no pictures in this one

I still don't have a working camera, so I don't have any updated pictures to put up of Ezekiel. It is really unfortunate, but what can you do?

Ezekiel has been having some rough times - actually, you know, I think Ezekiel has been having loads of fun and just is enjoying giving US a rough time. He is King of Tantrums lately. Really bad, really loud, really long ones. I have at least figured out where they are stemming from though. They are really coming for two reasons. The first is because he is getting all four of his two-year-old molars at the same time. I know the poor baby is in pain; he just wants to make sure that everyone in the neighborhood knows he is in pain. The other reason is because I sincerely believe that he is frustrated that he isn't able to do everything we do. He really thinks that he is a little man. We have always treated him as an equal, and now he is letting us know that he doesn't like it when he isn't treated like an equal. That is proving to be really tough. For example, last weekend I noticed that he was really watching people, then he would pull his Nuk (pacifier) out of his mouth and take a look at it and get this look like "where is everyone else's Nuk?" Well, he must have decided that he didn't want to be the only one with a Nuk because he gave it up cold turkey. Last Sunday while I was putting him to bed I asked him "do you want your Nuk?" and he said yes, he stuck it in his mouth, waited for a couple of minutes and said "noooo. no Nuk-Nuk for mama, no Nuk-Nuk for mine" and he spit it out and refuses to take one now. So now he has to learn how to self-comfort in a different way. It is really, really rough. Last night he woke up at 3am screaming (SCREAMING) and wouldn't go back to bed or calm down until 7:30 this morning. Another thing that he has noticed is that we don't wear diapers. So he doesn't want to wear his diaper to bed. Doesn't want to is putting it nicely - he refuses to wear his diaper to bed. So he pee-pees the bed and it is very frustrating, but we just wait until he is nice and passed out and then we diaper him. He is incredibly strong willed, which I believe will serve him well as an adult, but it is certainly difficult to spar with him.

This year, we didn't bring him trick-or-treating. We actually couldn't find a costume in his size in any of the local stores! It was awesome though, on Halloween day, we got a package from Jack and Angie and inside there was a Halloween shirt and some kitty-cat socks that light up. He wore the shirt all day and was our baby-pumpkin. And the socks? They are really starting to stink ... he has to wear them every day. He likes best when we go for rides at night and he kicks the passenger seat and lights them up.

He's doing quite a bit of talking lately. His favorite word is probably "Helf" which is "Help". He says "helf, helf" all the time. He says "Pee-ZAH" for pizza; "cookie" he says perfectly (we bought him a cookie at Tim Horton's once, so now every time we drive past there he says "Cookie??"). He says "cow", "moon" (Daddy and Ezekiel sneak out sometimes to look at the sky and Ezekiel comes back in all excited and tells me "Moon!! Sky!!!). He says "sheep", "zebra" or "dee-bra" (Marty read him this book that says that the zebra says 'neigh-HAY-HAY' so now Ezekiel tells us that his dee-bra says nay-hay-hay-nay). He still calls Marty 'Marty' when trying to get his attention, or when he is frustrated with him. Pretty much he says any word that you will say. He loves to copy (thusly, I'm still paying for the day when I exclaimed "CRAP" as now that is one of his favorite words). He can tell you "eye" while poking you in the eye...same for hair, forehead, nose (although that is more of a honk of the nose while he says "nos") mouth, teeth, ear, cheek, belly, nipple (he has nipple-eczema so I'd always say "let me put this cream on your nipple..now he knows nipple), toes, feet, legs, and hands. He knows his colors of brown, green, yellow, blue, orange, and red. His favorite books are still by Sandra Boynton (I can recite a few by heart). He loves Dora, Diego, and the Backyardigans. He hates his jacket. He manages to stay a healthy weight without eating (34 pounds!).

And my favorite..when Marty gets home from work, no matter what he is doing he drops it and runs top speed into Marty's arms and gives him the biggest hug and kiss ever. It makes it all awesomely wonderful.