You make me laugh, little man

Henry makes me laugh. Like, every single day. As each day progresses it amazes me to watch him become more and more like a little human and less and less like the baby in my head he still is. I know that he is, in fact, a little boy. I just think that since babies progress so slowly the first year – we will thrilled at two months when he grabbed for a toy – that having such a spurt in mental growth is shocking. During the first year it took us over a month to feel comfortable feeding him solids – or more to the point, we didn't think HE was comfortable with solids until a month of trying. Now we are trying to have him feed himself with a spoon. After 3 DAYS, he was all over that shit going, “Of course I can spoon feed myself. Duh. I'm not, like, 10 months anymore, MOM.”

"I'll even lick the spoon when I'm done.  That's how good I am at this.   Please ignore my bib."

With all this mental growth comes humor. Henry, for example, likes to sing. Since his grasp on the English language is pigeon at best, his 'singing' is more of grabbing on to a syllable and carrying it on for as long as he has a breath. We were in the car the other week when Adele's “Someone Like You” was playing. After the high pitch chorus from Adele, a little voice from the back seat started, “OoooOoooooooooooo!” Andy and I couldn't help but laugh our heads off.

Henry also likes to dance. Right now it's your basic Stevie Wonder dance with some clapping. However, if 'In the Night Garden' is on and they get to the end where all the characters get together for a dance at the gazebo, Henry will insist of popping off the couch to do a leg up, side step, leg up, side step dance to it. It's so damn cute, I promise I'll tape it sometime.


One of the many things that will make Henry break out in a dance.

What Henry is not doing right now is walking. I used to be in the camp that babies will walk when they are ready. I've also been told many times that I should be happy he's not walking yet as for as much trouble he gets into now, it will double when he walks. But now, from my standpoint, it's getting to the point where he is ready, and we are taking him, to places where crawling around just isn't practical. On the advice of one of my blog readers, we decided to take Henry to Farmer Ted's. Farmer Ted's is actually pretty great as far as a farm trip goes – it's more like a farm amusement park for the under 10's. While Henry really enjoyed it, having to carry him when he clearly didn't want to be carried was a bit of a pain. There were precious few places that he could just crawl around – whereas he could have walked pretty much everywhere. We practice walking with him every single day and he can do it quite well just holding on to one of our hands (though he doesn't like it and will start whining for both our hands after a couple steps) but he just doesn't seem to want to. Or he's to scared to, though I truly doubt that is true. He's a bit of a daredevil.

"Again!  Again!"

He climbs stairs and is getting good at climbing down them. He climbs chairs and gets himself off just fine. What really convinced me that he wasn't scared of walking was how he handled the slide at the park. The first time I really put Henry on the slide, I just placed him on the platform so that he could look around. Instead of looking around for a bit then sitting there asking to be slid down on his butt like I've done with him before, the little fucker dived head first down the slide before I had a chance to catch him. He had a great laugh and I spent the next half hour putting on that damn platform so he could do it over and over again. Does that sound like a kid that is scared of walking?

"I'll even eat prawn cocktail crisps even though I make this face when I do.  I'm brave!"

With all the time that he's spent not walking, he has been expanding his vocabulary. We've got 'yes' and 'no' now. 'Yes' (or 'es') is the more popular right now, thank god. He said 'lights' and he's trying to say 'orange'. There's also been a lot of pointing to wanted items (funny enough, many times it's pointing to that damn orange) with a bunch of “I can't believe you can't understand what I'm saying, MOM” babble.

Seriously, this time last year we were THRILLED when he grabbed for a toy. Now our singing, dancing, spoon feeding, orange wanting, head first down the slide, refusing to walk little child is, well, making us laugh....like, every day.

Andy swears I shouldn't worry about Pica yet.

Just the facts, ma'am.

Currently Henry is 13 months old. I actually detest the fact that I am still using months as an age indicator since he’s turned one, but apparently this is Very Important in the mothering world. Since I haven’t updated in awhile (I’m slowly getting back on the blogging horse so to speak after a short break) I thought I’d just start out with some stats.

Weight at 1 year check up: 23 lbs

Height at 1 year check up: 29 inches

Teeth: Two at the bottom, two at the top. There are currently 3 teeth making their way through though which has caused us to buy stock in baby ibuprofen and Calpol.

Walking: Not yet, but he’s getting closer. He walks fine with a baby walker and while holding just one of our hands but he still isn’t brave enough to do it by himself.

Favorite Foods: Yogurt, any type of fruit but the favorites are blueberries, strawberries and bananas, any type of meat or fish (I’ve fed him lamb liver once which he was quite happy about), crackers, Cheerios, spaghetti, and crisps. Yes, crisps. Thank you Andy.

