Henry's belated Birthday Party Recap

I can't believe I haven't written about Henry's Birthday party yet. I usually feel like it's so daunting to write about trips or Birthdays because there is just so much to say and I know people don't read those entries so it's not as fun to write about.

So to quickly document what we did...

We had a bug party. I made bug cages from scratch that were really cute. We had a bug hunt. Played the cocoon game which is wrapping someone up with toilet paper and then emerging like a beautiful butterfly (think mummy). We played "buzz, buzz, sting" like "duck, duck, goose". We marched to the ants go marching all around the house. Then we watched Henry's third Birthday slide show and sang Happy Birthday and the kids ate bug cupcakes. While all this was going on I served the adults like 10 different gourmet creations of which we didn't get any photos. Such a travesty. The best thing was the coconut sour cream cake which I will hopefully, eventually, put up on my food blog which has also been neglected. We opened presents and let the kids play. Henry also got a nice bike from my dad and a cute guitar from my mom. He was really good that day and even went #2 in the potty in the middle of all the commotion. He's such a good little boy.

Urine for an Adventure

Henry has been standing up to go pee pee in the big toilet recently and really enjoys not having to support himself with both of his arms in order to not fall in the toilet, plus it's quicker. He also, with the example of his father, has gotten the idea if there's no potty within 10 yards of where he is standing he is free to just drop his drawers and go outside. Yesterday I caught him peeing off the deck and just a couple hours later he climbed over our fence, wandered into the neighbor's yard and and did the same thing in their back yard right in front of Justin. I warned him that his liberal attitude about peeing in nature was going to come back to haunt him! These boys just have too much fun regressing to their primitive state.

I have to recount the story of what happened last Saturday. I was so disappointed at the time that I didn't want to write anything about it, but now I'm over it. Anyway, I went to the Young Woman's basketball tournament(I was our team's coach) expecting to play a couple hours of basketball which is one of my most favorite sports ever and after I'd played maybe 25 minutes I sprained my ankle and was out for the rest of the tournament. My ankle got so swollen, turned black, blue, yellow, looks like an elephants foot and is now referred to as "the kankle". Anyway, so as I was trying to nurse Bea, and keep ice on my ankle I was trying to keep an eye on Henry who was making a huge mess with the snacks I brought. As soon as it was over I was packing up to leave someone brought Henry over to me and he was soaking wet with pee pee. As soon as he saw the look on my face he ran away only to return with no pants or underwear on and his shoes, which were filled with pee, nowhere to be found. Here I was in excruciating pain, hopping on one foot, carrying two bags, a basketball, a screaming baby in a carseat, and a naked, pee covered boy and his pee covered clothes. I needed like five people to help me out to my car. The drive home was filled with tears. Me because I missed my only chance in two years to play basketball and I let down my team (we got 2nd place), Henry because he wanted to stay and play with his friends and the pee was burning his skin, and Bea because she was hungry and neglected. It was a really bad morning.

Really appreciating the Book of Mormon

Today we didn't go to church because I majorly sprained my ankle playing in the YW basketball tournament and can barely walk and Justin had to work today so we spent the day doing Sundayish activities. We read his Book of Mormon comic book, watched Mr. Kruegars Christmas and the Christmas DVD, Joy to the World. While we were watching the scenes of Jerusalem Henry noticed that they were dressed like the people in his comic book and he asked, "Mom, where's Laman in this show?" I had to try to explain that he lived like 600 years before Christ, but yes, this was the same city. He's so observant. I just can't tell you how much he's enjoying the comic book. He even went to get a drink while I was reading this morning and I asked him if he was done reading and he said "no, I just need a drink." and we kept on going. If any of you are trying to read scriptures with your young children I have to say that reading in the morning is significantly easier than when we read with Justin as a family at night from the ol' standard children's Book of Mormon. I think the comic book is also way more exciting to look at as well. We're also planning of Book of Mormon party when we finish reading it. I am currently researching things we can do for our party. I have about 48 days to prepare. Any suggestions?

Three Year Update

So here's what the doctor had to say about Henry at his 3 year well child visit...and I have to admit that it might seem like I'm bragging, but this blog is ultimately for him so I have to be honest for posterity, right:). Henry measures at almost 41 inches tall which is over the 100th percentile on the growth chart. He'd be taller than every 3 year old his age and half of the 4 year olds. He's in the 85th percentile for weight, but has almost no fat on his body so it's mostly muscle and just plain solidness. Basically he's a big boy! This might have to do with the fact that Henry eats anything and everything. Since I've banned candy and snacks in my house after his cavity fiasco, he only eats fresh fruit and veggies for snacks and only occasionally some crackers. He has always eaten every vegetable I set in front of him and always appreciates my gourmet cooking even if it has strange ingredients like strong goat cheese and super bitter radicchio. Tonight we had steak, purple heirloom potatoes and purple yams (yes they really are bright purple) with rice and cauliflower and he ate a adult sized portion of them all. Looks like we've created a foodie! He has excellent verbal and physical skills and is now 100% potty trained! He's been in underwear for the past week without any accidents. No more poopy diapers for me! What a huge blessing.

