Ezra

Ezra started taking piano lessons in the summer and had his first recital on December 8th. He played two songs — Ode to Joy and Jingle Bells — and practiced a ton beforehand to get them down pat.

Of course, we also had to get him some new clothes and shoes for his big day. Unfortunately, I’d dropped the ball on that, so that morning he and I headed to Target to see what we could find. Luckily since it’s the holidays they actually had dress clothes. He picked out everything himself and insisted on the blazer. He got a little help with his tie from Bruce.

He played like a champ! Here’s the video.

The third, fourth and fifth graders at Aveson are lucky enough to be participating in a year-long project centering on water issues for their Projects class. The curriculum incorporates several field trips including a series of hikes in Eaton Canyon — a gem of a local resource. The trips are ambitious with no fewer than 50 kids, two teachers, two aides and as many parent volunteers as we can muster. Ezra’s first trip was on warm, sunny October 4th and it went surprisingly well.

After a few delays getting all the kids ready (checking backpacks for essentials like lunches and water bottles and making sure their notebooks were ready for the activities), we started off about 10:00 am. We walked north from campus, then west on Loma Alta walking a bit before we found a shady spot for the first activity — a watercolor project of lines and a page of senses observed.

When everyone had done the project and eaten a quick snack, we packed up and headed up the mountain.

Here’s Ezra and his teacher who created the program, Ms. B.

We hiked for quite a while, winding our way in and out of the canyon. Eventually we passed back by high above our campus which the kids really enjoyed. It was recess time, so we tried a coordinated shout to get the kids at school to look up. It didn’t work; they couldn’t hear us at all!

Finally we reached the bridge and headed for a shady spot with what little water was available. It’s been a very dry year.

Of course, Ezra went right for the water, leading his friends in some rock dam building.

After lunch and play time, the second activity started. The kids were instructed to find a place they liked that was somewhat separate from the other kids. (Not so easy of a task since we had so many kids on the trip!) They were then going to observe their “special” place and do another watercolor. In future hikes they will come back to that same special place and observe the differences that come with the different seasons. It’s a lovely idea but I was skeptical of how successful it would be since the kids were pretty amped up after playing in the water.

Much to my amazement, though, after a few minutes of crazy every single kid settled down and did the project. It was nearly silent in the canyon as they worked. Here’s Ezra’s place.

Here’s a picture of Ms. B.’s group.

And here are shots of Ezra’s artwork — a little worse for wear after the hike back.

I think he did a really nice job on the trees.

A few months ago Ezra created a character he called a Zombat. Here’s a picture:

He drew them a lot and then one day in his Projects class he got the chance to teach the whole class how to draw them. And so his classroom had a wall of Zombats.

He even drew a special one for his teacher, Ms. B, which if my memory serves, is the first time he’s ever done something like that. I think he’s extra fond of her.

When Finn started recorder lessons a while back, we asked Ezra if he wanted to learn a musical instrument, too. He was uninterested then. But last month he said he might like to try guitar. The music school encouraged us to start with piano, so Ezra’s first lesson had both. However, the piano was the winner and he’s been taking lessons the last few weeks. We are thrilled (and hope he sticks with it!).

Here are the first two short songs he learned.

Ezra has been talking about getting a bow and arrow for some time. He wanted a real one, not the toy one we got at the Elves’ Faire a couple of years ago. Obviously he cannot just shoot real arrows in the backyard, but we are lucky enough to live in Pasadena which has an archery range and offers lessons! He had his first lesson at the end of June. I wasn’t there but thankfully Bruce took a couple of pictures.

He loves it and is continuing to take lessons.

Last Thursday Ezra lost another tooth. It happened while he was at his friend Jack’s house after school, and he brought it home in a plastic baggie. Then we got busy hustling and bustling through dinner and bed time and totally forgot about putting it under his pillow for the Tooth Fairy. I thought he might be upset in the morning, but he wasn’t at all. He just wrote the Tooth Fairy a letter and made sure it got under his pillow Friday night.

Transcription:  Tooth Fary, tell Tootho to look at the Ultra Dragon! It is lokated in the dining room. P.S. It was funny when Tootho left tracks in my room. P.S. 2 I’ve heard that you are friends with the Candy Fary.

So, of course, despite being tired and sick, Bruce (the creative genius in our family) got working on a letter back.

