14 months

Okay, so I never did post those photos I said I'd post. Oops.

Anyway, Ezra is 14 months old now. I have some photos from today at the park that I'll post. Having a toddler is so much fun! Every day he learns new things. His language is really starting to develop, with lots of conversational babbling and some words here and there. A typical walk includes him signing bird, tree, car (and car, and car, and car...), pointing out stop signs while saying either "stoh!" or "dah!", making funny inhaling noises that apparently mean squirrel, pointing at everything from flowers to bicycles, saying "tuh!" for truck, etc. A favorite pastime is taking off and putting back on lids and covers to anything. The other day Baruch held a plastic water bottle while Ezra took off the lid and put it carefully back on over and over and over. He really has a long attention span. He still says "dahn!" to mean boom, with variations such as "dihn!" and "dahn-eee". It also seems to mean, "wow, that's cool!". He sort of adapts the word to suit his purposes. One very cool thing he's done is made up his own noise for a motorcycle: he had seen motorcycles outside, and one of his picture books has a picture of one, and at some point he looked at the picture and started making a motorcycle noise that he thought of himself. That was extraordinary to me, because not only did he connect the real thing to the picture, he also independently and creatively thought of a way to replicate the sound! Ezra gives me lots of hugs and kisses, and runs to either DH or me when he's hurt or scared. He's started saying "abba" and "mama" much more appropriately. And his receptive language is extraordinary. He can easily follow simple requests ("please put this pile of white laundry in this laundry basket" or "you want to read? go get your Baby Beluga book")

Physically, he's running all over the place, and becoming a lot more precise in all his movements (like with the bottle cap I mentioned above). He can color with crayons a bit, but he's more interested in eating them. His hair is getting long. He hates us to wash it, too, which makes things difficult (hates, as in screams and cries and holds his head over the side of the tub so all the water goes on the floor). He also dislikes (okay, hates) getting his diaper changed, or getting dressed (undressed is a different matter; in fact, he can almost undress himself already, and would love to be naked all the time). Even though he's very attached and sometimes even "clingy" in certain environments, he has a STRONG independent streak. He insists we let him walk outside, rather than carrying or wearing him, and I think he dislikes diaper changes so much because he hates his movements to be restricted (he feels helpless, I guess). He seems to be mystified by other children, but he likes being in small groups, or in places with lots of people who are all engaged in their own activities (like the park). He gets overwhelmed at story time, though, where there are a large number of children and caregivers in one small room.

Okay, so I'll stop before I write a novel. I'll add more later if I forgot anything particularly important. Here are photos of my little tree hugger (erm, kisser?):

an update

Toddlers are fun! I am loving every day with Ezra, and I really think this is an amazing age. He plays with toys like a toddler, often choosing to push cars and trucks around the room, or "help" me by bringing me things (he spent about 20 minutes bringing me all of the potatoes, one by one, the other day), or take things out of the cabinets and figure them out. He likes to put blocks in the back of his dump truck and push it around everywhere. Sometimes he even makes motor sounds to go with his trucks and cars. We've been going for short walks outside, with Ezra walking, and he stops to look at everything from flowers to bees (he loves bees! he says a bee says "tssss") to trees and shadows (he waves to his shadow), birds, cars, really anything and everything. He picks up signs very quickly, his newest being "tree"; he also signs all of the old ones (milk, more, all done, food), bird, car, and some others. I need to learn new signs to teach him, because he can easily pick a new one up after seeing it a few times. He also uses them in interesting ways; for example, he hates when Baruch puts water on his head during his bath (I usually have to just get in the bath with him, if I'm bathing him!), and he looks at him plaintively and signs "all done?" with this questioning look. Baruch says he thinks he's trying to communicate the equivalent of, "will you stop, please?" Another cute thing Ezra has just started doing is hugging his doll. He also likes to hug a stuffed giraffe. He'll carry the doll around the apartment with him, hugging it and patting it on the back.

There's really too much to say to get it all down here. Basically, Ezra is adorable and amazing, and I can't even begin to fathom how much I love him. I will come back and post some photos later.