He doesn't miss a thing!

While flying to Florida last week, I got the WORST case of chapped lips. They were actually burning. I had nothing with me so I was trying various remedies. I inconspicously rubbed my finger on the banana I was eating and put some on my lips. I looked over and Henry was now dipping his finger into his banana and rubbing his lips too.

Today Henry wanted me to get something for him from our wall unit (which is locked). I was sitting in our living room chair with my feet up. He walked over to me and extended both of his arms to pull me out of the chair, just like Adam does because of my big belly!

This kid kills me!

Happy Second Birthday Henry!

Dear Henry,

I can't believe you turned two years old today. Every mother I speak to has warned me how fast the time flies, and this has turned out to be true. Although I am sad that you are no longer my little baby, I am very excited to see the little boy that you are becoming. To say that your Daddy and I are proud of you is the understatement of the year.

Although you will not remember the time when you were this young, I hope you will read this one day and know how much we love you. Every day, you wake up with a smile on your face and in turn put a smile on mine. It is such a joy to see how much you love to learn and do new things. I have to keep reminding myself that everything you see is new and exciting to you. It has certainly forced me to slow down and notice the little details of life. You can't pass a flower or a plant without smelling it and making me smell it too. You tell me everytime we pass a dog on the street or a bus drives by. Every week we sit in the window and look down at the garbage trucks. I can never miss the phone or doorbell ringing or the microwave beeping because you run into the room to tell me.

You start the day running and don't stop until your head hits your pillow. We often have to try to put you to bed a few times because you are just too excited to sleep. Your Daddy and I hate to hear you cry so we let you lay on the couch with us until you are really sleepy. Even then, you insist on clapping when the audience on TV claps and bob your little head to the music. We try to be strict, but it always makes us laugh.

You make me catch my breath when you swing from the top bar on the slide or try to climb a ladder by yourself. Just this week you tried to play Superman twice, diving headfirst over a ball! You are so determined to do everything yourself and I have to chase you to even get you dressed. When you are interested in something, it is impossible to break your focus. We stood at the mailbox today for over twenty minutes while you tried to work the little key in the lock. Every time I open the front door you run away and make me chase you. One time you even banged on the neighbor's door, forcing us to make an unexpected social call.

You would drink ten juice boxes a day and watch Elmo all day if I let you. If I tell you that you can't watch Elmo, you ask to watch Dora. Your persistence and ingenuity always make me laugh. Today you climbed up next to the table and scraped all of the icing off the side of your birthday cake. You tried to blame it on your Elmo doll. You get so excited to see your friends and love to have them chase you. I don't think you will ever have a hard time making or keeping friends, you are such a sweet boy.

You hide behind the curtains and try to scare me when you yell "Boo!" You make me kiss all sorts of inanimate objects during the day; last week you made me kiss the vacuum cleaner for some crazy reason. Today we must have lit your birthday candles twenty times just because you asked us to. We probably sang the Happy Birthday song even more times than that, all because you asked. Even though I am eight months pregnant, you still want me to go down the twisty slide after you and wait for me at the bottom laughing. You insist that I sit on your tricycle and try to push me around the house. You can't get a kiss from me without insisting that I kiss your Dad too.

I can't believe what a perfect fit you are for our family and I can't remember a time when we didn't know you. Who knows what we did with all of our spare time before you!

Happy Birthday sweet boy; I can't wait to see what happens this year!

My Little Hypochondriac

Henry has taken a recent interest in medicine, which he calls "MayMay." The only thing he gets is Motrin, but I think he likes the berry flavor. He asks for it almost daily, and of course we tell him no.

He has finally figured out that something needs to hurt to get some, so then he starts his litany of complaints. First he points to his head, and then his teeth and then his stomach. He really blew his cover today when he told me that his Elmo doll needed some for his head too.

Holding His Own

Every day, Henry is less a baby and more a little boy. His language skills are improving and he takes more notice of other kids. He is becoming able to interact and play little games, especially if the kids are slightly older (and bossier).

We went to two parties this weekend: the first a joint birthday party for three of his neighborhood friends, and the second the Baptism of Aly and Carter's new baby Amelia. It was such a trip to watch him run around and socialize, and not need us to direct him or intervene. He got right into the mix of things and wasn't shy or scared at all.

It is fun to see what kind of person he is becoming; he is so sweet and plays really well with other kids. He is great at sharing (I'm sure this will change soon) and taking turns. He doesn't hit or bite and is so good-natured. He is such a great kid and we are so proud of him!

P.S. He is a bit of a party animal. He was chugging juice, demanding cookies and ice cream, bopping to the music and running around. You would think he had been on the party scene for years! He also ate his lunch at the kiddie table which was so cute it almost brought me to tears.

Why I Let My Baby Eat Candy...

Prior to having Henry, I planned on being super strict about him having sweets. My reasoning being that we are shaping his eating habits for a lifetime now, and if we could make it so that he didn't develop a taste for bad stuff, he would be better off.

This plan never took into account a few things. One, that he would be presented with sweets at every turn (ahem Grandpa Joe). Two, that he may or may not have a natural taste for them. Three, and most important, I really like sweets and denying him meant denying myself! I refuse to shove cookies down my throat while hiding in a closet.

So, onto Plan B. My brother has always allowed pretty unrestricted access to sweets without a terrible effect. His two older ones love them and his little one would rather eat fruit. I thought that there might be a middle ground.

Ninety-nine percent of the time, Henry has a great diet. He will eat almost any vegetable, he loves fruit, dairy and is starting to like meat more. He grudgingly drinks his milk everyday and although he adores juice he will happily drink water. So, on the whole we are doing alright.