Now is the point where I would put a picture of the Ultra Dragon after Tootho broke off some and then tried to fix it with tape, but I can’t. Ezra read that part of the letter in the morning and ran down to fix it before I was even awake. Then he came upstairs again, laughing, and woke me, saying, “Mommy, you should have seen what Tootho did!”

Needless to say, Ezra (and Finn) loved the drawings of Tootho’s Worm Dragon. Here’s the one the Tooth Fairy drew on the chalkboard in the kitchen.

And here’s my boy showing off his letter.

As a side note, Ezra told Bruce that he didn’t think Tootho actually signed his name because the “h” was going the right direction. He remembered from Tootho’s previous correspondence that the “h” was backwards. Bruce, thinking quickly on his feet, said Tootho must have learned how to write it correctly. Pretty good for pre-7:00 a.m.!

Ezra turned eight on Monday and this year we finally dove into elementary school parties with a joint Lego party with his friend, Jack, whose birthday was Saturday. The party was — at Jack’s request — on Sunday, the day in between both birthdays.

We hired the company that put on a Lego camp that Jack and Ezra attended in January. The “teacher” put on a little class for the kids and then they got to build machines to battle on the battle track.

Here are his very fancy Ninjago samples.

The kids loved the building, I think especially because he had pieces to motorize their creations.

Here are the birthday boys — very busy.

Of course, Bruce did some building, too. But his super machine was a colossal disappointment.

Here’s his battle against Finn’s machine.

After all the battling, the kids did a great job cleaning up. Ezra took a quiet moment to peruse the teacher’s Star Wars Lego magazine.

Pretty soon it was time for singing and cake. Jack’s mom made cupcakes; I made the chocolate Lego bricks and minifigures for the tops.

There was the normal amount of after-cake backyard craziness.

And then it was time for the kids to go home. A couple — Jenner and Ruby — stuck around and helped Ezra open his gifts. I was worried about him opening his presents when I wasn’t available to watch, so I told him he had to make a list so that he could do thank you notes. He surprised me by just writing the notes as he opened the gifts. They are brief, but awesome.

My favorite is that last one to Jack. He gave Ezra the Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots game. When I told Ezra what it was called he said, “I don’t want to write all that” and went on with his playing. Can’t really blame him, I guess.

On Monday night, we had a little family celebration with Ezra’s favorite — In-n-Out burgers — for dinner and his pick of candy apples in lieu of cake.

He opened presents from us and the Becks and was the happiest eight-year-old on the planet with some new Lego sets.

Needless to say, he’s done a lot of building after school the last two days.

Happy Birthday, my sweet boy.

(More pictures here.)

Ezra had a play date with his friend Jenner this afternoon after school. They played inside and outside, and although both Bruce and I were home, we weren’t watching them the whole time. This evening when I went to use bathroom upstairs something had obviously gone on in there. The toilet seat was up and the toilet paper was pulled on the roll into the toilet. I got a little nervous about the potential flood, but broke the piece off and successfully flushed the toilet.

A little later, Finn said, “Mommy, do you know why there’s not much toilet paper left on the roll?” He proceeded to tell me how Ezra and Jenner had put the paper into the toilet and flushed so they could watch it unravel into the toilet. Needless to say, I found Ezra and told him not to do it again.

But then I asked him where he got that idea. After hemming and hawing for a while, he finally whispered, “Calvin and Hobbes.”

A little while after that I found this List of Fun he’d written out for the play date.

I love that it says not to do the toilet paper flush thing again. You might think that was added later because of my directive, but in fact, it’s because it wasn’t as great as Calvin and Hobbes made it out to be. Ezra said the toilet paper didn’t come off the roll very fast and it wasn’t much fun. Thank goodness.

I’m rethinking our decision to introduce Ezra to Calvin and Hobbes.

We have a very special guest blogger today. Ezra would like to share about a Lego microship he built. Take it away, Ezra!

So, first, I found a piece from my Samurai Mech (“Mek”). It was a perfect piece for a microship.

Next, I gathered pieces: two plates and two transparent pieces for the cockpit. Then I started putting them together. I started with the main piece, then I got a yellow piece. I put it inside the slit that there was. Then I put the red piece over it so it was held on.

Then I built the cockpit. At first it was just the two transparent pieces and a small slope. I put the slope over both transparent pieces. I put it on the ship. Then I thought, “That doesn’t look too good. I need another piece.” I found another piece to add detail. I put the cockpit right at the end of the piece.

