Retaliation

Ezra is growing up. No, he's not crawling yet. None of that craziness. But at this rate I think his motivation for crawling will be that he's mad at Levi and trying to get him. Levi loves to play with Ezra. He wants Ezra to play toys with him all the time, and he's pretty good about sharing with Ezra. The problem is that Ezra doesn't play by the rules. Neither do I, for alas I'm a girl, but Levi can explain the rules to me and I try to modify my playing accordingly. This does not work with Ezra (obviously, because he's a baby), and Levi, who I usually think operates on the bright side of the bulb, so to speak, is not a quick learner when it comes to this.

You see, there's something many people do not know about laid back, calm, usually motionless Baby Ezra: Baby Ezra has catlike reflexes. Matched with the fact that he also has opposable thumbs ... well, watch out, 'cause he just learned that he's got thumbs, and he's not afraid to use them.

The other day, Levi took a car away from Ezra. Before Levi was out of arm's reach, Ezra lashed out and grabbed Levi's cheek with his whole hand. I kid you not -- I am the mother who had to pry one son's cheek out of the other's grasp. Then, a couple days later, when Levi was trying to tell Ezra to do something different with his car, Levi made the mistake of taking the car out of Ezra's hand again ... this time, Ezra grabbed Levi's ear, and Levi was none-so-happy about that. He sat there, shrieking, "Mom, Baby Ezra has my ear! Tell him no! A time out!" until I came to the rescue, instructed Levi to give Ezra the car back, and not until then did Ezra let go of said ear. Today, Ezra painfully removed a clump of Levi's hair. He grabbed it in his little, tiny, chubby-fingered pincer grasp, Levi yanked away, and Z was left with a pincerful of approximately 5 hairs. And he giggled about it. So there, Levi. There's a new kid on the block, and he's got opinions, too. AND thumbs. Snap.