Since I finished painting the house and don't have giant projects on my plate right now I have been able to spend more playtime with my kids and I've seen a real turn-around with Henry's behavior. He has almost returned to his wonderful old self (pre-Beatrice) and is now more stable emotionally and even communicates even better than ever. I find myself amazed at the long, grammatically correct sentences he constructs and the abstract ideas and thoughts he comes up with. He's really taking the world in, discovering, learning and understanding more of what life is all about. He is especially interested in Jesus Christ and his roll in this world. He frequently makes up songs about Jesus on his new guitar he got for his Birthday and comments in the car that "Jesus died and people were really mad" and that "Jesus is in heaven with the Prophet and my brother Georgie" We read the scriptures every night together and very often in his Book of Mormon comic book (so cool- a must have for boys called The Golden Plates). This is such a great time to get him used to thinking about Christ in everything he does...which puts a lot of pressure on me! His passion inspires me to be a better Christian and a better mother. Thank you Henry for your pure and sweet spirit. We love you!

Song Lyrics

For Henry's Birthday he got a little guitar from his grandma and he has started singing more and more often around the house, making up songs and strumming his cute instrument. Today while watching out the front window waiting for Justin to come home he started singing Book of Mormon Stories and the chorus went, "given this land, thank you man, right-ous-ly". I guess he figured that "thank you man" rhymed better than "if they lived" and I totally agree.

Oh and a couple weeks ago I took Henry to look for some new shoes and I had them measure his foot. Turns out that he's now a 9.5 and should be wearing a size 10. I had his poor little foot jammed into size 7.5 or 8!! Every once in a while he would complain that his feet hurt, but not every day, but there were the telltale marks all over his feet from his socks being squeezed into his skin. When did he grow so much? We're going to his 3 year appointment on Thursday so we'll let you know how me measures up. I'm thinking he'll be more normal this time and not such a giant for his age.

In these photos Henry is drinking V8 juice in a skull cup which ended up looking like a head filled with blood. You can't really see it though. I was just amazed that he drank an entire V8! He's my little tomato lover!

Henry's big ideas

Conversation:

Henry: Bad snakes eat rats and they get mad.

Mom: You're right Henry. Hey, that rhymes like Dr. Seuss:) Is your name Dr. Seuss?

Henry: No, I'm Dr. Poop!

Mom(thinking to herself): Yes you are Henry, yes you are...

Anybody Home Pee Pee?

This Saturday I have Henry signed up to take his first swimming lesson and his Birthday is coming up so I told him that he needed to be a big boy and get potty trained. Until just a couple days ago he didn't seem ready and was having accidents right and left. He even pooped in his underwear last week and told me that he wanted to see it as if it was something cool. Yesterday he had his first perfect day and even woke up this morning with nothing in his diaper and he even went #2 in his potty chair all by himself while I was in feeding Bea in the other room! I was so thrilled that I cooked him some bug shaped cup cakes that I'm going to use at his party. Since church was postponed until 2pm there was a lot of time for celebration this morning and he even stayed dry all through church! Yea Henry. The climax came when this morning he was in with Justin, standing up at the big potty, waiting for something to come and after he waited for about a minute without any success, he looked down and said, "Hello?! Anybody home pee pee!?!" We all laughed hysterically.

January isn't so bad!

This month has been surprisingly eventful for us and I thought life was going to be boring in Pittsburgh in January! Since all the holiday preparations are over, we've been spending more time together doing productive things, especially pretend play. Henry loves playing doctor with Bea, but she's never too keen on the idea. He has been painting, writing in workbooks, playing outside in the snow, sledding and spending time with his cousins for Chinese New Year. All in all, it's been a pretty fun month!

I bet your story isn't better than this one...

Today I had to go to the pharmacy to get some prescriptions and while we waited in Rite Aid Henry was on his usual rampage picking up candy, playing with the wind-up cars and asking what the name was of every candy and type of cereal. We finally picked up our prescriptions and I was paying for them at the check-out counter when Henry put a nice package on the counter-top for me. Yup, his poopy diaper was off his bum and sitting open and on the check-out counter. The people behind me were shocked, to say the least, and since the teenager checking me out was half way done scanning my items I sent Henry to the corner to wait for me and he shuffled over with his pants down to his ankles and a nice smudge of poo in-between his cheeks. I hurried back over to pay for the stuff and a couple women asked me if I needed them to hold Bea, but I didn't want to hand over my baby and have them run off with her while I was wiping my other child's bum. Then a couple redneck looking hunter guys came in and were cracking up and saying, "I remember when you used to do that Billy Bob!" and were laughing and pointing at him standing in the corner. The worst part came when I finally got to where Henry was standing and to keep himself occupied while I was paying for our stuff, he was painting on the wall with his finger with the poop left on his bum. I was horrified. I cleaned Henry up and the poop painting, gave the wrapped up poopy diaper to the kid behind the counter to throw away, which he didn't want to do, and we left the store. I don't know if I ever want to show our faces in there again. I dare anyone to top this story.

