Ezra

One of Ezra’s teachers sent me this photo of Ezra painting a rainbow at school. They’ve been learning a lot about Ireland for the last couple of weeks, including lots of stories about leprechauns and building their own leprechaun traps. (They didn’t catch any leprechauns, but the leprechauns did visit — leaving green glitter and green foil covered chocolate coins for the kids.)

They also made leprechaun puppets. Ezra was really tickled by his. He couldn’t stop giggling as he told me that his leprechaun only had one leg and his name is Ez. Here he is.

We had planned on a small celebration for Ezra’s birthday this weekend, but due to a scheduling snafu, we ended up with an unable-to-be-canceled cupcake cake (30 cupcakes!) and three visitors. So, we invited the Heffs up to help out and managed to devour about half of Iron Man’s mask.

Here’s the Happy Birthday song.

Kids love cupcakes, and are very serious about them. (And I must say, the adults enjoyed them as well.)

The birthday boy chose vanilla. Somewhere along the line, chocolate has fallen out of favor.

Ezra’s actual birthday (last Friday) turned out to be an extremely busy and chaotic day. We knew some of this going in — there was a birthday party for his school friend that afternoon and I had a doctor’s appointment at the same time (the only time could get on short notice with a new doctor and I was sick as a dog and had to take it). So, I decided to make a morning celebration with a blueberry coffee cake and presents. He was pretty happy.

He blew out the candles.

And then moved on to presents. He started with Finn’s. Finn, who shopped with me, had been incredibly good at keeping the whole thing a secret for at least a week, which wasn’t easy since Ezra’s been asking for this Police Robot Headquarters for months now. Here’s Finn showing Ezra all about his gift.

This one is a little blurry but shows how thrilled Ezra was.

Actually, they both were.

I’m sure Finn was relieved to have the cat out of the bag. And believe it or not, breakfast was eaten, teeth brushed, kids dressed and we made it to school on time.

After school, the chaos continued. Bruce came home early so I could get to the doctor and he could take Finn and pick up Ezra from school (and take them to the party at Eaton Canyon). About the time I arrived in the doctor’s office, I got a call from him asking me where the extra Mini key was. Long story short, he couldn’t find it (because I accidentally left it in the pocket of my jacket) and he had to frantically call our friend Cari who was also picking up her daughter at Aveson and heading to the party. Luckily she had room for one more in her minivan (thank goodness for Cari and her minivan).

Bruce headed over to Eaton Canyon on the bike with Finn (Finn’s favorite thing in the whole world) and, after a trip to the pharmacy for some antibiotics and an inhaler, I met them there as well so the boys would have a ride home. In my bronchitis haze, I didn’t bring extra clothes (not anticipating the kids playing in the creek, which was a rookie mistake), so we had two wet, sandy kids. Finn insisted on riding back home with Bruce on the bike and promptly fell asleep. Ezra wasn’t far behind. And neither were Bruce and I.

Playing catch-up on the blog today. Here’s a song Ezra wrote one night before bedtime. He’s performed it quite a few times for us and is very proud! My sweet little singer-songwriter.

We couldn’t really wrap our heads around throwing a party for Ezra’s birthday this year seeing how the house is full of boxes and the backyard is um … a work in progress. So, we threw out the idea of taking him to Disneyland instead, and he was game. In fact, he was extremely excited. He’d only been one other time — when he was two — and he doesn’t remember going.

He gets out early from school on Wednesdays, so we headed down there after pick-up. My friend Jay works at the park and walked us in for free (HUGE!) and then suggested we take Ezra over to City Hall and tell them it’s his birthday. He got a special button to wear and every Disney person we saw wished him a happy birthday. It was really cute.

Ezra and Finn were pretty much in awe the entire time. They’re more familiar with the Disney characters than they used to be so they flipped out when they saw Mickey, Minnie and Pluto roaming around. Ezra got his picture taken with Mickey.

They rode on the front of the boat into the mouth of the whale (on a ride I don’t remember seeing before, but was really cute with little representations of the houses in all of the Disney stories).

They both got to drive Autopia cars.

And they totally loved Toon Town. They played in this boat for a long time and Ezra was thrilled and enchanted that Donald Duck’s voice was coming out of this contraption. The picture looks posed, but really he just couldn’t stop smiling and laughing!

All in all, it was a great day!

Here’s a slideshow of all the photos.

To celebrate the 100th day of school at Aveson, the students do a 100s project — basically just a project using 100 of some item. There aren’t many restrictions — they prefer found, made or recycled objects and the kids have to be able to carry their final product. Ezra decided to collect 100 leaves, which he and Bruce did yesterday. Then Bruce got out the hot glue gun (his favorite toy) and they mounted them to a foam board. Here’s the result.

Ezra actually used 99 leaves and 1 push-pin that he found in the garden. He is very proud of his project and can hardly wait to bring it to school on Tuesday.

I was doing some packing today and came across a CD labeled “Ezra Pics @ KJK Party 5/05” so I popped it into the computer to see what they were. They were, of course, pictures of Ezra taken in May 2005 when he was two months old. So cute!

Thanks, Aaron!

Friday Ezra brought home this picture he drew last week. He’d told me about it earlier in the week — he was worried he wouldn’t have time to finish it. His view of Belize includes palm trees, sand, a bright sun, himself and a crab. I’m not positive, but I think the class was asked to draw their best day ever.

