imagination
Every time I try to take a picture of Ezra, to post on the blog, the pictures don’t turn out. So I’ve pretty much given up on pictures. Maybe I will try again in a month…so you will have to imagine Ezra sitting at the table this morning in front of his blue placemat eating scrambled eggs and toast. He starts to move the toast around on the mat and then tells me (through sign language), that it’s a boat. Wow. When do kids start to develop their imagination? I always wonder what he is thinking while he plays with his toys, but as he is developing language, I get to see inside his head a little more everyday.
His favorite song lately is the “wheels on the bus”. He particularly likes the verses about the babies crying and the mamas that say “shshsh” with their fingers to their lips. He has taken lately to using the shshing sound and motion quite regularly. So this afternoon when we were sitting at the kids table at the library and another little toddler started screaming so loud her mother had to take her out. Ezra watched the whole scene then looked at me with a smile in his eyes, held his finger to his mouth and said, “sh.sh.sh”. I couldn’t help but laugh and smooch his adorably smart head. Did he know you have to be quiet in the library? Probably not. I figure he was associating a child crying with a mother telling them to be quiet, but still to carry that outside the context of the song- who knew at 16 months kids could do that?
Ezra’s new word: football. I’ll try to get it on video and post it. It’s pretty funny.
my wordle
thanks to Pastor Eugene, I now know what my wordle is. It made me laugh that diapers was one of the most prominent words. What have I been blogging about? 
ezra’s first words
I’m not sure how technical I need to be about first words for babies. Does the first word have to be in the dictionary? If so, is the word “uh-oh” even in the dictionary? That was Ezra’s first word about a month or so ago. If that doesn’t count, than this weekend was an exciting entrance into the world of spoken language for little Ez.
While on a weekend trip to portland to visit my family, Ezra got to spend time with his cousins (ages 2 and 3). He loved following them around and mimicking their play. He also loved the gentle way they would say hi and hug him each day. So on Friday, we caught him saying “hi” in a very sweet soft voice- like his cousins. “Say ‘hi’ Ezra” was what the request the rest of the day was. I asked him to say hi to anyone we saw, to flowers, and ducks and trees and toys. I couldn’t get over how cute it was. But on Saturday it just got better. I get a phone call from Corey in the morning while I was out and he said excitedly, “Ezra said hi boat”! I couldn’t wait to get home to hear it for myself. The rest of the day he added more words to his vocab: mama, dada, papa, water (which sounds more like wa-er, or wa-wa now), more, milk, and pop! every once in a while we ask him to say a hard word like “cereal” and “tractor” and it’s so funny to hear how he tries to mimic the sounds!
We can’t wait for all the conversation in store! thank you Lord for the ability to speak!
the ease of cloth
okay, i wouldn’t say it’s “easy”, but it’s not that bad. here’s a comment i posted on a friend’s blog whose thinking about switching to cloth. just in case you wonder what or why i do what i do…
when i switched to cloth diapers after 9 months of disposables for my first, it was out of desire to be more eco-friendly and also to cut costs. in the age of costco, making disposables pretty cheap the most economical cloth diaper is the “old school” version. 1-2 dozen prefolds (like when we were kids) and 6-10 wraps (prowrap and whisper wrap are the cheapest). with an organized space to contain all the stuff you need and a garbage can with wet bag in the bathroom next to the toilet, it’s a simple trip to the washing machine every 2 days to drop the diapers in with some bac-out for an overnight or 2 hr. soak in cold water and cheap detergent (you don’t have to buy expensive stuff) hot wash/cold rinse. line dry in sun or 1 hr. in the dryer. some days the diarrhea diapers are annoying but i keep a bucket with bac-out spray, rubber gloves and spatula by the toilet for ease of cleaning. i also keep a few AIO or fuzzibunz pocket diapers for lazy days, babysitters, and when we’re out on the town. once you get into the routine it’s really not bad, and it’s especially great when dads do it too! oh yeah, always keep a few disposable diapers on hand- just in case
Go Mariner’s
Growing up my family was big into baseball. Of course because of my father. But any time I get a chance to go to a baseball game, though I have a hard time staying focused on the game, I get excited because it brings back so many fond memories of my childhood. So- wednesday night, as part of the family wedding week for Nic & Rebecca, the family headed to a Mariner’s game. Not usually something to hip-hurrah about but it was Ezra’s first game. We packed peanuts and licorice into our backpack and made the trek downtown! 
Ezra’s favorite part about Safeco Field: the boat that was used for advertising on the second level, the foam hand toys that everyone carried (he got one too thanks to zjiddo), eating the inside and outside of those weird things called peanuts- yes he ate half a shell while I wasn’t watching!, sipping uncle Nic’s lemonade while I monitored closely his intake , and playing in the kids play zone- mostly just chasing after other kids and their parents who had no clue who this little kid was that thought they were so cool. We made it to the 8th inning and then Ezra started to fade so home went. It was a great evening- and bonus: the mariner’s one- finally…
