Ezrasaurus

Every parent loves to talk about their kid, so that's what I'm going to do. If you don't care to read about the most adorable little boy on the planet, you can just skip this post. ;)

Ezra is growing up waaaaaay too fast. He's 16 months already! That's practically almost 2. *insert pouty face here* He changes every single day and each day I don't think he can get cuter, and then he does.

He's currently right around 20.5 pounds and 30" tall. He is finally starting to wear size 12-18 month clothes in some brands, but still fits in a lot of 9 month clothes. He has a longer torso so some onesies just barely button, but if I get some that are long enough, they're hanging off his shoulders and are super baggy. But with pants, he's got a skinny waist and short legs so he's still rocking size 6-12 months in those. 

This is Ezra in the same outfit at 12 months on the left and 16 months on the right. (The vest is interchangeable). Still fits exactly the same, signaling that he hasn't grown much since he turned 1. Typical. But look how different he looks! His hair is getting so long and he looks like such a big boy.

He is seriously such a fun little dude. Every morning, he wakes me up by talking (loudly) in his crib over the monitor. As soon as he hears me coming down the hall, he starts bouncing up and down in his crib. I open the door and see him with his messy hair and big smile reaching for me to pick him up. As soon as I do, he lays his head on my shoulder for a while. 

Then once I change his diaper and set him down, he runs to the kitchen and stands by the fridge and signs "milk" until I get him a sippy cup. He takes a long drink with a big "ahhh" to catch his breath after and then goes to stand by his high chair until I put him in. He eats his breakfast in like 12 seconds flat and then throws his arms to the sides and says, "done!" 

Some days he just needs 2 sippy cups.

Then he proceeds to destroy the living room. I turn on Sesame Street (if I'm lucky enough for it to be 8:00 by this time and not still 7:08 like some mornings) and he climbs up the couch (most of the time unsuccessfully) and sits next to me to watch it. He usually plays with his feet absentmindedly or chews on his pacifier. Then he stands up and I have to remind him, "feet first!" to get off the couch and he flops on his stomach and wiggles backwards towards the end of the couch until his feet slide off, then he scoots down until they touch the floor, and he's off. 

Yes, he watches tv upside down sometimes.

We keep all his toys corralled in the corner and the first thing he does is bring me his huge bag of Mega Bloks. It's hilarious to watch him try to carry that thing by the handle on top. The whole way over to me he's whining "ehh! ehh!" because it's heavy and once he sets it by my feet, he says, "peas!" (please) and claps his hand together (his way to sign "please" and "more" but it looks more like a clap). As soon as I unzip his bag of blocks, he knocks it over and then grabs it from the bottom and lifts up so that all 80 pieces fall to the floor. Some days, he'll start grabbing the blocks and putting them together, but most of the time, he leaves them there and runs to get a different toy. And then the blocks just sit there for the rest of the day. He usually trips over them at least twice and I always step on them a few times. But if I put them back in the bag and put them away, he'll just want to dump them out again. Thankfully, at the end of the day he helps put them back in the bag saying, "dunk it!" with every block he throws in. Thanks to his dad for teaching him that one, because clean up is a lot easier. ;)

His favorite toy of all time has to be books. It's not really a toy, but it keeps him entertained. He really likes the books with the buttons on the side that play music when you press them. I, on the other hand, do not like those books. Especially when his favorite one is "Elmo's Christmas" so I hear "Oh Christmas Tree" about 400 times a day, even though it's April. With all his non-musical books, he brings them over to me and opens them up and points to the picture on the page and says, "what's that?" over and over until I tell him what it is. Sometimes, it just comes out as "dat?" which is adorable.

With his numbers books, he only points at the numbers on the corner of each page. The only one he can say is "ten" but if you ask him where the 5 is on a page when there is a 5 and a 6, he knows which is which (most of the time). 

When he reads his animal books, he usually doesn't ask, "what's that?" He just sees the animal and makes the noise that it makes (if it has one). His favorite is puppy because he says "puppy! whoa whoa!" (which is his new way to say "woof woof" - it used to be more of a low, deep voice "woof").

His "quack" and "oink" sound pretty much the same, but he can tell the difference so that's all that matters, I guess!  

