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:)