Henry is 3 today, and for the past week has been announcing that fact to anyone who will listen. His preschool is having summer break this week, so he had his school party last Friday: a parade in his honor, followed by strawberry shortcake and dancing.
Tonight: celebration with Mommy and Daddy. This weekend: celebration with Grandma, aunt, uncle, and cousins! More photos soon.
One of the most exciting events lately (aside from Aunt J’s wedding, about which more later) was visits from all of Henry’s cousins on both sides in April. Even more exciting is the fact that cousins Jose and Nicolas will be moving here later this summer. It’s certainly fun to see Henry and Jose (9 months apart) playing together. Of course, it is not always blissful, and their fighting styles (here: over who gets to hide for “Hide and Seek” prove that they are both the spitting image of their mamas–notice who digs in his heels and refuses to give in, and who runs crying for mommy…
But the sweet moments outweigh those by a mile…
Yeah, it’s hard to keep up with posting about the little dude while actually raising him, but this summer I’m going to try to catch up again.
I know this question has been plaguing you all. Here’s Henry’s take, as explained to me in the car yesterday.
Henry: I see turtles at the zoo!
Mommy: Yes, we did see turtles at the zoo, didn’t we?
H: Turtles in the water!
M: Yes, the turtles were swimming in the lake.
H: Turtles all wet.
M: Yes, sweetie, the turtles got all wet.
H: [long pause, very solemn] Turtles want a towel.
You learn something new every day. Although I am the sort of person who wonders about all kinds of completely random things, it had never occurred to me to wonder about how marine mammals sleep. And then my husband brought home this book for our son. It’s a beautiful look at all the different ways the animals manage to sleep in the ocean, with a little child dreaming of sleeping alongside them.
Dolphins sleep with one eye open for protection, and take turns having awake dolphins swim in circles around the rest. Whale babies sleep in the wake of the mother’s flipper and are carried along in the current. Sea otters wrap themselves in kelp to keep themselves from drifting away in the water, and put their paws on their faces to keep them warm. And the little child sleeps beside them in his kelpy blanket.
What does my baby dream, after reading this book before bed, carefully covered with a blue flannel blanket to keep him from drifting too far away from us?
We’re making real progress here with sentences, especially those beginning with “I”–”I running,” “I screaming,” “I see horsies,” “I try potty,” “I no want juice.” He is also quite good with “my.” But we haven’t quite grasped the objective case yet, so instead of “hold me” or “catch me,” he says, “Mommy catch you on the slide,” or simply, and most often, ”Hold you!” reaching his little arms out plaintively. There is something so heart-melting about the phrase, as if he is simultaneously asking to be held and offering to hold you. And when I pick him up, he wraps his little arms and legs around me and holds on tightly (like the baby joey in his “kay-ala” book), and it is as much a comfort to me as to him.
And in the night when he is sleeping, I turn to his daddy and say, “Hold you.” And he does.
[Note from Mommy: while we were actually at the zoo, Henry seemed entirely unimpressed, until the end when we got to the playground and he ran laps around it for about 45 minutes, with periodic breaks to go down the slide. But here's what he popped out with as soon as we got home, and has been saying ever since.]
I see baboons. I see elephants. Elephants eating grass. Lions not scary. Don’t touch ‘em. Mommy lion sleeping. Rarr! I see monkeys. Monkeys noisy. I pat goats. I brush goats.
[Click on any of the pics to take you to the full Flickr album.]
Daddy is out of town this week, dodging earthquakes in Silicon Valley, but Mommy and Henry had a good Halloween. Henry wore his monkey suit to school.
In the evening we were joined by Grandma, Henry’s friend Lily, Lily’s mommy, and several other friends for trick or treating.
Henry loved holding out his bag and having people put things in it.
Fortunately, he does not seem to have realized the pretty colored packages contain edible items, and Mommy isn’t planning to clue him in, so Daddy will have lots of treats awaiting him on his return.
Oh, and our most exciting treat of all! Henry has a new baby cousin in Chicago!!!!!
For the past few weeks, since Daddy and Henry came back from visiting the grandparents “in ‘Hio”, we’ve been having a lot of separation anxiety and night drama. Lately that’s meant me hanging out in Henry’s room, going from rocking to patting him in his crib to just standing next to his crib until he’s totally asleep, lest he respond to my leaving the room with plaintive cries of “Mommy! Mommy!” But last night, after the usual routine of bath, stories, and rocking, I put him down in the crib. My first attempt to leave the room didn’t go so well, but after I came back, patted him a bit more, and then stood by the crib, he announced, “Go. Mommy go.” So I did, after saying good night, and he drifted quietly off to sleep.
Will wonders never cease?
Our current bedtime routine is that we read books in mommy and dada’s bed for a while, then turn out the light and lie down while mommy sings. Tonight, I was reading him the “Kay-wa book” (a book about koalas we got at the San Diego Zoo), and after I read the page about how the baby joey holds on to his mama’s back tightly, Henry jumps up from my lap and walks over to the headboard, wraps his arms around me and says, “Tightly!”
Then, when I was singing to him, he sang along with “Hobo’s Lullaby.” “Go sleep ooweary HOBO, la la la la la BY…”
