Thirteen Months

Henry has been all sweetness and wonderful this month.  We still get the occasional tantrum, but I'm at risk of becoming one of those mothers who feels the need to gush over how every single thing her kid does is the cutest thing ever. 

He has a funny new scrunchy-nose grin.  There's just a hint of mischief in it.

He loves to play with us and gets when something is a game now.  One of our favorite activities is chase-the-toddler, but we're not supposed to actually catch him.  He runs up and down the hall, or around and around the circle between the doorways in our kitchen, with his hilarious frankenstein-waddle run, squealing with glee the whole time.  

The other night at dinner, Karl did a dramatic chipmunk move right behind me.

 

 

Henry thought it was just about the funniest thing ever and kept demanding that Karl do it over and over again.  Of course,  the game isn't over until the toddler says it's over.  You can see near the end -- Karl stops doing the move and starts to walk away, and Henry tells him "nooooo."

He also turned into a hugging machine.  I have no idea where it came from, but all of a sudden he wants to hug everyone in sight.  Our friends Miles and Sarah brought their seven month old to visit over the Thanksgiving weekend, and Henry ran right over to throw his arms around baby Max, complete with head-resting. 

He really loves his people and doesn't like it when anyone leaves him.  He cries when I leave in the morning, then cries when Elaine leaves in the evening, and complains when Karl walks more than two feet away.  But for mere acquaintances, he's a very polite host, waving and saying "bye bye" when they leave -- except it comes out as "bah baaaaaah," with a little lilt, like he's a tiny southern debutante.

It's been a great month.  After a more trying October, we enjoyed Henry to bits in November.