His new favorite book. He points to all the letters, and the only one he repeats back to me is O. He gets really excited about it and says, "OHHH!" :)

I have kept a list on my phone of every word he's said (meaning used it at least 3 different times in the correct context) and the count is currently 74, which includes the 11 different animal noises he makes. Not including animal noises, he uses about 45 of these words regularly. He is pretty much always talking, which is how I was as a kid and I'm pretty sure my parents didn't appreciate it. ;) 

He can also point out 8 body parts on himself (head, hair, ears, eyes, nose, belly, feet, toes) and he can find hair and nose on another person. And he can also find my tummy since I'm pregnant. If you ask him, "what's in mama's tummy?" he will pat it a few times and say "baybay, baybay" or "ssssssisser". Every morning when I lay him on the changing table, he immediately pats my tummy and says baby. He'll even kiss it if you ask him to. Melts my heart. 

He has pretty much always loved to dance when he hears music. Since about 10 months old, he would bob his head up and down (which ended up with his whole body bobbing) when you asked him to dance or when he heard a song he liked. Then it turned into tilting his head side to side, and now he does "the twist" sometimes. Another favorite thing to do is spin in circles over and over on the living room floor until he gets dizzy and falls over. Then he laughs, gets up, and does it again. 

He waves bye bye and gives open mouth kisses on command, which I'm sure I'll miss when he learns to kiss properly. When you ask him for a hug, he'll lay his head on your shoulder. He also recently learned how to blow kisses (even though it looks a lot like he's signing "thank you") and can also say other things in sign language. Like I mentioned earlier, he signs "please" and "more" but both are the same sign (so he's doing "please" incorrectly, but he always says "peas" when he does it so we know what he means). He signs "grandpa" but is actually signing "dad" because "grandpa" is too difficult. He says Gram out loud (which is what he calls my mom) but won't say anything when you ask him to say Gramps (what he calls my dad) so we just taught him the sign for it. He signs "milk" and "no" which is my personal favorite because if we say "no no!" to him while signing it, he says "no no!" back while signing. It's so freaking cute. He signs "sorry" when you ask him to but I'm not positive that he knows what it actually means yet. He is constantly learning new things. It's amazing. 

His hair is getting really long. Marcus is not a fan. Usually when he wakes up, it's super messy and sticking up everywhere, but once I wet it down with water, it's pretty cute! It naturally sways to one side and if you look from the back, it looks like it's growing in a circle. The back is getting longer and is starting to curl. Marcus keeps asking when I'm going to get his hair trimmed but I think I've convinced him to let it grow out this summer to see how it looks once it's longer (we're kind of stuck in an awkward growing phase) and if he doesn't like it, we'll keep it short. Marcus thinks that toddler boys with long hair are mistaken for girls (which happens with Ezra even when his hair is super short - people say it's because of his beautiful blue eyes) so he would prefer it shorter. We'll see. ;) 

Two of his most recent favorite things are his toothbrush and playing outside. Now that he finally has teeth (he only has 6 and didn't even get his first tooth until after his first birthday) I brush his teeth every night with his Dinosaur Train toothbrush right before his bath. One day, he kept crying in the bath and pointing to the counter and we figured out that he wanted his toothbrush. Normally, when it's time to get out of the bath, I hold up his towel and say that it's time to get out. He stands up so that Marcus can grab him but he cries the entire time because he wants to stay in. But if he is holding his toothbrush when it's time to get out, he just doesn't care about his bath anymore. All is well with the world.

He has 2 toothbrushes that we actually use for his teeth and then an Elmo one for the bath and for him to play with during the day, since obviously it's the best toy ever.

Ever since it's been nice out, we've gone to the backyard as often as possible to play on the swingset. The slide is his favorite. As soon as he reaches the bottom, he stands up, turns around and says "again!" He could go down that thing all day. And now during the day when we're inside, he runs to the door that leads to the back yard and cries and if you say, "do you want to go outside?" he starts nodding and stomping his feet like he can't wait for you to open the door so he can bolt out there. He's like a dog. 

Ezra is seriously the joy of my life. I didn't know I could love someone the way I love him. I can't wait to see how he acts once his baby sister is here. He changes every day and is constantly doing new and adorable things. I love watching him grow but I don't want him to get any bigger!