2.25
It was something of a relief to give up on doing monthly updates for Henry when he turned two. I felt like he wasn't changing enough each month and I was struggling to come up with new ways to describe him. The downside is that I stopped writing down all of the little things that wouldn't merit their own posts, but together add up to the quirky character that I would like to remember as Henry at X age. It's been three months since he turned two, so I thought it was time for a quarterly report.
Other parents describe the feeling of wanting to poke their eyes out with a spoon if they have to read a certain book for the hundredth time. Henry doesn't stick with one book long enough to make us go crazy (and he likes pretty decent literature, which helps), but he does want us to TALK about things until we're blue in the face. What he wants is a book report summary of the event or synopsis of the plot of whatever it is we're TALKing about. He'll demand, for instance, "You talk about the car was beeping," and then we're supposed to talk about the time Grandpa Dave's car alarm went off. When we can't take repeating the same story again, we tell him no, and he replies, "NO, you TALK about it," as though we simply didn't understand that he wanted us to tell it again. Lately he wants us to summarize various plot points from the books he reads and the movies he watches. I you ever need someone to cover the highlights of Monsters, Inc. in about 60 seconds, give me a call.
Based on what he asks us to TALK about, we can tell his memory is about four months long. After our Memorial Day trip to the cabin, we had to talk about Eric water skiing until about September. The car alarm incident happened in October and it's starting to fall out of the story rotation. Anything in the past is "yesterday," regardless of whether it happened two months ago, or just before today's nap.
He doesn't have many real meltdown tantrums, but when he gets frustrated, he runs in place and flaps his hands. He is sometimes willfully defiant, which is harder to deal with now because he is big enough to be tough to physically control and has enough autonomy that he could really hurt himself if he doesn't stop when I tell him to stop. Sometimes I try to use my scary mommy voice to get him to listen to me and he literally laughs in my face. He will also do the exact opposite of what Karl says and then say, "I love you so much."
His favorite books for the past few months are Winnie the Pooh and his poems book. Green Eggs & Ham and the trucks book also came back into the rotation in the last few weeks. He understands more than I give him credit for and makes connections that are almost startling. Yesterday we were watching an episode of Winnie the Pooh. Owl was talking about his family and mentioned a relative that sailed off with a pussycat. Henry immediately said, "Like in my poem book!"
He is really interested in letters and can tell you which letter many of his favorite words start with, and can reliably identify seven or eight written letters (A, D, H, I, K, M, O, X). I think he thinks the letter is a glyph for the entire name, because if he sees an I, he says, "That's a Ingrid!" and he's confused that Daddy starts with D but Karl starts with K.
We're all happier if we can spend a couple of hours outside, but if we're stuck indoors, he loves to play Play-Doh, color, make roads with the long paper, do road construction with a drill and duct tape, and play trains. But he isn't great at playing by himself and still needs me to take the lead on most of our activities.
He talks and talks and talks and talks but doesn't sing nearly as much as he did a few months ago, which makes me sad. I wish I had gotten more singing on video while it lasted. He is working really hard at words (and probably the concepts) that indicate change or uncertainty -- he uses words like anymore, yet, probably, sometimes, maybe with about 75% accuracy. I could tell when he started noticing these words because he would tack them on to the end of his sentences even when they didn't make sense, like, "Daddy is wearing a green shirt . . . praaaaaaaahbably."
At least once per meal he shows us a mouthful of chewed food and asks, "What's in my mouth?" Not clear whether he wants us to identify the food we served, or if he has sincerely forgotten what it was he licked of his fork two seconds ago.
For the most part, he's a wonderful big brother. Sometimes he wants to hold her while we read stories, sometimes he gets annoyed if she tries to pat him. But he never seems angry with her if I can't do something for him because I'm holding or feeding her (annoyed with me, yes; with her, no). He can also be very solicitous of her and will bring her toys and tries to share things with her if she is sad. When she cries, he tells me, "Mommy, Ingrid's sad. Go get her." and when she spits up, "Mommy, Ingrid spit. Clean her." It's always nice when your toddler judges your parenting.
He usually fancies himself big and brave but has started showing some fearfulness for the first time in his life. I think he is starting to realize that the world is a big place and there are things he cannot control. He often wants the light on at night because he is afraid of the dark, and usually wants to hold my hand when we walk outside because there are cars nearby (of course, that doesn't stop him from running away from me the very next minute). I took him to the nature preserve yesterday and at first he was scared of the woods, but then had zero fear of leaning over the edge of a little bridge over running water, or of climbing a six-foot ladder at the playground.