Most Hated Foods: Vegetables. I’ve had to hide vegetables in his food since he was 10 months old.

Words: Mama, Dada, hi, bye, apple, good and “all gone”. Today he also started calling his little plastic sheep ‘baa’. I kept saying, “This is a sheep. A sheep. Sheeeeeep. The sheep goes ‘baa’.” He’d reply, “baa!”

Sleeping: If he isn’t teething or doesn’t have a cold, he will sleep from 7 PM (ish) to 6:30 AM (ish). Most days he has a nice two hour nap in his cot starting at 10 AM. Typically though, he’s teething or has a cold.

Favorite Toys: Anything with wheels is a big hit. He’s also partial to the Little People Farmhouse that I picked up at a charity shop last month.

Favorite Not Toys: Daddy’s phones, the TV remotes, the cable box (he pushes the on\off button to the point that I think it will fall off soon), the trash bin, the cat’s food bowl, the pile of PSP games stored in a drawer, and our shoes.

Funny but Annoying Game: Henry likes to take the refrigerator magnets off the fridge and will slide them UNDER the fridge so to get them is risking sticking your hand where you don’t think hands should ever be.

Best Mommy Moments: It might be the constant teething or all the colds, but Henry is becoming very cuddly this past month. He will hug me properly then hold on tightly with both his little hands on my shoulders if he doesn’t think the hug should end quite yet. He also gives the best kisses – granted they are open mouthed which is a bit weird.

Worst Mommy Moments: The boy hates diaper changes. He screams bloody murder every time I change him. This is fine if it’s just a diaper of pee. When it’s a shit storm in there, sometimes it takes two people to get him cleaned off and to stop him from flinging both his hands and feet into the poo. Henry seemingly has no issue what-so-ever in sitting in shit for however long it takes us to realize that he needs changing. I truly believe that he would happily wear the same diaper all day long – only willing to get naked if there is a bath promised (which he loves).

And now…this month’s pictures:

 Just waking up from a nap

Like I said, ANYTHING with wheels

The boy loves 'In the Night Garden'

I should also mention that he loves crawling around in pubs.

He even knows where the Gents is.

Giving Grandpa a hug.

Pinwheels are good for hitting Daddy over the head with.

Another one for Maggie : Gnome Feng Shui

Henry obviously has my passion for gnomes. Also, this video will give good evidence on why my gnomes both have chipped noses.

So this is toddlerhood

I have been struggling to find the time to update this blog. No, that’s technically a lie. At night, after we put the Henbot to sleep, I do have the time to write. I guess I should say that I’ve been struggling to find the energy to write this blog as lately, after we get the Henbot to sleep, all I want to do is stare at the television for an hour, have a cocktail and go to bed.

As you know, Henry turned one year old about two weeks ago. At the point he turned one, there seemed to be this switch in his brain that went from hyper baby to AHHHHHH I’M A TODDLER!!!! (One would call this going to ‘11’ by the way). As Andy and myself are older parents and we are as far from fit as one could possibly be without a crane to get us out of bed in the morning, it’s fair to say that we are struggling a bit to keep up with him. I’m sure once he starts walking\running, this will get even worse. We may need to consider hiring a “just quite didn’t make it to the Olympics” track runner to help us out.

On the move...

I don’t know if it’s just the rapid crawling from here to there to there to here to there to ‘What’s this? It’s shiny!’ to there to ‘Power cords! Fun!’ to here to there to ‘Catch the cat! Must catch the cat!’ to there to here to ‘Must drop Daddy’s cell phone on the ground then push it across hardwood floor like car!’ to there to ‘I don’t know what this is so I better eat it’ to here to ‘Cable box ON! Cable box OFF! Cable box ON! Cable Box OFF!’ to there to ‘NOOOO! I want to stick my fingers in the hole in the soda can! You are so UNFAIR!’ to ‘Shoes shoes shoes EVERYWHERE!’ to there to ‘MUST PLAY IN TRASH CAN WHEN PARENTS AREN’T LOOKING’, or if it’s just his constant babbling and struggling to figure out what he’s saying.

Still on the move....

The experts, whoever hell THEY are, always say that when your kid is babbling away that you should maintain eye contact and respond back to them like it’s a proper conversation. This is supposedly to help the kid understand how the flow of conversation works. Now, when I used to work, I used to struggle maintaining focus during an hour long meeting – and that was listening to someone speak proper English. For Henry’s 11 some waking hours, I do my best to “uh huh” him and “oh really?” him and “oh, that sounds interesting, tell me more”. Of course I end up getting bored with my own responses so I start making shit up. “There was a bear with a potato peeler running through the yard?! Wow! Did he have 5 arms? Tell me more!”

