Just another CarleSpawn weblog

Ezri loves this little house in the toddler garden at Morton Arboretum.

While I was counting her jumps on her trampoline, “1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10!” Ezri turned to me and said, ‘What about zero?”
I had her stop bouncing and we started with 0 bounces and then counted.

Today was the first perfect Saturday of spring.

We spent the morning in Lyman woods at the “Raindrops and Rabbits” program for toddlers. We did a little reverse egg hunt and instead hid pieces of carrot in the woods in hopes rabbits will find them later.

We did some porch cleaning and Eric put the little slide out in our backyard. Look how green our backyard is getting.

Ezri had a good nap with slightly muddy socks.

A very nice day with long stroller walk, park, and fun in our own backyard.

Ezri stomped through the backyard looking down.
“Look, mama, creeping charlie. I GOT IT!”

If the creeping charlie in our lawn can be eradicated by being picked a single leaf at a time and carried over the the yard waste trash can, Ezri is going to take care of it.

She started doing this after playing in the yard with Eric. I think he’s been training her to help with lawn maintenance.

In the morning yesterday I asked Ezri, “Do you want to go to the museum?”
Ezri – “YEAH! and zoo.”
Me- “We can go to the museum OR the zoo. Do you want to go to the zoo?”
Ezri – “ZOO! and museum.”
We ended up at the museum which opens earlier and was thus better timed for getting home for naptime. Ezri was pleased and I was relieved that as we left the museum she was more interested in macaroni and the zoo was not mentioned.

Manchi just tolerated this great act of love by Ezri.
She has tucked him in with her favorite blanket and told him, “Share blanket with Manchi.”
She may not always express it in cat-approved ways, but Ezri does love the cats.

Even if it’s the out-of-season corn that probably came from Florida.
When I got home from work today, the first thing Ezri did was take me to the fridge to look at the “corn on cob that Dada got.”
We boiled it for dinner and Ezri was super pleased.

After dinner I told Ezri we could go on an adventure tomorrow and asked if she’d like to go to the museum or the zoo.
Ezri said, “MU-SE-UM! and after museum zoo.” She nodded her head emphatically. I pointed out that it had been a choice, but she did not acknowledge this point.
We’ll see what she remembers tomorrow. . .

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.