Shoe Crazy

Henry loves his shoes. He screams and cries whenever I change his diaper, try to put clothes on him, or take his clothes off. He, however, loves to wear his brown sandals that his grandparents bought for him all day long. I really didn't mind much until he started figuring out how to take one shoe off with the other foot. Now, I'm stuck putting his shoe back on a hundred times per day. All I would hear is "uh-oh, shoe, shoe, shoe, shoe...etc" as he would hobble over to me with one shoe on and one shoe off and patiently wait for me to put it back on. I would watch him walk back over to the carpet, sit down, and pull his shoe back off. Ugh. I had enough! I decided I had to get him some sort of a Croc knockoff. I checked all around, but they were either all out, or didn't carry anything of the sort. During out trip to Niagara Falls this last weekend we ran across a guy selling fake crocs for $5 and I was like "this is exactly what I was looking for!" We found a pair of white, blue and green swirled ones that have an Owl on them -- cool enough for a 18 month old -- and I was totally satisfied...until we got home. I couldn't wait for Henry to be able to take his shoes off and on all by himself. It worked for about a day, then he started moaning. After a few minutes I realized that Henry has inherited my super high, but collapsed arch that gets blistered from every shoe that was ever made (except Chinatown slippers) and that the button that connects the back strap was rubbing him in that very spot. He had his first little blister! Poor little guy:( I tried to tape it, but he just pulled it off. Band-aid - no good. I ripped the blasted thing right out of it's hole and so now there's no strap holding the shoes on!...which means that the shoes fall off everywhere we go...especially the supermarket where we had to retrace out steps 3 times to find a missing shoe. I didn't worry too much about someone stealing Henry's cheap knockoff rubber owl blister causing nightmare slippers anyway. By the way, my real Crocs give me a blister too.

Tomato man

Today I did a little quiz with Henry to see what he could say-about 25 words. He is getting really close to speaking full sentences. His whining is decreasing day by day as he realizes that I respond only to talking. I still have to suggest the words I want him to say, though, instead of him deciding on his own. He's so cute with his "please" though. The other day at the park he was whining for me to take him out of the swing and I always say "all you have to do is say please" and he copies me saying "pleeeeeeease" and all the mothers at the park let out a simultaneous "aaawww so cute". Today he said his first food word! TOMATO!!! I kid you not. He said all three syllables at least three times. Justin and I were rolling on the ground laughing at how fitting that tomato be his first food word since that was his first real food (a taste of gelato in Italy doesn't count). He likes saying the "TO" part. The middle syllable also changed a couple times from "MA" to "BA", but we got the gist of it. We picked our first Heirloom tomatoes today. They weigh about 2 lbs each and are a medium pink color. Seriously yummy and completes the tomato salad we made tonight with yellow, green/yellow striped, red, and pink ones. There isn't anything better on the face of the planet.

Emerging Personality

Henry's personality is becoming more apparent day by day. I wish I could detail all of his funny facial expressions and actions, but they are so diverse and complex that I don't know where to start. Henry loves to laugh and make us laugh. His usual routine to make me laugh is by throwing things while blurting out funny sounds or trying to get me to chase him around the house.

In a book I read about raising children I learned that eye to eye contact and those "special moments" when you and your child are on the same brainwave are some of the most important moments in their development. Those moments make them feel important, understood, loved, and special...more than anything else you do. I try to have those moments all day long with him while we play and learn together.

Henry loves to dance. Haha! I laugh just thinking about his dance moves -- definitely white boy -- and he takes every opportunity he can to dance. His moves usually include swaying back and forth, knees bent, with an occasional spin and his hands in the air. If he does a spin, he stops to look at me knowing I'm impressed and we both say "woh" at the same time. Just recently he's adopted the shoulder shrug. I'm tempted to say he learned it from "Lagaan", my favorite Bollywood movie, but he hasn't seen it yet. He loves to copy me when I do it to him and he thinks it's really funny to see me doing it.

