smile or frown depending on whether the reader thinks they like or dislike the item or activity at hand. For example, Does Jack like to shop? You can flip his face from smile to frown to decide. It’s like the youngest version of those “Choose Your Own Adventure” books possible. Ezri likes flipping the faces about especially on pages where the reader is being asked if the baby likes a certain food because then I say, “Yuck!” or “Nom-nom-nom” depending on which way the face is turned.

Farm Faces
Goodnight Faces
Zoo Faces
all 3 of these books of masks are by iBaby and written by Lucy Schultz and illustrated by Ana Larranaga
Ezri now likes to peek through the pages of this book of masks and make the animal noise of the animal facing her.
She does not actually know what the viewer is seeing, so she is making a moo with the cow page against her face while I see a mooing pig.
These books of masks have stayed a hit across the months as a book/toy.

This morning we spent some time in the Pop-Up book corner of the library playing with the book:
Maisy Bakes a Cake by Lucy Cousins
The pull tab that made Maisy rub her hands under the water faucet to wash her hands seemed useful for instructing cleanliness and also easily recognizable to all toddlers. There was a pull tab that made Maisy mix her cake, one that made the cake rise in the oven, a slider that let you sprinkle the cake with powdered sugar and a page of Maisy’s friend Charley chomping on the completed cake. This would be a great book to use before a toddler baking session. The pop-ups were not too delicate for my almost two-year-old.

As we were leaving the Junior Room of the library, Ezri waved and said “Bye, bye, Harry Potter” to the cardboard cut-out of Harry. She then said, “High Five Harry Potter.” And we went over so she could high five the cardboard cut-out’s outstretched hand. Is it too early to say she’s a fan? She really only knows Harry from the library displays. Too young to be a Rowling reader for some years yet, but she gives him high fives.

When asked to say Happy Thanksgiving, Ezri said, “Thank you, Happsgiving!”
It was indeed a happy holiday.
Ezri ate turkey and apple sauce and discovered cranberry sauce for the first time. It was great to have her say “cheers” and raise her sippy cup during the meal for the first time.

Ezri was allowed to play with the Little People toys that belonged to her aunt and dad when they were kids. She loved the barn with its animals. Ezri delighted in putting plastic people around the table with the sticker that showed hot dogs and kool-aid on the table and saying, “yummy! yummy!”

Ezri’s Grandpa sang “I Am My Own Grandpa” for her and played the guitar. She banged on the piano while singing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star or Froggy Went A-Courting. We did a lot of toddler dancing and moved dolls throughout the house pausing to inspect their belly buttons or add or remove their clothing. I find I have plenty to be thankful for.

Ezri is happy to have a doting house guest.

Here she is “playing naptime” with Amy. Real naptime is trickier, but she loves the play version. Also, bringing Amy blankets and stuffed animals to nap with was a great game. “Here you go!” as she delighted piles a stuffed ferret onto Amy’s face.

Amy is looking at photos with Ezri.

Here she is with a gift from Amy.
Seuss Classic in Yiddish.

Ezri is saying more and more.
She is making sentences.

Yesterday morning, I recorded what Ezri said for about an hour.
Here it is:
Say Moo. (Title of a book she could see on the floor)
Yes. (Answer to do you want to feed the cat?)
No, Sushi, no.
Cat food. Ezri feed. (Ezri loves helping feed the kitties in the morning.)
Hold hands, Mama.
Turn around and clap clap.
Yes. (the answer to do you want breakfast?)
Ezri yogurt – strawberries.
Let’s open this.
Baby sit right here (sitting her doll in a chair)
Pencil
E-Z-R-I Ezri (while scribbling with the pencil she found)
Miss Mouse Come Out Come Out Come Out (She knows it’s storytime morning)
Ezri get up. Sit.
Strawberries! Strawberries!
Mama yogurt too.
Bagel.
Dada Dada.
1,2,3,4 Jump!
Twinkle Twinkle Little Star How I Wonder What You Are
Look, Mama, This.
Manchi Manchi
Ezri stamp (pretending to put a stamp on her hand)
Kim cookies (looking at a Kim and Carrots story in Baby Bug Magazine)
Mama do it. Again.
Come here Sushi up.
Sushi read a book.
Boo!
Miss Kitty Cat.
Ezri cats in the morning. Meow. (request for a favorite song)
Puppy dance too. (She makes her puppet dance.)
Here ya go, Mama.
Bitsy Spider.
Patty Cake Patty Cake Baker’s Man Bake Me a Cake as Fast as You Can.
Stinky Diaper.
Baby Baby.
Rub-a-dub-dubby.
Ezri socks and shoes.
Horses in. (Pointing to a drawer where there are plastic ponies)
Dance dance! (Dancing her ponies to the music)
Where did nook go?
Ezri look for it.
Ezri pick a book. Hop Pop.
Ezri ouchy.
Go, go, mommy.

So, that’s it. That’s what Ezri sounds like these days.

Ezri sang this to the tune of “If You’re Happy and You Know It”
She is super happy that Sushi likes her bed for naps.

I am glad that the cats and toddler are proving increasingly friendly toward one another.

It is getting dark in the four o’clock hour which cuts into our post nap park walks. I will miss them this winter.

Thing I find too cute right now is that Ezri calls band-aids – rubberbands.
“Mama ouch foot. Rubber band on it.”
Less cute was the complete meltdown when the band-aid came off in the bath. Sobs of “rubber band. rubber band. nooooo.” A new one was put on the small, fully healed scratch right after the bath. Sometimes I guess a band-aid does just make it better.

Just as she was about to be 21 months, Ezri started declaring her age to be 20 months.
Enough people at the park and toddler classes have asked her age, that she learned the answer with no explicit teaching.
I was quite surprised when a mom at toddler tumbling asked how old Ezri was and she looked up and said, “Twenty months.”
Of course, it may be hard to re-train her that the answer is now “Twenty-one months.”

Other Ezri observations this week:

“Bagel Peel”
Ezri identified a banana peel and then pointed to the crust cut off her toast and declared it to be a bagel peel. Note that all bread eaten at breakfast time is referred to as “bagel” by Ezri.

Kitty t-shirt peekaboo
Ezri lifted the covers over the graphic of the kitty on my t-shirt and said, “Where is Kitty?” Then she pulled the covers down and said, “There he is!”

Rockabye Megamind
Ezri put her toy of Megamind (blue superhero from current movie picked up in airport happy meal) in her sweatshirt’s kangaroo pocket and twisted her hips from side-to-side singing, “Rockabye Megamind. . .”

Hedgehog Stuffed Animal Shaking Game that was made up on the fly and is now requested
“Shake your hedgehog! Shake your hedgehog! Yeah-Yeah!” to the tune of Shake Your Groove Thing.

“There’s a dinosaur on your arm on your arm” a very fun game to play with small plastic toys and parts of Ezri. As a bonus it is playable in vehicles, restaurants, and airplanes. She will spontaneously sing this one with an object in the backseat. I heard “There’s a baby on my arm, on my arm” on our last drive with her baby doll.