We love to bake together, so we have lots of homemade goodies around. Actually, I bake and he tries to scarf down as much brown sugar as he can get his hands on while I am not looking. Other than ice cream, he doesn't ever eat any other pre-packaged treats.

Since I have been pregnant this time, I have an insatiable desire for candy like Skittles and M&Ms. As I spend every waking hour with Henry I need to cut him in on my stash or else he will rat me out to the Candy Police (aka Adam, who was reared on sugar-coated everything and has zero interest now. Go figure.)

Once every few weeks, Henry and I share a small bag of candy while walking through Target or heading home from the store. I dole them out to him one at a time and he gets the most beautiful smile on his face. It is like he has never experienced such bliss. We laugh as we eat each one and I make him promise not to tell Dad that we are eating candy (of course he does anyway). When they are almost gone, I give him the warning that we are running low to avoid a fit. Each piece makes him as happy as the first, but when we run out he happily goes back to eating whatever healthy treat he was eating prior.

How could I deny candy to such a sweet boy?

Boy is he going to be surprised!

People are constantly talking to Henry about being a big brother. To be honest, we haven't told him yet because I think the concept is so abstract that "mommy has a baby in her belly." Anyway, were sitting on the couch last night and I decided to see if he knew. I said "Henry, do you know what is in Mama's belly?" He looked at me and shouted "Ya-Ya!" which is his word for candy.

I think he is in for a rude awakening. (And maybe I should lay off the sweets )

Funny New Words

Henry is picking up a million new words lately, but my two new favorites are:

Milp (Milk)
Toup (Soup)

Mama! Mama!

It has been a very exciting few weeks around here language wise. Henry's ability to string together words has really exploded. Most things start with "Dere da" (aka there's a) but it's a start.

Some cute ones...

"Uh Oh... Mama... Dere da spill!" I hear this quite often every day. I never know if it is a full fledged flood or a small drop. I am just glad he tells me. He also darts off for the nearest towel to wipe it up.

"Mama...Dada Burped!" This could either refer to himself or Adam, since they are both Dada

"Mama...In Da Mouth" This is to report on his friend Kaden eating playdough or some other inedible substance while we are not looking. He also mimes an eating motion in case he is not totally clear.

If he wants something or someone has stolen something from him but he doesn't know what to say he looks at me and says "Yeah Yeah Yeah" over and over while vigorously nodding at the offender or object.

If he has nothing to say he uses Mama as an all around place filler. There is no action too small for me to witness. If it weren't so sweet hearing your name repeated four thousand times per day would give you the shakes.

Eureka!

Thus far, I have purposely avoided teaching Henry shapes, colors, numbers, animal noises and letters in a formal way. For a few reasons, but the main one is that I think he has his entire life to be in a "school" environment. For now, I just want him to experiment, experience and have fun without any curriculum to follow. I also want to avoid him just memorizing things without really understanding them.

There is also a school of thought that you can't really "teach" a child anything; they will learn things when they are ready and just by being exposed to different things. Of course, you have days where you doubt your methods but I think everyone just does what they think is right for their child.

He has done a few things lately that have freaked me out. It is amazing to see his little mind absorbing and learning.

1) He isn't exposed to many animals other than dogs. I have purposely avoided teaching him all of the animal noises because what does it really mean to him? If he has never seen a cow, what does it really help him to know that they say "moo?" However, he picked up entirely on his own that a dog says "ruff ruff."

2) He always carries multiple pacifiers. When he has two, he tells me without prompting that he has "two!" He saw two dogs recently and I said "Henry, do you see the dogs?" He looked at them and shouted "two!" Today I asked him how many playdough cookies he had on his plate and he knew that there were two.

3) I started playing the ABC song (without singing the words) on his little piano today and he started singing "Twinkle Twinkle" unprompted (It is the same tune)

4) I asked him if he was going to sing to me for my birthday and he started singing "Row your boat." That one isn't amazing, just funny!

5) He saw us loading a new bottle of olive oil into the grocery cart on Saturday, knew what it was and told us (without us asking)

6) He knows we bake in the mixer, toast in the toaster, make smoothies with the immersion blender, coffee in the coffee maker...He knows to smell vanilla but not drink it, that flour doesn't taste good but sugar does, how to crack an egg, that you need a pot holder for the oven and the microwave...

This kid just kills me!

A New Level of Humiliation

Henry found a chocolate covered rice krispie treat yesterday (Adam had bought it for me at a bake sale) and I was too tired to make him stop eating it. I know I should have drawn the line at the second one on the plate, but I wanted a bite then too. Unfortunately he hid behind a chair and ate that one too. Oops!

Since he had woken up late from his nap I decided to grab lunch at the diner. They have delicious fresh pressed apple juice that I bought for him (bad move #3) which he promptly sucked down. Hello...anyone sensing an impending sugar overload?

Our food was taking an unusually long time and he was getting increasingly "spirited." Trying to jump up in down in the booth, standing in his high chair, throwing things on the floor, throwing things into the next booth... He wasn't being tantrum-y, just very naughty. I told him if he didn't stop we were going to leave, which of course thrilled him and he started to pack up his things...Shoes on, collected his pacifiers, started saying "Bye-Bye"...

Right then, our food arrived and I decided to press on. Of course he just got worse. He refused to eat, was trying to climb out of his chair, and he threw his pacifier at the busboy when he walked by. The last straw was when he took his shoe off and hurled it at the manager as he passed (He actually hit him to make it even worse ). When he turned around Henry was laughing like a little deranged elf. I quickly asked the waitress to pack up our food, paid and then hot-footed it out of there!