Moment of Truth

Today in church we were singing the Sacrament hymn, "While of these Emblems we Partake" and the second verse starts, "The law was broken, Jesus died, that justice might be satisfied..." and miraculously Henry was listening to the words of the song and turned to me and said, "Mommy, Jesus died?" and I told him that, yes, he did. I almost cried when I had to say it into his large, innocent, inquiring eyes. I know we had told him before, but I guess it was just his time to really understand it. We talk about Jesus all the time, about his life, about how much he is alive in our lives, but probably only a couple of times about his death, so I bet he was a little shocked when he heard that he had died. I guess we need to review that part:) He has such a sweet little spirit and we're so grateful for his presence in our home.

He also bolted out of nursery today to find me and when he did I asked him what he needed he said, "Mommy, I need somebody." I had to hold back my laughter because he was so serious. He probably said it because this is the first Sunday his best friends and cousin weren't in nursery because they moved up to Primary and left him behind for another year. I know he's not ready to move up, but it makes me sad to see his buddies move on, sitting in the chairs, singing the songs and being so mature, and then seeing Henry in the nursery playing on the ground with toys in his diaper. He'll be a baby for one more year, I guess.

Thank you for my children

Henry has stopped taking suggestions from me of what to say while saying his prayers and now he thinks up many interesting things to be thankful for. Today he said, "thank you for my children." then immediately stopped and looked up at me with a big smile and a giggle, and I of course had my eyes open and couldn't hold back a smile. He knew it was funny and that he didn't have children:) I do wonder where he got it from though because Justin and I always refer to our children by name in our prayers and I don't think I have ever just said that we were thankful for our children. He is a silly boy:)

Since Bea has been sick and up all night, I have taken a couple naps on the couch while Henry was still awake only to wake up to find he has gotten into my purse and is eating candy or gum(from my stocking. Thank you Santa). I caught him with my pack of gum and he immediately said, looking rather nervous, "mommy, these are all together, like mommy, daddy and me!" with a huge smile. That was very observant and I really couldn't be angry at such a sweet comment. I asked him if he had already eaten one and he looked at me with his huge eyes, pulled up his shirt to expose his belly and said, "they're already down there." And yes, he had eaten more than one, possibly three. I'll never know.

One more Christmas come and gone...

Wow, I can't believe Christmas has come and gone so quickly and now Henry's Birthday is just around the corner! That means that I have kept this blog for almost two years! That's dedication for ya!

Christmas was full of fun, adventures, presents, sniffly noses, good food, family (who we miss dearly already) and lots of smiles. I'll let the Christmas photo album do the talking. Highlights are Henry being Joseph and Bea being the Baby Jesus in the live nativity scene, Henry's awesome Darda race track from Santa, the day after Christmas being over 70 degrees and sunny, making pizzas with family and friends, driving all the way to Punxsutawney and everything being closed and Phil hibernating for the winter, singing carols in the rain on Christmas Eve to our friends who weren't home and lots and lots of good food and cooking. Thanks to Grandma Lynn who did most of the dishes:)

Mad Santa

I took Henry to the mall yesterday to see Santa and since I've never done this before I wasn't prepared for the $24 minimum for a photo in a really gaudy frame or some lame snow globe so I asked if it would be okay if I just took a shot with my own camera because I really wasn't going to buy any of their stuff. The kid working the line was like, "well, we just ask you to buy a package, but I guess you can do whatever you want, I dunno." So I just hopped down in front and took some photos with Henry and when the huge flash didn't go off, Santa asked angrily, "well, aren't you going to take a photo?" to his elves and they shook their heads "no", he rolled his eyes, pushed Henry off his lap and didn't want to give him a candy cane, but did anyway. I guess I understand that he's just trying to make a buck, but that price is just not something I will pay at this point. They should make it a little more affordable for those of us who are poor and on a budget!

Wild Man

Instead of just jumping off of the furniture to pillows on the ground, Henry has started trying to jump from couch to chair. They are pretty far apart so he basically lands with his arms over the arm of the chair with his face slamming over the side. He seems to like it and hasn't gotten hurt yet. The furniture is getting a pretty good beating, but part of me hopes he ruins it so we can get something new! haha! Oh, and an update on his teeth...they haven't turned brown, yea!, and have come back down to almost normal level. His scar, however, is not as small as I had hoped, but luckily it's the winter time and so it will fade to white quicker.

Some funny things he says... "cinderella" instead of "mozzarella", he answers "no, I'm not" to every question no matter if it makes sense or not, and he's starting to say, "like" all the time and I'm realizing that I also say it a lot and need to stop! Ugh! I just have to keep reminding myself that at least I don't use profanity. I don't know how those parents do it.

