Entries from March 2011 ↓

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 took off her pants, put on her rainboots and declared, “I’m ready to go, mama!” Really? Where is this the dress code?

Today Ezri coined two new expressions.
Family Pounce = Amanda and Ezri pounce on Eric while he pretends to be unsuspecting
Family High Five = Ezri holds up both her hands and each parent gives one a high five
Now in addition to Family Hugs, we have more games to play.

Ezri is out of her crib and into this BIG (twin) bed.
She loves it.

She “helped” Eric assemble it on Sunday with her plastic tool set.
She showed it off to Lori and Jason when they visited. “Come see Ezri’s bed!”
They humored her by marveling at its greatness.

There’s plenty of room for stuffed animal friends and even for dad too.

There may even be room for a cat from time to time.

Ezri became interested in this Black Manta action figure today. His eyes light up red at the press of a button.
Ezri informed me, “Black Manta is a dada. Black Manta needs his baby.”

Ezri found Black Manta a baby. Then she decided, “Need a Mama.” Here is Black Manta playing with his family.

I think the baby favors Mama’s side of the family.

Then Ezri picked up Black Manta and had him sing Rockabye, Baby while rocking the baby. Ezri said, “Black Manta is a good daddy. Ezri’s dada good dada.”
She then had Black Manta and Mama on either side of the baby giving the baby a “family hug.” Eric and I often do family hugs with her in the middle. In fact, if we hug without her she may look up with a glint of jealousy and say, “Ezri family hug?”

Here is the Manta family hug.

Does Ezri like bananas?

YES, she does.

What’s more fun than fort building with dad?
“Ezri crash fort. Fort crash!”

Here’s what happens if dad’s inside the fort when it crashes.
‘Dada ghost. Dada ghost. Ezri hug.”

It is also important to invite plenty of toy friends into your fort.

And here’s a random photo recently downloaded from the other camera. Sure it’s from Christmas, but it’s cute, right?

Today Ezri told us her first made-up story.
It went something like this. . .
“Once upon a time there was a girl and she walked along sing a song Bee-BAH-da-da-da-da-da *clap-clap*. . .
Once upon a time there was a girl. And boy. The boy is friends. Girl says, ‘I don’t want to play.’ ”

I thought it had some real drama and character development. Boy meets girl. Boy befriends girl. Girl decides she does not want to play with boy. It’s an age-old tale really.

She also asked (or perhaps commanded) that Eric play tag with her this evening. After declaring herself to be “it.” She started to run circles around the house saying, “Chase me. Chase me.” Then when she got to the baby gate she would carefully hold it open for Eric and say, “Here you go, Dada.” Once through she would run ahead until stopping in the dining room and saying, “Wait for cars. beep-beep.” Eric and Ezri would then wait for the imaginary cars to go by and playing “tag” would continue.

In bath news, Ezri has mixed feelings about whether to bath. Here she was convinced by a boatload of bubbles that it would be awesome. She then made herself a bubble beard and a bubble mustache. She put bubbles on her hair for the pictured “bubble hat.” Amusingly, she rubbed them under her arms smiling and saying, “Mama, bubble armpit.” Her bubble clap is the clapping of two bubble covered hands together spraying bubbles about and asking, “Did I get you?” And her bubble belly maneuver really could not be cuter.

Ezri is running through the house saying, “3 cotos, 3 cotos! Ezri taste. Delicious.”
She found the 3 apricots in the diaper bag and clearly appreciates them.

Here she has on her back and declared, “Ezri going to preschool.”

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.

Ezri really wanted to go to the park, after “stomping snow” in our yard.  She showed off her big girl swinging skills again, before we headed home for some hot chocolate.