Ezra - 2 3/4

Mr. Ezra is 2 years and 9 months old - time for a quarterly update!

The question we get most about Ezra these days is how he is adjusting to life with a little brother. The answer? He adores him. At first, he seemed jealous. When Asher was hospitalized at 17-19 days old, that seemed to be a bit of a turning point for Ezra, who was distraught about it and missed Asher. Over the last 3 months, Ezra has grown more and more fond of his brother, and now loves to give him kisses and hugs and lay next to him. He's delighted when Asher smiles at him. He started out constantly demanding attention only from whoever was caring for Asher, and he still does that some, but less.

Most extraordinarily, Ezra actually understands when Asher needs a parent and readily accepts that as a reason for an interruption. For example, Ezra sometimes throws tantrums when Ross snuggles him to sleep instead of me, but if Asher needs to nurse during Ezra's bedtime, Ezra is perfectly fine with Daddy snuggles. He'll even sometimes hear Asher start crying when I'm with him and suggest that I go nurse Asher!

Ezra's imaginative play has really blossomed this past quarter. He likes to put various objects together to create elaborate trucks, cranes, and trains. He is often distracted at meal times by making his utensils into vehicles. He mostly plays vehicles, but also likes animals a lot and sometimes plays with those. He set up a zoo on the couch recently.

His speech is finally making major improvements. We discontinued his speech therapy in March, after six months, because he had met all but one goal and we knew we had a lot of major changes coming up and didn't feel like weekly visits from the speech therapist were something we needed to continue. He is much more understandable, including to people other than his parents. He just recently started saying "yeah" (the one unmet speech goal as of March).

Ezra absolutely adores reading. Ross typically reads him 15-20 books during the time I'm at work, and then he usually gets 4 or 5 more at bedtime. Ezra also has started "reading" to himself; he has several books mostly memorized. His math knowledge isn't as well developed. He started counting to 12 a couple weeks ago - although it's "one, two, one, three, four, five…" - that extra 1 in between 2 and 3 is persistent! And although he knows all his letters in upper and lower cases, he doesn't really recognize numbers - he will call them "l" or "b" or "s" for example, or if told it's a number he usually calls it "1" even if it's not. He also isn't doing much with puzzles right now.

His spatial and kinesthetic knowledge is pretty good though - he loves arranging magnets, lining things up, and building towers. As always, he also loves to climb and is quite good at getting himself into - but also out of - precarious situations. Occasionally he'll climb something and say "you feel safe up there?" "be careful there!" to himself… so clearly he is listening to us as we try to teach him to listen to his body!

Long hair

Short(er) hair

I gave Ezra a haircut this month. We were letting his hair grow, but he HATED having it brushed or washed, so we figured his preference must be shorter hair. I put on some truck videos on YouTube and I think I did a pretty good job for an amateur. Best haircut so far, anyway.

In case you were curious, truck videos are a HUGE hit here. Also music videos. And bird videos. We don't let him watch that many though because his behavior is awful when he does. He tends to throw tantrums if he can't watch videos forever, even when clear limits are set.

We tried potty training in May - also a time of many truck videos. It was a total failure. Diapers for life.

Some other random highlights of Ezra's life this quarter:

When Grandma Anita came to visit right after Asher's birth
When Grandma Helen came to visit for Mother's Day
Going to the Denver Botanic Gardens with Grandma Helen. Even though it was rainy and cold, Ezra loved seeing the big logs in the children's garden and the fish sculpture in the main gardens. He still talks about this experience all the time.
Going to the zoo - he likes the hippos, rhinos, elephants, dikdiks, lions, and flamingos most.
He really likes to get out of the house - running errands (he loves Target and Costco), going for walks to the coffee shop or neighborhood bakery, going for a run with a parent.
Seeing a vacuum truck at the hospital when Asher was hospitalized
When the tower crane building an apartment building in our neighborhood was disassembled by two crane trucks
Drinking chocolate milk
Playing at REI - we had lots of rainy days in May, and I took him to REI a couple of times. There's a playground inside and trails outside, and he is really excited about the "big rock" for rock climbing inside REI.

Some more random pictures from the last 3 months: