Livin' the Dream

Saturday, July 13, 2013

Coming up on 2!

Hello! Long time, no update. Believe me, this is purely for lack of time, not lack of material. Henry is truly growing and thriving and keeping us busy, busy, busy! I can't properly recollect each small milestone he's achieved since the last post, so I'll let you know what life is like with HRB these days.

At 23 months, like Forrest Gump, wherever he goes he is RUNNING. He will walk when holding hands with a parent, but given any open space the speed is turned on. As active as he is, he is also perfectly content to lie on his belly with some crayons and a coloring book for awhile, or "vroom vroom" his FP Little People cars across the rug, or "woo woo" his trains around the tracks. He also really enjoys working in his kitchen and LOVES reading his books. Today I caught him paging through his Little Michigan book (a favorite as we prepare to visit in just 2 weeks!) and he is basically reading it to himself by now. Apples, tweet-tweets, yishies (fishies), and deer that go "neigh" are all immediately identified now.

Henry is a talking machine, and while we aren't quite hearing real sentences just yet, he is eager to learn words and will gladly repeat what we ask him to say. Last weekend he pointed to a picture of our wedding kiss, and said "Mommy Dada bye-bye" and then made an air kiss (with his little fish face.) I'm pretty sure he was telling us we were kissing goodbye. He also speaks a lot of toddler gibberish still, which sometimes can be quite animated and interesting. I love when I "answer" back to him and he nods and chuckles a little, like I got the joke. Lately he's been saying "all RIGHT!" when he's happy about something. We try to get him to do a thumbs up when he says it but he's still working on that.

This kid would live outside 100% of the time if we'd let him. He is always asking to go "my yide" and pointing to the back door. He loves to help water my potted plants and find sticks and rocks around the yard. He also absolutely adores water in all forms. When we water the plants, he likes to put his hand in the hose stream as we fill up the watering can. He will never turn down an invitation to go to the pool and leaving the pool is always traumatic, no matter how pruny he is. He has splash day at school every Friday and his teachers report he enjoys it the most out of his classmates. We met some friends at a splash pad a couple of weekends ago and he was in heaven. We are really looking forward to seeing his reaction to riding on the boat and playing in the pool at the cabin soon.

Henry is still obsessed with the "bow-wow" or "Yacy", "Cucker", and the other cat. For some reason, Sam isn't a name he wants to learn. Neither is Henry, for that matter. He and Lacy chase each other around the house (he does 99% of the chasing) and he giggles the whole time. Lacy doesn't giggle, but she still gets plenty of scraps from his leftovers and he does a great job replenishing her dog food, so I think we are getting along just fine.

Now for the photographic evidence!

Discussing the sea lion show with Mommy at the zoo

Smiling at the giraffes

Riding the zoo train super enthusiastically

The Sextons came to visit and guess who was Henry's favorite?

Parker, Abby, Avery, Mommy, and Henry

Montessori children hanging out

Waiting for his first fireworks show

The waiting is the hardest part

Insisting on toplessness at the neighborhood 4th of July party

Waiting to go on a ride at Elitch Gardens for Daddy's work picnic

Riding the woo-woo

Extreme close-up on the Ferris wheel by Dada

First ice cream cone

Stoically riding the carousel (he IS my son!)

Learning to drum with Nana in Vail in April

A Friday dinner at Old Chicago during a spring blizzard

Toddler drama is the most dramatic

Ready for take-your-kid-to-work day

Walking with Dada in Vail

Celebrating early spring on the deck

Helping clean up the yard for spring

Walking the plank at a playground in Vail in June

Exploring the Boulder Creek Festival

My typical view on a hike

Discovering the Muppet Movie (!)

Brunch after the zoo

Loving on Lacy (and Mommy's old Donald Duck hat)

It was a harsh but necessary haircut

Splash pad fun

Goofing around in the morning

Oh yeah, there's also this (10 weeks)

12 weeks - guess HRB won't be the only subject of this blog for long :-)

Sunday, March 3, 2013

18 Months and Catch Up!

We are actually closing in on 19 months but I will just pretend time isn't moving as fast as it appears to be these days. We have had a lot of routine change and growth in the past few months, as Aunt Hannah was here for seven weeks, playing nanny to Henry and spending some time with all of us. I wondered how it might change anything for Henry, but he has only thrived and been a champion transitioner. He has picked up quite a few new words, expressions, and skills, and I'm certain he'll go back to school tomorrow and impress all his teachers. (Chad and Hannah took him to visit his school on Friday afternoon to ease the transition a bit, and they all remarked about how tall he's gotten!)

Speaking of growth, we finally did a little sleep-training just prior to Hannah's arrival and it worked wonders. He had been waking up and joining us in bed around 1am, and demanding milk every hour or so and something had to give, so I did Supernanny's technique and it worked like a charm on him. We are now getting into a bit of 18 month sleep regression, which his doctor warned us about, but he's still going down just fine at night and sleeping until at least 4 on the regular, so we'll take it.

We also had a much-needed visit from Gramma, Aunt Molly, and Cousin Annie in February. We didn't do much of anything but sit around and enjoy being in the same room for the first time since 2010.

What Henry's up to these days: RUNNING, stringing 3-4 syllables together when he's in a talky mood, playing with his kitchen (today Daddy taught him how to shake salt and pepper and he loves pouring coffee for everyone), trains, trucks, balls, talking to and covering his stuffed animals with blankets, climbing, slides, bubbles, coloring/drawing, reading reading and more reading, animals and animal sounds, newspapers and magazines, chasing and hugging and draping items on our pets, and mimicking most things we do (including Mommy biting her fingernails this morning - oops.)

Oh, and at his 18 month check up he measured at the 49.8th percentile in weight (woo!) and around 30th for height. He also displayed typical 18 month behavior by acting quite offended by the doctor trying to get anywhere near his body, but he handled his shots just fine and we all made it out alive.

I have heard people say it just keeps getting better with kids, but man, it's true with this one. I don't know if I had any preconception of what my favorite age would be, but so far on this ride it's consistently been his current age that I love the most. I really love now seeing glimpses of the boy he is becoming, and watching his little personality develop. He has such a great sense of humor, is so laid back in general, and he's so smart. He's still going through typical toddler phases, such as fear of loud noises and stranger danger, but overall he's completely adaptable and loving life. And so are we.