He's also a drama king. If something scares him, he'll breathe really quickly, in and out, saying "woh" over and over and over until he feels safe again. For some reason, however, when the phone rings, he puts on the same show as when he gets scared. I wonder why...? Every time his show comes on, he does his little dance and looks at me a bunch of times to see how excited I am to watch "Signing Time" for the millionth time. He then takes his post on one of the three rocking horses to watch his show. As far as he can tell, I really love it. He is now saying "play" and "please" all the time, which is nice because now his clothes don't get dirty when he signs please by rubbing his dirty hand on his chest all day.

Henry has also just learned about the garbage and I get him to throw away many things during the day to FINALLY satisfy his curiosity. Now that he understands that we only put things in the garbage, not take things out, he loves the game. Every time I tell him to put something in the garbage, I make it out to be something really special and after he successfully opens the door, slides the bucket out, throws something in there, pushes it back in and closes the door again, I whisk him up into a flying toss exclaiming, "good boy Henry!" and "yea!". He loves it. Most of the day, he gets to throw away flies that I have swatted. He also knows the word "dead" and tries his best to say it. He knows when the bugs are dead and that when they are dead, we throw them away.

Henry and I go to parks and pools all the time. Henry is very good in the water and lets us dunk him and throw him around. He goes all the way under the water and comes up choking and coughing up water, but never cries. After about a half hour, his lips turn blue and he gets the chin quiver, but the smile never leaves his face and he's always reluctant to leave the pool. On the playground Henry loves the slide the best. He's now an expert climber and loves to climb to the very top and go down the biggest and longest slide. He also enjoys interaction with other kids. Sometimes we'll meet a really nice older boy who kind of takes Henry under his wing and he loves the attention and I can tell he's learning a lot about boys and how they interact with each other. The swing is also one of his favorites. Especially when I act like he runs into me in the front and I pretend to fly back or fall over while yelling, "ouch!" or "bleh" which makes him laugh hysterically.

His hair is getting really long, but we're waiting to cut it until after Halloween when he's dressing up as an 80's punk rocker with a huge Mohawk! haha! I can't wait:)

Shhh, Show, and Shoe

Words, words, and more words. It seems like just in this past month, Henry has picked up many new words and is able to repeat what I say a lot easier. Even though he's a little bit shy to vocalize what I tell him to say, he likes to try in the comfort of his own home, tub, or in the car. Whenever I ask him to perform in front of people, he might say one word, but then gets embarrassed and pretends he doesn't hear me.

Henry has started to say "shhhhhh...." holding his finger to his mouth whenever we see someone sleeping, especially Daddy. Every time I say, "where's Dad?" he does the Ssshhh sound and searches for him in our room sleeping in our bed, which is where he very frequently is sleeping. He must really like that sshhh sound because he has started saying "show" and "shoe" all day long, but since he is used to whispering "sssshhh", he only whispers those words. I ask Henry if he wants to watch a show and he'll whisper "show, show, show". The way he pronounces "shoe" is like a combination of "ssshhh" and "eeeww" which turns into "sheewww". He surely is having fun exploring his new vocabulary!

dog and baby poo

Today was majorly hot so Henry and I decided to play in the pool and with the hose. I ended up pulling weeds on the hill while Henry dragged the hose around the yard. He eventually wanted to be where I was, so he scooted his bum down the hill in his diaper getting scratched by weeds and rocks. When I was done I had to take his wet, muddy diaper off and I thought it would be fine to let him run around naked for a minute, but then he took off, naked, toward the neighbor's house when he saw their dogs outside. They are really good dogs, so I always let him go over and play. First, Henry pet the dogs and let them lick and sniff his naked bum until one had to poo, after which Henry promptly went over and stuck his finger in it. Yuk! Seriously so gross. Then, he climbed up on their deck and onto their doormat on which he decided to take a leak. He watched the pee stream soak the mat and then looked at us and said, "Uh Oh". Yeah, we know. I brought him down from the deck, appologising as we cleaned it off. Then Henry went under their deck, squatted down and pooped on the ground! This all happened in the course of about 5 minutes. I don't think I've ever said sorry so many times in my life! I then had to get a bag from them, crawl under their deck and pick up the poo and take it back to our house to throw it away. Never again will I let Henry romp around without a diaper on.