Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Big boy in DC



Henry and I took a quick trip down to DC to visit friends and we ended up going on some fun adventures. We went to the National Geographic Museum to see the frog exhibit, to the Museum of Natural History and to the Air and Space Museum the first day and then to Mount Vernon, the home of George Washington, the second day. Henry was a little high maintenance on the trip which made us lag behind most of the time and we found ourselves alone quite often, so it turned out to me more like a mother-son outing. Henry loved the frogs, the airplanes, slept through the Natural History museum and got in trouble everywhere he went. He angered a bag lady by running through the pidgeons she had given bread to and ended up announcing to all the passers by that I was a bad mother and since I let him do this senseless act, he would grow up and kill me someday. Hmmmm...I don't see a connection. At Mount Vernon he also dove through the sheep corral fence and scared out all the sheep. I am not in any shape to be climbing over fences, so I had to coax him back out by telling him that sheep can be dangerous and will ram him. He was insistant on climbing in to see the animals. The cutest thing was that he ran up to the statue of George Washington holding hands with his wife and children, looked at the little boy and said, "Henry!" and indeed the boy had his exact same haircut and was just about his size. I got a great shot of that.

He also called our friend's baby, who's name is River, "baby waterfall". While we were driving home and I found myself in the back seat entertaining the kids again, Henry was making me sing the ABC's, but he stopped and said, "I want baby waterfall to sing it!" in a perfect sentence. He's getting really good a talking...when he wants to. He digresses when others are around, but he can say exactly what he wants to when he's in the mood. It was a long drive, an exhausting trip, but some good memories were made and I got a few amazing photos.

A few things...I really love how his hair curls at the ends sometimes and instead of saying "gorilla," he says "gooderilla" and "chlocklet" instead of "chocolate."He is very independent and sometimes I think he could already survive on his own with all the skills he has obtained in order to get food and do whatever he thinks of doing. He still loves to play with obscenely large wolf spiders and loves it when I play the "Henry drum" (I drum on his back). He likes to play the mommy and daddy drums as well. We have a great time together:)

Wednesday, April 9, 2008

Spring planting and "spider in da bag"

Henry and I have been busy outside in the backyard getting ready for the vegetable garden season. Justin has been putting up our new fence and I have been busy digging up around it to make room for all the new vegetables I'm planting. Henry and I found some unharvested carrots left over from last year which were still pretty tasty and he screamed with joy at the sight of them. I can't wait for him to enjoy his enormous garden this year. Henry is speaking in full sentences now and he is a big talker. The other day as I was digging in the garden, I would give him a potato bug (roly poly) or a millipede and he would check it out and usually would tell me to "put it back home," but this day he had a snack bag and was putting his bugs in the mixture of snacks. He would come over to me saying,"uh oh mommy, tato bug in da bag." and I would have to fish the poor thing out. I did it a couple times while Henry looked on with a very concerned look, but then Henry came over to me saying, "spider in da bag." I let Henry pick up small spiders and he enjoys watching them spin their web as they hang and drop to the floor. I looked in his bag and I saw a gigantic wolf spider that Henry had picked up with his fingers and put in the bag! It was the largest one I had seen to that point this summer and our yard is crawling with them. I don't mind because they eat all the pests. When I coaxed it out, Henry put his hand out like it was any other insect and held it in his hand until it dropped to the ground. Henry is not afraid of any bug or animal. I love it, but I am also feeling compelled to look up what kinds of poisonous animals and plants are around this area so he doesn't get bit by something dangerous. I know my bugs pretty well and haven't seen anything I don't recognize at this point, and I see a lot of bugs. so I'm not too worried that there are poisonous spiders lurking under every rock. In short, every day is entertaining with Henry Jackson Hohl