He's still so tender and sweet with Bea. He calls her "Bea B" and he always hears her crying before I do and is so excited to rush to her aid. He even comments on how cute she is all bundled up and he's always lying on top of her, trying to make her smile, which isn't difficult, and loves to see her smiling face. He is getting frustrated with all this winter gear because he can't find her hand under her gigantic winter bunting so he has to revert to holding the empty sleeve that her arm doesn't quite fit into yet.

The pink water is from this foam soap I got at the dollar store. He used an entire can....

In Dallas with Nanna B

Until we left for Nanna B's house, Henry had been counting down the days and now he asks when we're going back to Nanna B's house every few hours. Poor little guy. He just LOVED being there. My mom's place has two red poodles, a swimming pool with hot tub, lots of toys and movies, Uncle Will whom he adores, and really good food. Henry was in heaven! He played with his cousin Jefferey many times and had some fun adventures at his favorite baby store Cutie Atootie (Cutie Patootie). One of the nights we went country line dancing and ate delicious steaks. We also spent Thanksgiving down there with the best food in the world and spent some time with our good friends, Justin and Amy Evanson. Henry was also fabulous on the airplane and I think we're getting to the point where I don't have to worry about him anymore on the plane. Bea also sleeps the whole time so I guess I'll just savor the easy travel moments until she gets older and more mobile.

Quick Road Trip

Henry, Bea and I decided to meet up with our friends Christi and River for a couple days out in Amish Country this weekend. Christi found the most awesome Mennonite family on couchsurfers.com who let us stay at their place for free and even fed us dinner and breakfast. We learned a ton about them and their life and surely made some lifetime friends:) They had three darling daughters who were just the age of our kids and Henry had fun reading and coloring with them. One thing they did that we wanted to adopt into our daily routine is singing songs before eating dinner. That was really fun. I totally regret, though, that we didn't get a photo with our host family! Anyway, thanks to Ernie, Elmina, Evelyn, Erica and Emily for your generosity.

To keep Henry happy on the drive out there I told him we were going to the world's largest pet store and when we got there we found a gigantic rabbit and lots of really cool reptiles. Henry loved it. While we were in the area, we basically hit all the places we could find that had anything to do with food. The Amish stores out there give out samples of everything they make so we found ourselves not even needing to buy much food because we snacked all day long. On Friday we went to Lititz, PA to tour a chocolate factory with an museum of antique chocolate making items and then got a tip about a pretzel factory just up the road, which was the first place to commercially sell pretzels in the nation and I finally found out how to make pretzels! If you want to know, you have to check out hohlfoods.blogspot.com. They let us roll out dough. showed us the antique brick ovens and then we ate samples of all their interesting flavors. My favorite was pretzels with a hint of cinnamon sugar baked right into the dough so it wasn't really desert-like, but you could still taste it. I was also inspired to make peanut butter topped pretzels covered in dark chocolate. They were really expensive so I'm just going to make them. Yum!

On Saturday we spent time in Intercourse(yes I know you're giggling)going to the touristy places, eating more samples and freezing our fingers off. Henry in particular didn't want to wear his gloves or his hat so after about an hour, he was crying from the cold. I hope he learns his lesson about bundling up! We were also noticeably younger than the average tourist, like 20 to 30 years younger, and we had a hard time moving from place to place without having to show our babies off to all the elderly folk. Henry especially loved the petting zoo where they had a llama, miniature goats, sheep, horses and chickens(not miniature, though that would be totally cute). We decided that it was too cold and so we headed up to Hershey, PA for yet another food adventure and spent our last hours there. Most of what's there at Hershey is free, but we splurged and went on the trolley tour of the town to see the Hershey's kiss street lamps and the Hershey mansion. Henry met Santa Claus and didn't freak out, which was good, and got a little ornament from him. We left in a gigantic blizzard and found our cars covered in at least two inches of snow, but it stopped as soon as we got on the road, thank heaven. Then it was a long four hour drive home in the dark. Yea for Amish Country. I love eastern PA.

Teeth Diagnosis

Before

after
Well the dentist did not have any good news for us about Henry's teeth. One of his front teeth is cracked at the root and both front teeth will most likely have bruising/discoloration. On top of that he has six cavities and that's just what he can see. Since he's so young we have to go to the hospital to have them filled and that's not covered by insurance, so we're looking at over $1,000 to have everything fixed. Merry Christmas.

