Ezra – Himself

It’s hard to think of Ezra without describing him largely in contrasts to Judah. Their personality differences are as drastic as their physical differences. Judah is very loud; Ezra not so much. Judah is very intense: Ezra not so much. Judah is easily scolded; Ezra not so much. Judah is inclined to hysterics; Ezra not so much. Judah loves to play board/card games; Ezra just watches. They are still best playmates, however. Especially in outdoor activities, Ezra seems follow Judah’s lead, and they enjoy their dirt/mud pit in the backyard (running water in it to make it a river, building dams, digging deaper, etc), riding their bikes up and down our road, and discovering treasures on our hillside. Although Judah loves to be a big brother to Monica, Ezra is more specifically her playmate. Ezra doesn’t like to play most board or card games. While Judah will play them and be heartbroken when he loses (but want to play again), Ezra merely decides not to play if he probably won’t win. He likes to watch Judah play board games himself (with a running commentary, of course) and also to watch Judah draw battles. Lately he has started drawing more himself, as well – also battles, with little stick figures with shields and stairstepped battlefields – with airplanes and helicoptors flying overhead.

In the last month or so, Ezra surprised me by deciding that he wanted to learn how to read! He started asking me if we could “read words” together, and I was pleased to discover that he’s actually pretty good at blending sounds together. He only needs to read a word a few times before he starts to recognize it. And the motivation to do this is largely coming from him. He was quite put out with me last week on Thursday when I forgot to do his reading with him. Part of the problem was that I did school with Judah, and made sure to have a book-reading time with Monica, but spaced his reading lesson until too late – so he felt left out, poor guy. But he was also disappointed when I told him that we were on break from school this week – and relieved when I told him we could still do reading together if he wanted to.(which we did this morning) Such a strange child! Speaking of strange, the other day he asked me if he could eat something. Feeling lazier even than usual, I offered to let him eat some of his own candy, which he can get down by himself. That didn’t serve so I offered chips (which we don’t normally have around, but did that day, easily accessible and usually appealing!). He came back to me a few minutes later and said, “Mom, can I have something to eat other than candy or chips?” I stared at him in disbelief and falteringly offered… an apple? “Yeah!” And I did then actually get up and cut it up for him – some requests are hard to ignore!