Every Little Wonder

A couple weeks ago, Ezra said his first real word: car. Or “Ca! Ca! Ca!” shouted at every car that drove past us as we were sitting outside of Starbucks on a Sunday morning. The next day, he ran up to me as I was cooking dinner and started pointing wildly at the block of cheese on the counter and making the sign for ‘eat’ while saying “shees! shees!” Car and cheese. That pretty much sums up the priorities in his life right now. I could pretty much die from how adorable he is when he’s getting all excited over cars and cheese.

When I was pregnant, I promised myself that I wasn’t going to freak out over milestone stuff—that whether my baby was fast or slow at walking or rolling over or talking or whatever, it wouldn’t be a big deal, because it all works out in the end and there’s no use stressing over it. Come kindergarten, it doesn’t really matter who was running across the living room at nine months and who was taking their first timid steps at fifteen months.

I’ve been pretty good about this so far. Mostly. But all the froufrou ‘what, me worry?’ nonsense meant nothing when all the baby development guidelines were telling me my 15-month-old son should be saying at least three words and I knew he wasn’t saying any. Or when my friend’s eight-month-old was already saying mama and dada .

So maybe I was freaking out. A little bit. But I tried to keep it down because obviously Ezra is a crazy awesome genius. He’s smart and social and expressive and he babbles all the time omg nonstop and his receptive vocabulary is pretty darn huge. Deep breath, lady.

So I just kept waiting. And waiting. And waiting.

And then when he was happily yelling at the cars, I didn’t even realize it at first. He was pointing at every car and it still took me forever to connect the dots. Oh! Car! He’s saying car! And I realized that he’s been making that sound a lot lately so… I just totally missed it. I have no idea what other words I’ve missed—he’s being raised bilingually so I wouldn’t even understand any Spanish words he tried to say. And now I feel like a bit of an idiot.

But my kid? He’s a frikken’ genius.

BONUS VIDEO for making it to the end of this post: Ezra ‘talking’ on the ‘phone’:

Well, it’s January 4th and I’m finally ready to resurface. Our trip to visit my family in Arizona the week before Christmas led the the somewhat shocking and disorienting discovery that they don’t have internet access. Seriously, there wasn’t even a Starbucks within 20 miles to seek refuge in. Oh, desert. You slay me.

I haven’t seen this half of my family since the baby was a few days old (what? wasn’t that just yesterday?). I loved getting to see my siblings. I miss them like crazy and they’re getting all tall and big like real people. It makes me feel so old. My dad was happy to see his grandson but he was more happy to watch a lot of really awful daytime tv for endless hours with the volume turned up to 11 (more like thirty-something on their tv but…you get the point), so that was that. A little disappointing and depressing, but I didn’t except much more to be honest. Between the stupid tv and the lack of internet and the middle-of-nowhereness, it was the most uneventful trip I’ve ever had. Lots of sitting around, wondering if we would get a chance to do anything besides chase the baby through a very large, very not-babyproofed house with things like stairs and razor blades and old dishes lying everywhere.

The baby handled the flights like a champ. He was a screaming mess in the airport, which scared everyone but also led to us getting the one empty seat on the way there. And then as soon as the engine started, he passed out for over an hour, and then woke up to eat snacks and watch Yo Gabba Gabba on the iphone and then act all cute and charming with the neighbors. Of course, right as the ‘fasten seatbealts’ light came on toward the end, he pooped. Like, major stinky poop. I’m sure the surrounding passengers didn’t love that part.

After we got home, we went to Cris’s family for a late Christmas celebration, then we had our own mini-Christmas the next evening, and then we spent this last weekend at mom’s for the fourth and final Christmas.

And now the holidays are over and I have a To Do list that’s a mile long, about 9,000,000,000 unread items in Reader, and all the things I was planning to have in place by the first are just starting to get worked on. But I’ve also got a Starbucks drink in hand, so let’s do this ish.

Ezra is amazing.

It’s such a crazy age, right around now. He wants to be everywhere, at once, and he usually succeeds. Nothing is interesting for more than a few seconds. He loves food one day and hates it the next. He has a constant death grip on one of my fingers and he never wants to be alone and he wants to play in the cat food or bang things on the tv or stand at the front door and jiggle the knob (He can reach the knob now? Wait, what? When did this happen?). He’s teething, like all the time, 24/7, hardcore. It makes him fussy and whimpery, but he’s handling it way better than I would, so I can’t even complain. I don’t want him to watch much tv, you know, but sometimes I just wish he would anyway. I wish I could just curl up on the couch with him and watch—I don’t even care. Thomas and Friends or Dora or whatever, anything, just so we could sit still for more than 30 seconds. But TV is so boring, mom!, and there’s a ball of loose cat fuzz on the carpet that needs to be inspected and DVDs that need be thrown off the shelf and…here we go, nonstop party time, and didn’t you know, naps are for babies, mom!, let’s go go go!

But, goodness, he’s just delightful. He’s finally starting to walk, little cautious steps, looking for approval the whole way. He stops to clap for himself after a few steps and squeals with delight. He’s so happy, so loving, so sweet. So full of excitement and laughter. He sings along and dances and claps whenever he hears music. He plays pat-a-cake games and chases the cats down so he can hug them and he growls like a monster when we’re having tickle fights. He’s a charmer, a total flirt with the grandmas in the grocery store aisles. He loves staring at our faces and trying to figure out where the nose is, the eyes, the mouth… he loves his belly button and he loves having his head rubbed and his ears cleaned. He’s obsessed with brushing his teeth, or at least with chewing on the toothbrush for hours.

