Ezra--32 months

Ezra is creeping closer and closer to 3! I have heard that the 3's are pretty difficult, so I am savoring every moment with him as a two-year-old. Other than a couple weeks after Ivy was born, he has been so fun and so easy lately. As he gets older, he says some really funny things, and just cute things I want to remember.

"Whatcha doin', momma?"
"I'm cooking dinner."
"Yeah, you cooking dinner. That's cool."

His favorite thing to ask these days is "Wha happened?" when he is watching a show or a movie. Most of the time I'm not paying attention to whatever he is watching so I guess I need to work on that. He also asks "Where ya going?" and is ready to head out the door well before it's time to leave usually.

He asks "Want to play catch with me?" and "Want to read this with me?" on a regular basis. Of COURSE I do, sweet boy. How can I say no to that?

At bedtime, right as I'm getting up to leave, he says, "I wanna SNUGGLE!" Then, "How bout, scratch back? How bout, scratch belly? Scratch nose? Scratch head?" One stall tactic after another.

He is all about the baby talk jibberish these days. I know it's a phase and it will end soon but it's pretty annoying.

He likes to point out other people's emotions. If Ivy is crying, he'll say, "Ivy's sad. It's okay Ivy." Lately he has enjoyed watching "The Neverending Story." When the horse sinks in the mud, he said, "He's sad."

He still imitates whatever we say to Ivy. Yesterday in his little baby voice he got in her face and said, "Hiiii sweet guhl!" It was so cute. He will tell her "You're so beautiful!" I pray that they always love each other like they do now. It is so special to watch. He really is such a good big brother to her. I can already tell that she loves to watch him, and he can make her smile every time he talks to her. Another thing he imitates is telling me where he is going and what he is doing, and saying, "I'll be RIGHT back." I guess I say that a lot to him...otherwise I hear "Momma, where are you?" over and over again.

He put these on today and said "Momma, do you like my rabbit glasses?" (he got these today from his superkids teacher. A few months ago, you could NEVER have gotten Ezra to wear something on his face like this.)

You can't tell Ezra that something is going to happen in the future without him talking and asking about it constantly. When my mom was visiting a couple weeks ago, she started getting Ezra all ready for Blue Haven and talking to him about mountains, and woods, and butterflies, and hummingbirds, and bears. Ezra has since thought we are going to Blue Haven much sooner than when we are actually going, and he talks about it. A lot. I have learned to prompt him about things we are doing either the night before or the day of the event. He can usually understand when I say "after you wake up" but other than that, he doesn't have the concept of time (days, weeks, months) yet.

This month, it finally happened. Ezra told me he loved me, unprompted. My heart melted. And he always responds now with "I love you too" when we tell him we love him.

He is becoming increasingly independent. He loves his friends, he loves to do things himself, and he loves being a big boy. When he hurts himself, he might cry for a bit, but then he says, "I'm a tough boy." In fact, he just enjoys describing himself in general. "I'm Ezra. I'm silly. I'm goofy. I'm big. I'm cool." Luckily he also has quite the self-esteem.

As far as sleeping goes, we have put an alarm clock into effect. When Ivy was born we were having some issues with Ezra getting up super early (like 5:30 in the morning) and thinking it was time to be up for the day or waking up crying at midnight. So he has this alarm clock that lights green when it's time to be in bed, and turns yellow when it's time to wake up. He got the hang of it really quickly and is now back to sleeping from 8:30-7:30 every night. He still usually takes a nap during the day, but if he misses it he is fine. I just put him to bed earlier on those nights and he is always ready to go. In fact, at night now when we ask him if he is sleepy, he usually says yes.

I wish I kept better track of all the fun things Ezra says and does, but I guess this is better than nothing. I know it will be fun one day to look back and see all of this stuff, even if it's not very interesting to most of you who read this (yes, mom, I know you think it's interesting). Time goes by too fast, and we are enjoying this season in our life with our sweet kids.