Accident Prone

It's finally happened, Henry has fallen backwards in the kitchen chair and really hurt himself. Friday night was when it happened and this is definitely the worst accident to date we have had. As Henry fell back in the chair, he instinctively tried to counterbalance the falling chair which brought him to a sitting position (sparing the back of his head from hitting the ground) but as the chair hit the floor, he got a sort of forward whiplash and he completely bit through the skin half-way in between his lip and his chin. The cut was almost an inch wide and went all the way through. What was worse is that his front teeth hit his mandible so hard that his teeth are now jammed up into his gums - one more than the other - so his teeth are now half as big as before and uneven. We have plenty of dentists in our ward who told us many possible scenarios ranging from, worse case, his teeth dieing and turning black and possibly damaging his permanent teeth that are forming in his gums to, best case, his teeth naturally re-emerging after a week or two back to their original position. So far the teeth are still white but haven't moved. He has a dentist appointment tomorrow so we'll see what the x-rays tell us. After the accident, Justin used surgical glue to close the wound and we've kept it clean and closed for the past few days and it looks good. Then on Monday while playing at my sister-in-law's house, he fell down the stairs doing what looked like cartwheels all the way down. Apparently he didn't get hurt or hit his chin because he didn't cry much and stopped crying for a piece of candy - telltale of faking it. Today he fell off his kitchen stool while sitting on it and bumped his head in the cabinets and ran into a shopping cart at Costco being pushed by a woman who couldn't see him over her large load. I am so sad to realize that he inherited my genes for being accident prone. Poor Henry. I just hope Bea is more careful with her face!

Halloween Enaflent

Even though he mispronounces it every time I never correct him because it's so cute the way he says it. Most people don't understand what he's trying to say, but he'll say it correctly soon enough. Henry was the most darling elephant in town in his costume and it was nice and warm so he didn't even have to wear a coat out trick-or-treating. He made out with a ton of candy, which Justin and I are eating after he goes to bed each night, but still had a hard time with the concept that he was supposed to collect the candy first and THEN eat it later. He was pretty intent on eating the candy as soon as he got it. We went around with a huge group of kids: our in-laws, Henry's future wife, and many other friends. It was such a nice night and the kids were all pretty good. We love Halloween in our house!

Beach Bum

Ever since we got back from the beach (Lake Tahoe and Monterey Bay) Henry has been asking to go back to the beach. Nothing is more fun to him than playing in the sand and waiting for "the big boy wave" but then getting caught in the "daddy wave". In Tahoe Henry played on the beach all day long, even after the sun went down and it was under 60 degrees outside with wet clothes. His five or six year old cousin Wil was the only kid to play with, so they spent a lot of time hanging out together, although I think he got sick of Henry following him everywhere and wanting to play every second. We were hiking one day and Henry was yelling for Wil who was way ahead of us, but when we caught up with him Wil only wanted to walk with his mom and I could see Henry's confused and sad look when he got ditched. I feel so bad when he's stuck here all day long with no one to play with and now I'm so busy with Bea and THEN when we go on vacation he finally has a buddy to play with and he gets tired of him. He's not annoying or anything, but he gets really excited and talkative and maybe a little bossy. I think it's darling.
Anyway, Henry went on many hikes, climbed on rocks and caught a ton of crawdads, which are his favorite new creature. Before Justin joined us, Henry only had one pair of shoes AND socks (forgot to pack them) which he kept running into the water with and they were constantly wet. My dad even removed them before they got soaked one afternoon and he took them and threw them into the water himself and when I asked him why he did that, he had no idea. Just wanted to do it. We also took a detour to the redwood forest and Henry climbed into the center of gigantic trees. Check out the album for photos.

Henry is such a good little traveler now. He never cries in his carseat, takes naps on the run, and sleeps through the night wherever he goes. He was very good on the plane (for a two year old) and doesn't mind hour after hour in the car. He's much improved from his jealous behavior, although Bea sleeps like 18-20 hours per day, so he's now getting most of the attention anyway. He LOVES his little sister and I always find him holding her hand, trying to get close to her and giving her little kisses. He thinks it's so funny when I put her in bed with him, or let her lay on his tummy for a while. Sometimes he hugs her so tightly she cries, but I know he's just trying to get as close as he can. He really is a good brother.

Meltdown at the zoo

Today I took Henry to the zoo. We had a great time until he took his shoes off on the spiderweb rope thingy and somehow they got lost or stolen because they were nowhere to be found. We searched and searched, even enlisting some older kids to look, but after they announced the zoo would be closing I told Henry that he would have to walk to the car with no shoes on and he started crying because we were leaving them behind, then he fell and scraped up his toe really bad and was screaming, "I need a band-aid" over and over again as he followed me to the car. I was trying to make an impression in his mind about not taking his shoes off without giving them to me, but it backfired. Ugh. He cried himself to sleep in the car and I took him to the hospital where Justin was waiting with some surgical equipment and fixed it up while he was passed out. He now has a gigantic wrap on his entire foot, appropriate for someone who has just had a foot transplant. I've been trying to get him to go to sleep for about two hours now, but he's still humming the ABC's under his door. What am I going to do with this boy?

