Blab Blab Blab

Henry is never silent and talks to himself if we won't talk to him. He's learning so many new words every day and he'll copy us if he's in the mood. Tonight we told him to say "fun daddy" and "goofy daddy" and then Justin retaliated with "you rock, mom," which turned out to be "rock you, mommy" when Henry repeated it back. So cute!

We're off to New York, Connecticut, and Dallas for an almost three week long vacation(is it still a vacation after you become a mom?) over Christmas and New Years. I am really praying that no one gets sick and that we can enjoy ourselves because this could be really painful.

Crazy morning

This morning was a disaster. I was woken up by Henry exclaiming, "eeeewwww poo poo, yukky, eeewww" and sure enough, he had had an explosion of poo and it came out the back of his diaper and was all over his bed and blankets. I had to take every blanket and his changing pad out of his room and fumigate the place. I put the poo soaked blankets in the wash and then we went to take a bath. While I wasn't looking, Henry had pulled our very absorbant outer shower curtain into the tub and it had soaked up half of the bathwater. Just last week we had to have someone come and recalk our tub and paint the stain in the downstairs ceiling where Henry's splashes had come through so I've been really vigilant about keeping the water in the tub until Hurricane Henry struck again. Then after I had told him not to put the curtain in the tub, he turned around and took our phone and threw that in the tub and now it's fried. I don't know what it is about the men in my family. Justin and Henry keep getting our phones wet so we can't use them. This phone was actually we got at the Relief Society exchange, so it was free, but we really hate it anyway so I wasn't too angry. We're actually cancelling our home phone on Wednesday, so take note to call our cells from now on. Anyway, I drained the water in the tub and then Henry got into the soap. Usually when the water drains out and he's cold, he gets out and wants me to dry him off. This time he stayed in there and when I came to see what he was doing, he had taken the soft and soggy soap and dug his fingers into it, and now there were huge chunks of soap all over his body and under his nails. This put me over the edge and I washed him off without making sure the water didn't get in his face or was perfectly warm. Take that! lol! Plus, Henry saw that I was dissappointed and not smiling and he sorrowfully said "sorry mommy" and even used the sign for sorry, which is just so cute that I forgot the mess he had made all morning long. Henry was in a great mood for the rest of the morning until I started to take him up to his room for the nap and he started screaming in protest, "No nap, yukky poo poo, eeeww!" hahahaha! He thought I was going to dump him back into his crib filled with poo. lol! He cracks me up!

Octopus for dinner

Tonight I cooked baby octopus for dinner in this incredible Asian stir fry recipe I have in my Williams Sonoma cookbook. I really didn't know what I was doing and I had to improvise because the recipe called for beef, but it turned out really great with octopus. Justin and I were really excited to see if Henry would have eaten the baby octopus because he LOVES octopi to death. He has two finger puppets that are probably two of his favorite toys and he carries them around wherever he goes. We set one in front of him and he ate all the tentacles off of it and was trying to eat the head, but was just a bit too chewy. The tentacles were nice and tender though and he gladly ate them up. While he was eating it, he put his finger in the hole that went into it's head and kind of played with it like it was one of his finger puppets too! haha! We tried not to look at him or laugh because we knew he would just get inspired to play with it more. I'm genuinely impressed that he would eat such an alien-like looking thing. I think I'm going to try to introduce some very strange foods to him so he'll keep eating anything I put in front of him. I heard that the age from two to three is when they can get picky about what they eat. Maybe I'll try the dried crickets from the Mexican food market. If I get him to eat those, he'll surely eat anything else I make! I'm going to make grilled octopus tomorrow night, so maybe I'll take a photo of Henry eating one to go with the story.

Crazy Chaos

Well, it's been a long time since I wrote anything and it wasn't just that I was busy, but Henry had, until just recently, been kind of a nightmare. A week after Thanksgiving, my mom came to visit and that day he got the worst sickness he has ever had. You name it and he had it. It seemed like a combination stomach virus and chest cold. He had a fever every day and night for over 5 days and cried and cried and cried the entire time my mom was here. Even after he got over it, it has taken him quite a few days to get back to his normal happy self. I thought he may never go back and I had this horrible feeling that this was what the terrible twos was going to be like. I truly hope it's nothing like the screaming, clingy creature that was hanging off of my legs these past two weeks. I really had no cute stories or anything worth mentioning the entire time, except that my mother is such a champ and even though the past two times she's come Henry has been extremely sick, she is always so patient and non judgemental. I hope she still believes me when I keep telling her that he's the sweetest and happiest boy in the world! lol! He's not living up to his reputation when she comes to visit.

He has been doing some really cute things lately though that I have to note. He still has somewhat of a cold and whenever I tell him to wipe his nose, he goes and gets a tissue, wipes his nose, and either throws it away, or tries to put it back in the tissue box. It's so cute. He is also getting really finicky about cleaning up certain things. If he spills any of his food on the ground or especially milk from his bottle, he runs over to get a tissue and he cleans it up. I don't really want him using up all the tissues, but I think it's too early to try to teach him to grab a rag from the drawer because I don't want him throwing those away. I guess I'll wait until he gets a little older.

Henry also likes to sing parts of the ABC song now. I often hear him singing "WXYZ now I know my ABC's something, something, sing with me." He changes the in between words every time, but he loves to sing and he's also on tune. Yes! He also is starting to sing the songs I sing to him every night as he rests his little head on my shoulder and rock him to sleep. I always sing him the Primary song, "Henry I love you" and he sings along with me in the sweetest tiny voice. He also sings words from the other song I always sing, which is "Just the Thought of You" from Natalie Cole's remake of her father's old songs. I adore that song. I know it's a love song, but it's such a mild one, that it could apply to a mother and child. The words go..."It's just the thought of you and I forget to do the little ordinary things that everyone ought to do. I'm living in a kind of daydream, I'm happy as a king, and foolish as it may seem, to me that's everything...I see your face in every flower, your eyes in stars above. It's just the thought of you, the very thought of you, my love." Henry sings every "do" on tune and at the end he'll sing "face, flower, eyes, stars, my love." It's seriously the most adorable thing. He has also started up again kissing me every once in a while as he's falling asleep. He'll turn his head and push himself back and give me a kiss and then lay back down on my shoulder. I also taught him butterfly kisses and Eskimo kisses and he thinks they are really funny. He did Eskimo kisses to me tonight too.
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Today at our friend's graduation party, Kaitlin and Wee-o left before we did and when Henry was left at the screen door to watch them leave he said in such a sad voice..."Kay Kay and Wee-o, bye bye" and then he yelled in protest, "don't go!" and "NO!" It was very sad and incredibly sweet to see how much he loves those little kidlets.

I'm so glad he's back to his old self again. If Henry is like he was last week during the terrible twos, I don't know if I'll be inspired to write it all down! haha!