By the way, where do toddlers learn the “I don’t know” look? How do they know how to mimic “I don’t know” without actually knowing what “I don’t know” is? Henry has been doing this for the last couple of days. He does the “I don’t know” expression (head tilted to one side of course) and then starts chattering away and looking at me like I’m the dipshit who can’t see the obvious. Where do they learn this? Do I do this to Andy without realizing it? Did he get it from ‘Postman Pat’? I have no idea.

This is not our kid, this is just the expression so you know what the hell I'm talking about.

I do know what Henry got from ‘Postman Pat’ though. He got his first word. In the mornings after I give him his bottle, I put him in his play pen and stick on Cbeebies for twenty minutes while I have a cup of coffee and check my email. When I came back into the room with my coffee, ‘Postman Pat’ was on and they were doing something with apples (I don’t watch the show very carefully – they could have been shoving them in the mouths of roasted pigs, I really have no idea). Henry turned away from the television, looked at me and said, “apple”. His first word…and he got it off of ‘Postman Pat’. He said ‘apple’ for a good hour or so after that but since has only spouted it once or twice while I was changing his diaper. He did spout his 2nd word today, to the cat. It was close to bedtime. Henry was on the couch with us and the cat was lounging on Andy’s legs. Suddenly Henry sprung towards the cat, looked at her and said, “HI!” The cat was not amused, though Andy and I had a good laugh about it.

Thanks Pat.

Anyhow, I’d write more but I’m tired and my drink is waiting.

1st Birthday

 

The Boy on the Big Day

And a little video taken at the zoo, which was his birthday outing:

On the eve...

So on the eve of my son’s first birthday, I’d like to tell you all how much my son rocks. I could of course start reminiscing of what was happening to my nether regions a mere year ago. I could also tell you that on the eve of my son’s first birthday he decided to cut a couple more teeth so he’s been up crying in pain every few hours. But no, I think that on the eve of my son’s first birthday, I rather tell you how much my son rocks. Like K.I.S.S. style rocks.

The one story I’ve been meaning to tell you all about happened about three weeks ago when we were at one of our weekly playgroup sessions. At this particular session, there is a guitar playing woman singing songs. After the song singing, they bring out a little table where they serve water in sippy cups and offer up some fruit. My son, being of my loins, is usually one of the first kids standing at the little table reaching for something to shove in his gob. He’s usually the last one at the table as well, but that’s neither here nor there.

I might have mentioned that Henry is a bit small for his age. I’ve yet to encounter any kid near his age who is around his size. Even so, it’s really starting to irritate me when mothers tell their kids (most of whom are only a few weeks or months older than Henry) to mind “the baby”. While he might not be walking yet, he has taken the pre-Olympics Baby Gold for crawling (taking the gold for Great Britain and the United States)(yes, it’s possible) and he pulls himself up on EVERYTHING and I’ve seen him stand solo when he’s not paying attention and he says “mama” and “yeah” (our proper English in this house is appalling) and he likes potato chips over everything else in the world and DAMMIT, HE’S NOT A FUCKING BABY. Regardless of this, I’m certainly not worried that my son is wearing clothes for 12 months being that he’s 12 months and not size 3T.

ANYHOW, so at this particular playgroup session, the baby refreshment table comes out and as usual Henry is one of the first kids standing there waiting to be “refreshed”. It happened to be a busy session that day and because the session is for 6 months to 5 years age range, there were a lot of older kids also at the table. Immediately the older kids – kids that stand a good head and a half above Henry – started pushing him out of the way. My little boy held his ground until two older boys ganged up on him. They pushed him and shouted in his face and eventually Henry freaked out and started to cry.

At that point I came over. As a general parenting rule, I try my best to keep my distance (but ever watching) so that Henry can learn to take care of himself. I intervene when Henry is being rude (stealing toys from kids is his personal forte) or when Henry obviously is overwhelmed. This was one of those times. I picked him up and he did a very short sob in my arms. I reassured them that those kids were being mean. He looked at me then looked at them and then he motioned to be put down. If it had been me – if it had been me at 37 years old no less – I would have said “fuck this” and left. Not my brave boy Henry. Two older boys a head and a half taller than him that were still at the table– he just went right back to hold his place, older boys be damned.

Right before the pushing began.

And after the whole thing was over.  The kid eating on the left hand side of the picture was one of the assailants.

I’ve always loved my child. I’ve always thought he was cute and smart and just generally awesome. That day though, I was proud. I was so damn proud of my son that my chest swelled. I think about that, on the eve of his first birthday, about how I hope that he will always be like that. I hope that this little boy who is friendly and funny (a comedian and a flirt) will know how to pick himself up and stand his ground when the odds are stacked against him.

I love you peanut. Happy Eve of your 1st Birthday.