I was just looking at the pictures we had taken in September after Ingrid was born, and Henry already looks so different. One of my friends said that her family always has pictures done at two and a half because that's when the baby disappears and the kid emerges, and I think she's right. The last of Henry's baby features are fading away and we can see the boy taking shape. I miss the baby but the boy is an awful lot of fun.
Other parents describe the feeling of wanting to poke their eyes out with a spoon if they have to read a certain book for the hundredth time. Henry doesn't stick with one book long enough to make us go crazy (and he likes pretty decent literature, which helps), but he does want us to TALK about things until we're blue in the face. What he wants is a book report summary of the event or synopsis of the plot of whatever it is we're TALKing about. He'll demand, for instance, "You talk about the car was beeping," and then we're supposed to talk about the time Grandpa Dave's car alarm went off. When we can't take repeating the same story again, we tell him no, and he replies, "NO, you TALK about it," as though we simply didn't understand that he wanted us to tell it again. Lately he wants us to summarize various plot points from the books he reads and the movies he watches. I you ever need someone to cover the highlights of Monsters, Inc. in about 60 seconds, give me a call.
Based on what he asks us to TALK about, we can tell his memory is about four months long. After our Memorial Day trip to the cabin, we had to talk about Eric water skiing until about September. The car alarm incident happened in October and it's starting to fall out of the story rotation. Anything in the past is "yesterday," regardless of whether it happened two months ago, or just before today's nap.
He doesn't have many real meltdown tantrums, but when he gets frustrated, he runs in place and flaps his hands. He is sometimes willfully defiant, which is harder to deal with now because he is big enough to be tough to physically control and has enough autonomy that he could really hurt himself if he doesn't stop when I tell him to stop. Sometimes I try to use my scary mommy voice to get him to listen to me and he literally laughs in my face. He will also do the exact opposite of what Karl says and then say, "I love you so much."
His favorite books for the past few months are Winnie the Pooh and his poems book. Green Eggs & Ham and the trucks book also came back into the rotation in the last few weeks. He understands more than I give him credit for and makes connections that are almost startling. Yesterday we were watching an episode of Winnie the Pooh. Owl was talking about his family and mentioned a relative that sailed off with a pussycat. Henry immediately said, "Like in my poem book!"
He is really interested in letters and can tell you which letter many of his favorite words start with, and can reliably identify seven or eight written letters (A, D, H, I, K, M, O, X). I think he thinks the letter is a glyph for the entire name, because if he sees an I, he says, "That's a Ingrid!" and he's confused that Daddy starts with D but Karl starts with K.
We're all happier if we can spend a couple of hours outside, but if we're stuck indoors, he loves to play Play-Doh, color, make roads with the long paper, do road construction with a drill and duct tape, and play trains. But he isn't great at playing by himself and still needs me to take the lead on most of our activities.
He talks and talks and talks and talks but doesn't sing nearly as much as he did a few months ago, which makes me sad. I wish I had gotten more singing on video while it lasted. He is working really hard at words (and probably the concepts) that indicate change or uncertainty -- he uses words like anymore, yet, probably, sometimes, maybe with about 75% accuracy. I could tell when he started noticing these words because he would tack them on to the end of his sentences even when they didn't make sense, like, "Daddy is wearing a green shirt . . . praaaaaaaahbably."
At least once per meal he shows us a mouthful of chewed food and asks, "What's in my mouth?" Not clear whether he wants us to identify the food we served, or if he has sincerely forgotten what it was he licked of his fork two seconds ago.
For the most part, he's a wonderful big brother. Sometimes he wants to hold her while we read stories, sometimes he gets annoyed if she tries to pat him. But he never seems angry with her if I can't do something for him because I'm holding or feeding her (annoyed with me, yes; with her, no). He can also be very solicitous of her and will bring her toys and tries to share things with her if she is sad. When she cries, he tells me, "Mommy, Ingrid's sad. Go get her." and when she spits up, "Mommy, Ingrid spit. Clean her." It's always nice when your toddler judges your parenting.
He usually fancies himself big and brave but has started showing some fearfulness for the first time in his life. I think he is starting to realize that the world is a big place and there are things he cannot control. He often wants the light on at night because he is afraid of the dark, and usually wants to hold my hand when we walk outside because there are cars nearby (of course, that doesn't stop him from running away from me the very next minute). I took him to the nature preserve yesterday and at first he was scared of the woods, but then had zero fear of leaning over the edge of a little bridge over running water, or of climbing a six-foot ladder at the playground.
I was just looking at the pictures we had taken in September after Ingrid was born, and Henry already looks so different. One of my friends said that her family always has pictures done at two and a half because that's when the baby disappears and the kid emerges, and I think she's right. The last of Henry's baby features are fading away and we can see the boy taking shape. I miss the baby but the boy is an awful lot of fun.
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