Hiking Master and Ladies Man

Henry went hiking twice in less than 24 hours this week and he's loving it! Justin came home rather early (5pm) from work on Monday night so we went on a fun hike at the National Audobaun Society of Western PA reserve. He went inside a mud wigwam, swung upside down (or upside up as Henry likes to call it) on a vine and played with pond scum while he looked for tadpoles. We tried to catch a frog but they were too fast. Then that next morning we went with a group of people from church, which happened to be a gigantic group of girls and Henry. He's a lucky guy! One of his best friends, Thomasin, is so fun and darling. They really enjoy holding hands together. We're excited that we'll have all these fun photos to show at their wedding someday. lol.

Henry's lullaby to Bea

This is a duplicate of what's on Bea's blog because I thought they should both have a record of this one.....

Lately Bea has been really having a hard time sleeping and has been extra hungry. I was up every hour last night and she hardly slept today. Needless to say my house was a disaster, and after getting up, exercising, getting everyone ready to go visiting teaching the house had not been cleaned and it was already 5pm! Where does the time go? I tried to put her down and she kept crying after a few minutes each attempt. The last time I thought it was going to work, I was downstairs for ten minutes when she started screaming again and I had only emptied one half of the dishwasher. I drooped my head thinking my house would never be clean again when Henry said, "Uh oh, baby sister is crying. I go see her." I would have normally told him not to bug her, but I didn't stop him from going up for who knows what reason, but I'm so glad I did." With the monitor on I heard Henry say, "It's ok Bea." and then start singing the Winnie the Pooh song, "Deep in the hundred acre wood, where Christopher Robin plays..." and she stopped crying after about a minute. I heard Henry gently close the door behind him as he left my room and came downstairs. I turned to ask him if she was alseep and he said, as if it was no big deal, "yeah, she's asleep." I asked him what he did and he looked at me, shrugging his shoulders, " I sang deep in the hundred acre wood" with a slightly embarassed smile on his face. She stayed asleep for over two hours after that and I was able to clean the entire house. Even though Henry is usually driving me insane and making huge messes, he totally redeemed himself today. I know the Lord inspired him and me to let it happen and I'm so grateful that Henry is so sensitive to Beatrice's needs. They're going to be great friends.

Adventures of Henry's Evil Twin

Ever since Bea was born, Henry's evil twin comes while I'm busy and does things that make my jaw drop. On a daily basis Henry has been immersing his hands in whatever food I give him from pasta to catsup to yogurt to applesauce and beyond. I always know when he does it because he'll say, "Uh oh" and then say "sorry mom" over and over again with an apathetic look on his face. When I take his food away, he'll start to cry and say, "I said sorry mom, I said I was sorry" like everything is okay as long as he says sorry after he does it. The other day he pulled the cover off our heating/cooling vents and dropped apples down in it's depths. As they were tumbling down, he said, "sorry mom, sorry mom, sorry mom" for every apple that he dropped. At the pumpkin patch he was throwing pumpkins around like yesterdays garbage, breaking and bruising them in the process. He also pulled one of the wagons that is supposed to be used to cart around the pumpkins down the slightly sloped parking lot and it started to go too fast for him, almost ran him over, but let go just in time for it to crash into a beautiful display of mums. I have never felt so helpless in my life as I was holding my newborn and couldn't run after my crazy toddler as he was potentially going to kill himself and/or ruin property. I really hope every baby I have doesn't inspire my children to behave so badly.

Henry Drama

Today Justin and my parents went on a "quick run" without me and the kids and Henry really wanted to go. He bawled his eyes out repeating over and over, "I wanna go on a quick run, I wanna go on a quick run too. Blaaaah, blaaah," I thought it was cute that he copied Justin which he is doing even more these days. We have to be really careful with what we say these days, not that we really say anything that bad, but there are a few things that I have said only once or twice that have stuck with him, like "I'm mad" or "oh my gosh" and it doesn't sound great coming out of his mouth.

Henry's favorite thing to say this month is, "mommy, what you doing?" and then I have to tell him what I'm doing, then he says, "oh". I then have to ask him what he's doing and then say, "oh." at the end. If I don't remember to ask him what he's doing or to say, "oh" afterward he reminds me exactly what I'm supposed to say. It's very endearing.

Big Brother Henry

Henry is finally a big brother to a tiny little sister, Beatrice Isabella or Bea(Bay-uh) for short. He is so gentile and sweet with her and is always concerned with her well being. Early on we had noticed some subtle changes in his behavior for the good and not much bad, but recently he's been driving us totally insane to get our attention. Some of the cute things he's done with her are in the car he was very quiet because he was just watching her sleep and when Justin went to get Henry out of his seat he was holding her hand. He constantly kisses her and gently rubs her head. This morning he was downstairs yelling out, "mommy, baby sister! baby sister, mommy!" over and over until my sister went down to calm him down. He touched her soft fuzzy skin and said, "she's like a peach" (we eat peaches all day long around here) and before he does ANYTHING he has to go kiss her first. He is really enjoying her presence in our home. He, however, has been acting out a ton and trying to get away with things. He broke the refrigerator drawer, he's been climbing up on everything, not listening at all, won't go to bed anymore, won't let anyone do anything for him but me, and is pretty much driving me crazy. I hope things calm down soon because I miss my sweet little boy who was so tender, thoughtful, polite and helpful. Where did you go my son!