Ezra’s second tooth came out on Thursday but he didn’t even notice. He came home from school and was telling me what he learned about Martin Luther King, Jr. that day, when I noticed the hole in his mouth was even bigger. He was very surprised to hear the tooth was gone. He thinks he lost it at school, but I’m guessing he probably swallowed it.

(Note Finn trying to pull his Angry Bird plush toy through the slats in his chair. Crazy kid.)

He was worried about the Tooth Fairy, but I told him if he wrote a note and explained what happened she’d probably leave something under his pillow. We all forgot about it Thursday night, but Friday he wrote a note:

A little demanding, perhaps, but he did draw hearts and teeth. She must not have been too offended because she responded with her own note last night. She couldn’t find the tooth at Aveson but will keep looking. And she left him four quarters. He loves coins so life is good.

Friday was Ezra’s first day back at school after Christmas break and they did some switching around between the two Kindergarten classes. The teachers put the kids into different reading groups based on their reading levels, and switched some kids to the other class. I was a little worried that the changes would make him anxious, and, in fact, he expressed some confusion about it Sunday night at bedtime. So, when I picked him up from school on Monday I was very interested to hear how his day went, if he was feeling better about the changes, and if he could tell me who was in his group. (Unlike his friend Lucy, who gives her mom a full rundown of the entire day, Ezra doesn’t talk much about school. I think it’s a boy thing.)

Anyway, he still couldn’t remember who was in his group, but said he felt a little less confused than Friday. When I pressed him for more information, he said, “Mommy, I’m trying to read.” I looked in my rearview mirror and he did have a book. And then he started reading out loud. It was awesome. I didn’t even care that it was a not-entirely-age-appropriate comic book. Needless to say, I stopped asking questions and let him go on with his reading.

Yesterday Ezra lost his first tooth! He and Finn were at gymnastics camp in the morning, and when I got there to pick them up, the teacher said, “We have a surprise for you!” Ezra came out and handed me an envelope with his tooth in it. It had been hanging on by a thread for a week or so, and apparently he just pulled it out and showed it to the teacher.

Of course, the Tooth Fairy showed up last night. Ezra was extremely excited to leave his tooth under his pillow (on the outside corner where the Tooth Fairy could easily reach it). He was afraid that he would forget to look under his pillow in the morning, so he made me write him a reminder note and tape it to his door. However, he ended up waking up about 1:30 and he found the envelope the Tooth Fairy left; of course, he woke us up to show us. Here’s what she left.

Aveson has a very personalized learning philosophy (which was one of the things that drew us to the school), and to enable this there is an initial evaluation and individual goal setting conference, and then three Celebration of Learning days (at the end of each trimester) to evaluate how the kids are doing toward their goals. Today was the first Celebration of Learning, and whereas the goal setting conference was teacher-driven with his advisor, Ms. Jessica, today was student-driven. Ezra’s job today was to show us his work thus far (his book, his drawings, etc.) and then show us the different jobs they do in the classrooms. It was great — he was so happy to be showing us around and Bruce and I loved seeing all the different things he’s been working on. Here are a few pictures.

This is his painting of a woolly mammoth and a saber-toothed cat stuck in tar. They are sad — thus the straight lines for the mouth.

Here he is showing us the “Creation Station” (little blocks they make shapes with).

Probably my favorite thing of the night: Ezra’s self-portrait in the style of Picasso.

Afterwards, we went down to the cafeteria and had a barbecue dinner with the Bannings. Here’s Ezra and Ruby waiting patiently for the food to arrive.

Ezra had vacation for the whole week of Thanksgiving and his teachers gave us an assignment: the Fall Family Project. The project is to create an All About Me Box, where the students decorate a shoe box any way they like and put some things in it that are special to them. In lieu of putting the actual items in the box, they can put pictures or drawings. Bruce, the creative mastermind in our family, was tasked with helping Ezra with his box. Ezra got to cut, paste and draw; Bruce got to use his hot glue gun. Everyone was happy.

Here are a couple of pictures of the outside of the box. He drew a picture of Lamby, a green light, and an experiment (which Bruce inadvertently glued on upside down). There’s also an actual light with a switch that turns it on and some springs from an old clock on the side. The back side is a hodgepodge of Angry Birds and pictures from magazines that Ezra thought were funny (a lettuce with legs, a superhero, and things of that nature).

The inside was filled with drawings of his favorite things: an Angry Bird and slingshot, Lamby, a shovel for digging, Iron Man (with his alter ego Tony Stark on the back side), and a calculator (he loves to sit and add numbers on my calculator). The ocean scene is Belize. Note the hanging thing and the wood inside the box.

Here’s a close-up of the drawings.

Also inside was a drawing of our family.

I couldn’t love this box any more. And it was really fun to see the boxes the other kids brought to school this morning. We’ll be able to see all of them in a few weeks at Aveson’s Celebration of Learning, where all the kids show off their work since the beginning of the year. Can’t wait!

Ezra and I discovered today that he has not one but two loose teeth! The bottom front two are wiggling around, although I’m not sure how long they’ve been loose because he didn’t notice them until I moved them myself this afternoon. I think he’s a little nervous about it, but he said he was OK.

I decided I better try to get some pictures of all of his perfect baby teeth. I tried to get him to just smile really big but here’s how that turned out.

Then I tried for the close-up, which is pretty good.

And this is my favorite.

Of course, Finn wanted to get in the picture-taking action too.

Always the tongue. Oy.

Ezra came home yesterday with his first school ID card and an order form for his school pictures. It all seems very official. And super cute.