Henry Update

• We are sad that summer is winding down and are trying to squeeze in as many pool visits as possible. Henry starts squealing when he sees the pool, he is so cute. He loves to play with the other kids. Today he was sticking his hand up for the lifeguard to touch about a thousand times. Thankfully the lifeguard thought he was cute and played along.
• Henry was exposed to the CHICKEN POX at his playgroup on Tuesday. I'll keep you posted on my spot watch.
• I have started planning Henry's first birthday party (gasp!). It is tentatively scheduled for October 14th, around noon. Of course any regular blog readers don't need an invitation! If you are in the neighborhood feel free to come! It is turning into quite the extravaganza.
• Henry's sleeping has been a NIGHTMARE. He either wakes up screaming and can't be consoled or he has insomnia. He cries so hard that he is climbing up my chest. I think it is his teeth. I finally got a peek into his mouth yesterday and he has SIX teeth coming in. Poor baby. He was up from 3am to 5:30am the other day and refused to go to sleep. I finally let him play on his floor until he crashed. I tried getting him into bed with us but tired of being used as a trampoline and leaving him in his crib alone was dangerous. He slips and bangs his head.
• I am sensing Henry will be a tad bit mischievous. He likes to lean over his high chair when I am crawling on the floor picking up food and pull my hair or drop more food on me. I had to intervene today when he was dangling his sippy cup over my head!
• The day I dreamed about has finally come. Dada is a minor celebrity in the house. Henry cries when he leaves, crawls to the door when he gets home and just loves playing with Adam. He even cried Dada from his crib the other night. I of course capitalized on that by punching Adam in the ribs and saying "Your son is calling you." Heehee I have been waiting for this day!

My little doggie

Well, I guess he was hungry

Now that Henry can crawl, he can entertain himself much better when I am working in the kitchen. He loves to race to the dishwasher as soon as I open it and shake the baskets. He loves to pull things out of the freezer when I open the door or try to get to the salad dressings in the refrigerator. Or, open the garbage can. Or, climb the recycling bin or water cooler. Or, eat food off the floor before I have had a chance to sweep it up. It is MUCH easier to get things done now than when he was just screaming to get out of the exersaucer or bouncy chair.

Yesterday was the weekly pick up from our organic farm share. I had left a bag of produce on the floor which Henry found his way into. Since this was a fairly innocuous activity compared to what he could be doing, I let him have at it. He pulled a peach out of the bag and was eyeing it. He put it up to his mouth and started nibbling at it. I never give him fruit with skin so I figured he wouldn't get anywhere. Lo and behold, in about 10 minutes he had eaten half the peach. He hadn't choked on it, or dropped it on the floor. I took it away from him at one point because he had so much in his mouth and he started crying. Who knew I would have to take fruit away from my kid? Anyway, he looked so confident, like he has been eating whole fruit out of his hand his entire life.

I was going to raise his allowance!

I usually don't keep the TV on during the day because I like to be out and about. Yesterday I was totally exhausted because Henry had been up a lot the night before. At 4PM I decided to see what Oprah had to say and veg out a little on the couch while Henry played.

The topic was the conflict of women deciding to work or not when they have kids. Elizabeth Vargas was on discussing her decision to leave World News Tonight for family related reasons. Henry was now sitting in my lap eating a graham cracker (too cute) and Oprah said "Stay at home moms have the toughest job there is." Right after she said this Henry burst into applause. I looked down at my little angel and was just about to compliment him for recognizing the work that I do when I realized that the audience was clapping too. Henry cannot be around clapping without imitating it. Oh well, I have a few years to work on him.

Material for Henry's Therapist

As if Henry didn't have enough issues sleeping...

We were sitting on the beach one day, and Henry was happily taking a nap on a quilt underneath the umbrella. A rogue wave crashed into the seawall, ran up the beach and headed toward the quilt. We jumped up and started dragging the quilt back. In hindsight, neither of us can tell why we didn't just pick him up. Maybe we couldn't get there in time? Maybe we were trying not to wake him up? Who knows.

When we thought we were far enough back, we dropped the quilt. As soon as we did that, the water rushed over Henry's entire body. I looked down and Henry was under water, eyes wide open and screaming. It was horrible. I grabbed him, hit him on the back and he started coughing and crying. He only cried for a minute, but he was clinging to me. He was covered head to toe in sand and I was cleaing sand out of his ears for two days. Luckily there was a FDNY picnic right behind us on the beach and two of the guys leapt to action should we have needed medical assistance.

He went into the bathtub right after, had no problems at the beach the next day and wasn't scared of the pool. He felt a little sick that night and was running a fever, I am sure from the seawater he swallowed. We called his doctor to make sure we shouldn't bring him to the ER or the doctor and she promised he would be OK. She did prescribe some vodka for my nerves!

We just might be the worst parents ever.

Henry's New Tricks

Henry is making leaps developmentally the past few weeks. He is now an expert crawler and is impossible to keep in one room. He loves to scurry down the hallway and make me chase him. If he doesn't hear me coming he waits until he sees me and then darts off again.

He is cruising all of the furniture now and getting much steadier on his feet. He is also starting to climb. He climbed two levels out of the kiddie pool yesterday to go get his towel. Today he climbed up on a bench and then stood up holding onto his toy box.

He found a way to carry toys today but still be on the move. He was crawling around today with a rubber duck shoved in his mouth! He had the entire head in there.

We have also finished our baby proofing for the most part. We have magnetic locks on all cabinets in the kitchen, bathroom and living room. We have stove knob covers, a toilet lock, and foam pieces in all of the doors to prevent them from closing. Grandpa Joe is also in the process of installing plexiglass over the bottom half of our three french doors so that Evil Kneivel doesn't his arm or head through them.

Our First Family Vacation

We went to Montauk last week for our first official family vacation. We stayed in a condo on the beach near town. It was great because it was a duplex with a bedroom upstairs and a deck on the ground floor. We were literally in the dune grass and had a great view of the ocean. We could put Henry to bed and then still make dinner, and hang out on the deck if we wanted. Of course Henry didn't want to miss any action and was a little night owl the entire trip. That was alright with me because it meant he slept until 9am every day. It was such a treat to sleep with the windows open, listening to the waves crash.

We were just steps from the beach, there was a heated pool and we could walk to town. We went to a concert on the village green one night, I ate quite a few lobster rolls and a lot of ice cream, we had a BBQ on the beach and we went to the Montauk lighthouse. It was also great for Adam and Henry to get to spend all day together. You will see the cute wetsuit outfit that Adam bought him one day below while I was out getting a massage. A good time was had by all.