Beatrice now has her own blog with photos and the story of her arrival at http://beabella.blogspot.com/

Very, Very, Very Hard Day

I have taken away Henry's naps and for the past week he has been fine with it...until today. I don't know what happened but he was a little monster and I planned a huge shopping trip all day long. I thought I deserved it since I spent all week doing things for him. That's apparently not what he thought. For example, we were at The Strip District and his most favorite sample ever, mozzarella and tomato salad, was on the counter and because he was in such a bad mood he said he didn't want it, but when I ate it instead he screamed bloody murder and I had to weave in and out of people waiting to buy cheese to get another sample. That's when it started and it wasn't even noon. When we were at Babies R Us he saw some shoes he wanted to check out and instead of just saying, "mom, I want to see those" he burst out into tears and completely freaked out before I could figure out what he wanted. Then when I showed them to him, he didn't like them anymore and continued to bawl his eyes out. After a while I couldn't handle him crying right next to me so I took him out of the cart and encouraged him to cry a few isles away from me which threw all the mothers in the store in a panic thinking he was lost or hurt. I had to reassure them that the situation was under control and as long as I could hear his distant screaming I knew he was okay! Ugh. My friend that was with us(poor thing) commented that "at least no one will kidnap a kid that's freaking out already!" haha. He finally calmed down but he acted like everything he wanted to do was okay. He was taking things off the shelves and thinking that I was just going to buy them because he wanted them, so when we put them back he threw more of a fit. I don't know where he got the idea that I buy him everything he wants. I NEVER buy anything for him. He also got up into the display window at Children's Place and the employees were coaxing him to get out while he was knocking all the manequins over trying to hide. We finally got home at 7pm, so about 8 hours straight of bad behavior and screaming. It was probably the worst day in months and if this is what terrible twos are like, I feel for the parents who really get it bad. The only thing that was cute today is that he collected a bunch of things at Babies R Us and when he gave them to me, he said that they were for "baby sister." I think he's really going to love her! Can anyone sympathize with me? Has anyone gotten to the point where they felt like it was hard not to scream at their kid or slap them into consciousness? When we got home I just put him in his room for 10 minutes and let him cry while I cried and prayed for patience and wisdom. When he saw that I was crying he started crying, "sorry mommy" over and over which helped me calm down and then we talked about things and he finally fell asleep. Nightmare over!....for today.

BI Summer Adventure...

This summer we haven't been able to do too many adventures and I doubt we'll have too many more before I can't travel because of pregnancy, but we did go to Block Island for 10 days which was a blast with our fabulous and generous friends the Smocks. I finally uploaded the photos so I can post. Is that totally lame? Our computer was not turning on so I just didn't post things because I didn't have any photos. We had fabulous weather out on the Block even though the two days we spent in New York City were pouring down rain. Oh, and we also just got a ticket in the mail from running a red light in the Big Apple from a street camera. I guess they're not content with their apple so they have to take a bite out of our apple too.

Anyway, we spent Father's Day with Justin's dad and a long lost friend with her daughter and triplets. We took all five kidlets out on the pond in an inflatable boat and had a grand time trying to keep them all from falling in. Henry actually did fall in about 30 seconds before we were going to leave for church on the day we went home in a brand new outfit. I come to expect these sort of catastrophies in my life. I shouldn't expect anything other than that, you know?


We spend a wonderful 6 days out at Block Island with the best weather possible. It was sunny and warm every single day and thunderstorms rolled in every night giving us spectacular shows and cooling us off even more. We spend lazy days sleeping in and made sure to keep up all our traditions of virgin mojitos on the widow's walk at sunset, clamming and then eating the clams for dinner, eating our yearly ceremonial lobster dinner as well, hiking, catching fiddler crabs and finding sea stars(no longer called starfish I've been told). We also added some more traditions like a campfire on the beach where we roasted hotdogs and marshmallows, snorkled (where I had a serious fight with a crab and won), and then we ditched the puzzle for the second year in a row. We only do it when it's not good weather and we've lucked out the past two years with warm sunny days.

