Just another CarleSpawn weblog

with monkey-monkey for scale

Earlier in the day she requested that her face be painted like a kitty.
There are still tell-tale markings of her whiskers on her face in these photos.

My super-lovely co-workers threw me a fabulous SURPRISE baby shower.
I came home with so many lovely gifts for Baby Boy Blau – my favorite is a handknit blanket which is cozy as can be.

I brought in a “big sister” present that one person sent for Ezri.
Ezri spied it immediately and began to bounce.
“What’s that present, mama?”
“Is it for me?”
“OPEN IT! OPEN IT!”
She held out her hands and said, “hinga-hinga” this is the noise-of-wanting-something that she has made since she was just learning to talk and it appears these days only when there is a certain high level of excitement.

She spied the contents and said, “It’s a dolly. It’s a dolly!!”

This captures the joy of the present, though it’s hard to see the dolly who is the title character from the book Pinkalicious. Ezri noted immediately that the doll was a big sister since she had big sister ponytails.

Pinkalicious obviously needed a baby brother. Luckily, we had one.

Pinkalicious gave her baby bro a bottle and snuggled him.

Ezri read Pink and baby bro some stories.

Pinkalicious has a magic wand and she knows how to use it. She turned mama into a dinosaur and Ezri into a butterfly. This required that Ezri flutter about the house and I follow her around roaring. Luckily, Pinkalicious was kind enough to point her wand and turn us back into our ordinary selves.

Ezri then found Pink more family. Mom (Raggedy Ann), Dad (Andy), Grandpa (Darwin), and Baby Brother. She also has Madison her best friend (not pictured). So, no worries that this new doll will be lonely here at our house. Here is her family portrait.

Ezri and Pinkalicious seem to be doing everything together this afternoon.

And now they are napping together. I’d take a photo, but I don’t want to risk disturbing naptime.

Yesterday Ezri helped Eric assemble a bookshelf so her books can live right by her bedside. In our house there are never enough bookshelves.

She enjoyed playing with her backpack of plastic tools and implements of destruction. The set has a hammer, screwdriver, wrench, and channel lock, as well as, assorted plastic nails and bolts.

Conversation while Ezri holds up a toy channel lock:
Ezri: What is this for?
Me: It’s for gripping and pulling things out of. . . other things.
Ezri: Pull the baby! Pull the baby! (while waving her channel lock pliers in the air)

Another moment while grinning with her plastic screwdriver
Ezri: I need things to screw! Mommy, what can I screw?

Ezri’s latest suggestion for her imminent brother’s name is Bubbu. Bubbu Blau does have a certain ring to it. I have explained to her that since she named her new stuffed rabbit Bubbu, we should pick something else for her brother just to save confusion.

Her other frequent suggestions is Attabatta. Sometimes I call the fetus “Attabatta Baby” cause that’s fun to say.

We are playing “Go Away, Monster!” made by Gamewright and recommended to me by friends with toddlers.
It’s a perfect two-year-old board game.
She learns about taking turns and completing her gameboard. You can play competitively, but we played the cooperative style where players help each other out.
Best of all you get to yell, “Go Away, Monster!” at frequent intervals throughout gameplay.

Ezri placing a piece on her gameboard.

The real joy is pulling pieces from the bag. She knows she isn’t supposed to look, but sometimes I catch her peeking.

This game has such a simple concept that I now want to design my own toddler games. The big thing that sets it apart from other boardgames (ones that are still off in Ezri’s future) is that there is no need to be able to count accurately. Even Chutes and Ladders requires consistent counting skills. Sometimes, Ezri can count, but she still loses focus much of the time.

Ezri has asked to play this game again and again – so if anyone’s in the neighborhood and wants to play Go Away, Monster stop by. She already taught Jason and Lori who were our dinner guests on Friday night.

Eric trimmed her bangs once, but we hadn’t given her an all over haircut yet. This is because she just hasn’t had the hair to necessitate it. But, today at the mall we passed a shop called Snippets and I explained it was a place that cut hair.

Ezri said, “Like in Busy Busy Town!” Busy Busy Town is a Richard Scarry book with a barbershop on the main street. Ezri was keenly interested and I decided to go for it. She got to sit in a train shaped barber chair with a steering wheel and her stylist was super fast. The dead ends that were starting to tangle are gone and her bangs are out of her eyes.

Nice!

She picked the pink flower barrette and spent way too much time arranging these babies. She liked making sure they all had pacifiers in their mouths.

Maybe she’s being girly or maybe she’s assembling an army of baby doll minions to take over the world.

In any case, after this we had to play with trains and a soccer ball to make mom feel more balanced.

Mostly Ezri was serious about her task of putting sprinkles on the cupcakes for her dad and Grandma Liz’s birthday, but every once in awhile a sprinkle went in the mouth.

She put ingredients in the stand mixer and did the sprinkle shaking. She called making cupcakes “a very good project.”

Remember our tomatoes back in June:

Well, look at them now:

Ezri and the July thunderstorms have done a good job watering.

Still no ripe tomatoes in the garden, but all the green ones give us hope.
We’ve had some red tomatoes on the patio container plants on the back stoop. I haven’t tasted one yet, as Ezri catches them first. She says they are tasty.

On a hot day, Ezri and I made a deal to split a smoothie.
I wanted a mango pineapple smoothie and thought I had Ezri sold.
Then she said she wanted “booberry, strawberry.”

After tasting the berry smoothie, she decided she really wanted my mango smoothie.
I clearly have trouble saying no to Ezri.

We shared two smoothies. So, really there was no loser in this story.