Then I thought, “Hmmm, it needs details.” I found two dragon blades, two joy sticks and two pieces the dragon blades and joy sticks could fit onto. I put them on the two remaining studs on the piece from the Samurai Mech. Then I put on the dragon blades and the joy sticks. (The joy sticks were easy to find because I never use them.)

Next I gathered pieces for a tail fin. I found two pieces that could be a perfect tail fin. They were both blue. They have no stickers, although they used to have stickers. I took one off and then I thought, “Wait, I shouldn’t do this because that was part of another one of my inventions that a minifigure could go on.” But then I thought, “Bah! I could just do it because this another one of my microships.”

Then I put a gray grill piece on just in front. Then I found a way to put it on just at the right angle.

So then I thought, “Hmmm I don’t want the engine to overheat. It needs more grills.” Then I found a few pieces. I put them together. Then I put them on a few remaining spaces.

And then I thought, “Hmmm boosters and guns.” I gathered the pieces for the boosters and put them on the two remaining spaces that wouldn’t plug up the cockpit. Those were the final parts of my microship.

So there are boosters, guns, dragon blades to scratch other microships, a tail fin, a cockpit and some grills so it won’t overheat, and some joy sticks to add detail.

Editors Note: Ezra loves to read but hates to write. I think this is a two-part issue: 1) the physical act of writing is difficult for him and 2) he has so many ideas in his head, he can’t keep up when he’s writing and he loses his train of thought. But I want to encourage him to write and help him with the process, so we tried something new this morning — we decided to have him write a guest blog post. He started off writing a draft in his notebook …

… but after the first page he was frustrated and wanted me to write it for him. I decided to enlist the voice memo app on my phone and recorded him telling the story of how he built the ship. I then transcribed it for him and we went back and edited it together. I’m hopeful that having him see his story completed here will encourage him to do more writing in the future. We’ll see!

It’s that time of year for 100th Day of School projects. We learned recently — to our relief and sadness — that they don’t do these projects in third grade so this is Ezra’s last one. And it’s a doozy!

It started from humble beginnings — he became obsessed with collecting bottle caps when we were in Belize over the summer and we brought them home in a ziplock bag. Over the last few months he’s added a few more from the random beer or Mike’s Hard Lemonade consumed at our house. The ziplock bag has been in this, that or the other place in the house until last month when we started talking about what to do for the 100th day project. It was a natural fit, so he started counting to see what he had.

At this point he had 99 caps. Bruce added one more beer cap and they found a couple while they were camping at Joshua Tree recently. A project was born. Now, how to display them …

Bruce suggested we glue them onto a board, but Ezra was insistent that he wanted to be able to move them around and play with them, so glue was out. So Bruce came up with a second idea and built a prototype:

Ezra loved the idea. And so did I because it looked so cool I figured we’d get an art piece out of it! Last weekend, it came to fruition. I don’t have pictures of every step, but after measuring and gluing two pieces of Douglas Fir together, Ezra measured out the grid and marked where they would drill the holes. Then the fun part started — the drill press. Everyone loves using the drill press.

Finn got a turn as well.

Next was some careful sorting. Ezra had decided he wanted to group them by type. The biggest groups were Belikin Beer and Fanta.

Careful placement …

And done! Just waiting for the plexiglass to be screwed on top.

Come Wednesday when he took it to school, he was newly-shorn and very proud of his project.

But we forgot one thing — he needed to put his name on it. He was very excited when I answered yes to his question, “Can I write it any way I want?”

On Thursday afternoon they displayed all the projects for families to come see. I’m always amazed by the creativity! Here’s Ezra’s with notes from his classmates. Very sweet.

I have a few more pictures so here’s a slideshow.

For a couple of weeks now Ezra has been asking for a haircut. I think it’s because he doesn’t like to have his hair washed, and we’ve had a few warm days and that mop of his gets pretty hot. But this week he went the extra step and asked if he could shave it off so it would look like Bruce’s. I put him off as long as I could, but he was pretty insistent. Today was the day.

First, the before pictures. He was looking pretty shaggy.

During …

That’s a lot of hair.

And here are the after pics. I made him take one with a regular face and then let him do whatever he wanted for the others.

Sorry, Jamma. It was his choice. (And you still have Finn, who refuses a haircut altogether now.)