Henry, Nate and Buddy Gabe(what Henry calls him) really had a blast together playing in the ocean, on the beach, and exploring the rocks and ponds. Henry was pretty afraid of the water this year and I hope he gets over it soon. I think it's just the coldness factor and the waves are kind of scarey for him. One day he was having a tough time after he got soaked and the wind chilled him (after he also got pinched by a fiddler crab) that I ended up having to wrap him up in a towel and sing him "Frosty the Snowman" until he fell asleep.
Hen is also a huge Italian food fan and will eat just about anything. He was devouring our "linguine alle vongole", or linguine with clams, that has hot pepper flakes in the sauce and every time he would suck the linguine up then ends flipped up and sprayed spicy sauce in his eyes. He would start to scream and then we'd wash his eyes out and it was back to slurping and spraying again. There he was, with tears in his red irritated eyes and running nose from the spice and he was still trying to drink up the last of the broth. We eventually told him to close his eyes and eat his dinner and that seemed to help. Poor little guy! He's such a good eater.

We ended up going to NYC for church on Sunday, then meeting up with my sweet sorella Emilie and her family for lunch in The City before heading home. It was one of the most relaxing and satisfying trips we have taken in a long time and I couldn't tell you how much Justin and I needed to relax for a while. Thank Heaven for vacations...and Henry!

Potty Power

Henry is starting potty training, but it's not going as smoothly as I had expected. For the past few months Henry has been really interested in going potty on his potty chair...when he's naked. If I strip him down he'll go potty all day long in his potty chair. He gets to put stickers on his chart and eat a gummy bear each time. However, when I suggest that he put underwear on or even a pull-up, he screams, "noooooooo! I want my eneflant diaper! Ahhhhhhhhh." When he has his diaper on he doesn't think about going potty, so I don't know what to do. Something tells me that I should just wait to potty train him until he's three, but that's in the middle of the winter and I just don't think I could keep him naked all the time when it's so cold outside and I really would like him to be on his way to being potty trained by the end of the fall. Anyone have any suggestions? I don't think I've been so unprepared for something since before Henry was born. With my track record, you'd think I would have read 10 books about potty training before attempting this, but I'm feeling lazy lately. I'm checking out ASL DVDs though so I can learn more sign language. I want to use it on a daily basis so "baby sister" can get the same or better opportunity as Hen. I also don't want to have Signing Time on the TV every day because it's honestly driving me nuts. I can't stand hearing that woman sing any longer! I hope to be semi-fluent soon and then I'll use it to start teaching Henry Italian. I can't wait until he can speak Italian! Italian children have the sweetest little voices.

Busy Boy

Henry and I have been really busy lately tending to our growing garden, hosting visiting family members, working at church, traveling and trying to get in a little play when we can. We are also working on getting to sleep at a decent time. After a few weeks of him finally falling to sleep at or after midnight(even after 1am at times), I decided that things had to change. They have since been better, but it has been painful to keep him up from his nap so that I may put him to bed super early. He has been one cranky baby, but he's now on a way better schedule and is a lot happier. Has anyone had this problem? I guess it was perpetuated by the fact that I kept him up to hang out with Justin when he got home from work and since Justin's rotations have been easier, he's been staying up later as well and I just let Henry stay up until Justin went to bed.

Henry is also saying some really hilarious things like "spilled-ing" for "spilling" and does his best to describe things that went on during the day. Today there was a thunder/lighting/hail storm which Henry described to Justin by saying, "Thunder and lightning and hail and crash and really scary daddy." He is also totally engrossed in his make-believe world. He brings me rocks and tells me that they are cheese and cookies and I have to pretend to eat them. His little face lights up with a huge smile when I make up stories and use funny voices with his plastic animals or his animal shaped food. He is also obsessed with the library and constantly piles up animals and books in the umbrella stroller and tells me that he's going to the library. I made up a library song that he also makes me sing while he pushes it around.

I have to take photos of our garden to post, but we are just starting to reap the benefits of our labors. Henry and I have been eating strawberries from our huge patch for the past week. We get about 20 each day and they are de-lici-ous! I hardly get to taste any of them because Henry wants to eat them all. I am glad because they are taking the place of his unhealthy snacks. We also just got our first batch of peas today which are so crispy and fresh. Henry was pounding them down. He even learned how to pick them so he didn't break the stalks. Such a good boy. Our raspberry bushes are crazy big and have hundreds of fruit growing which we can't WAIT to harvest. We have many other veggies that are just starting to take root and get large, but we won't get to eat for at least another month, I'm thinking. We'll have to survive on peas and raspberries. We do have giant sunflower plants that are getting huge too. Henry is going to freak out when he sees how big the flowers get. We're going out of town this weekend for an entire 9 days, so I'm really worried about our plants. I just hope nothing dies while we're gone. Summer vacations stress me out more than relax me because I don't like to leave my garden!

BTW, for those of you who haven't heard, I'm pregnant with a baby girl and am due in August. Henry put his little head on my stomach tonight and felt her kick him. He's really excited for "baby sister" and calls every baby, boy or girl, "baby sister". He is all of a sudden not jealous when I hold other babies because I think he's ready to have someone else to play with. I guess life gets pretty boring with a pregnant mother. I can hardly dance to Ellen with Henry anymore! I miss being able to dance hard core for an entire 2 minutes with Henry.