And sometimes, right in the middle of the baby-step-taking, cat-chasing, teeth-brushing, dirt-eating, breathless-laughing, living-room-destroying, nonstop BabyPartyFest, he comes up to me and wraps his little arms around me and plants a big juicy kiss on my face and buries his head in my neck, and…yeah. I knew when I had a kid that I would love him like crazy of course, but I didn’t expect it to come in fits and starts like this. One minute you’re on the ground playing with a toy car and trying to figure out what to make for dinner and thinking about how tired you are and all the bills that need to paid and who’s going to clean the dishes and and and… and then bam, a tiny crazy monkey baby is dangling from your neck and mushing his face up against yours and suddenly you can’t even breathe because you’re heart is just exploding right out of your chest.

Holy guacamole, Batman. Ezra turns 9 months old tomorrow. This aging thing? It keeps happening? Like, forever? I’m not sure I can handle it.

For some totally weird and mysterious reason, I became interested in baby blogs somewhere right around the time I gave birth to my very own baby. Crazy, right? Unsurprisingly, I’ve ended up with quite a few blogs in my reader that are all about babies who are right around Ezra’s age. Except for the random blog comment, I don’t actually talk to any of these moms—that would be ridiculous and scary!—but it’s weirdly comforting to see all these other mothers going through the same things at the same time. Whenever I’m being crazy or overwhelmed or worried, there’s usually something on one of these blogs that calms me down a bit.

Anyway, here are some of Ezra’s internet almost-twins AKA the babies who have turned me into a creepy internet stalker:

Wyatt @ I Rock So What

Harrison @ Heir to Blair

Dee @ The818

Ruby @ Smile and Wave

Adorable, right? Like, uterus-achingly adorable.

I want:

1. some homemade steak tacos
2. Girl’s Gone Child’s fabulous new 1920s spanish style home
3. a fantastic little herb garden to call my own
4. this Let’s Make Out pillow
5. Scarlett Johansson’s body. And that hair.
6. And then this bikini
7. And a trip here
8. some homemade pudding cups
9. a dog the size of a bear
10. and a really cute baby

One of of 10… not too bad, I guess.

These the the top ten baby items I couldn’t have survived the last five months without!

1. Aden + Anais Muslin Wraps : We have a million blankets, but these wraps are awesomest. For the first four months, Ezra wouldn’t sleep unless he was tightly swaddled up like a baby burrito. The Aden + Anais wraps were the only ones large enough to wrap our fiesty, fidgety baby in comfortably, and they can used for tummy time or to cover a stroller or even as a nursing cover. And they are beautiful and soft and comfy and BLAH BLAH BLAH I am in love with them. They are pricey, but totally worth it. Ooh, and the dream blanket? That thing is fantastic. I want one for myself.
2. Soothe & Glow Seahorse: This little seahorse is lovely and soothing and plays beautiful, relaxing music that doesn’t sound tinny or obnoxious in any way. When we lay Ezra in his crib at night we start this, and five minutes later, the music fades away and our baby is fast asleep. Most nights.
3. Sophie the Giraffe: Okay, yeah, I felt a little dumb spending almost $20 a stupid rubber giraffe but I had seen in recommended so many places that I caved. THANK GOD. Ezra loves this guy. Especially chewing on his face. It’s cute. And drooly.
4. Moby Wrap : I loooove carrying Ezra in this. He’s always hated being alone, and once I got over the initial learning curve, I would hold him in here and it was the only way I could manage to get anything done. We’re using it a little less as he gets bigger, but I don’t know what I would have done the first four months without it.
5. the swaddleme : Once Ezra started getting too BIG AND STRONG to be contained by a mere blanket, this was a lifesaver at night. We got the miracle blanket too, but it mostly sat in a pile all alone and unloved because the swaddleme was just so much nicer to deal with.
6. Baby Einstein Take Along Tunes : This thing is like baby crack. Push the button and Ezra will immediately stop whatever he’s doing and stare at this thing, mesmerized by the lights and pleasant-sounding music. He also enjoys trying to eat it.
7. Graco Sweet Slumber Sound Machine: My mom bought this for Ezra at Christmas and it’s been great. We use the soft light and lullaby songs as we’re getting him ready for bed, and then the gentle white noise to help him fall and stay asleep. It also plays music from the ipod, for the occasional spontaneous stuffed animal dance party!
8. BabySmart Cooshee Changer : This is the best changing pad EVAR. It is warm and soft and comfy, but also totally wipeable (very important for a boy who took every diaper change as an opportunity to PEE IN YOUR FACE). Not having to wash a million changing pad covers has been so nice.
9. Graco SnugRider Car Seat Stroller I am dreading the day when Ezra grows out his infant car seat and we have to deal with a real stroller. This is so, so much easier.
10. JJ Cole Bundle Me Lite : This was the perfect weight for taking walking in our chilly-but-not-too-cold Alameda weather, and a million times better than trying to keep blankets covering Fidget McFidgetyPants here.