3.5
The little man is seeming very big lately. Karl took him to Seattle for a week, and I could have sworn he turned eight while he was gone.
Henry has been very independent and capable for the last six weeks. We had a couple of months at the end of winter in which Henry would not do a darn thing for himself. He would lose his mind if I refused to go upstairs and get some random article of clothing -- never you mind that he had already picked clothes for himself, and I had already been up and down the stairs ten times without him mentioning that he wanted something. Then a switch flipped, and all of a sudden, he's running all over the house to get whatever he wants. He gets himself dressed from head to toe in the morning and at bedtime. He wants to go outside by himself, which I would love, but for the fact that we live in a city with busy streets and non-zero crime rates. One day he unlocked the door and let himself out while I was putting Ingrid down for her nap. Good thing the door alarm dinged! We had to have a serious talk about not going out without telling me. And we started putting the keys out of reach. So he's allowed to play in the backyard by himself, and he can zoom up and down the sidewalk in the front with the other kids on our block as long as I'm in the front yard to watch him.
With these expanded boundaries comes a better sense of his neighborhood. He likes to go up and down the block and visit his friends. He's learning to ring the bell (only once, please) and ask if his friend can come out and play. When we go to the market, he says hello to our usual vendors, and I'll sometimes give him money and let him go to a stall and ask for something he wants. The lady at the dry cleaners knows him by name and gets out the lollipop basket when he comes in. He knows which kids we usually see at which playgrounds and can navigate reasonably well between our most-frequented landmarks.
Major challenges right now fall into the "threenager" category: hyper-dramatic responses to everything, some attitude, refusal to comply with reasonable requests. And whining. Lord, the whining. Most of the time, though, he's a really great little sidekick.
Aside from his mandatory 60-minute quiet wake-up period in the morning (no idea where he got that trait), he wants to be around other kids all the time. He always asks who we're going to see that day and is very frustrated if there isn't anyone at the park to play with. I love that he considers everyone a potential friend. Just today, he played with a one year old girl, a gang of 4 and 5 year old boys, a 5 year old girl, and a 12 year old girl. It's fun to watch him engage with kids of different ages and learn to tailor his approach to the relevant playmate.
He had a phase where he was really interested in measurements and units of measure. But he wasn't entirely clear on what the units are used for, resulting in some amusing declarations, like, "It's seventy-eighty-nine degrees high," and "It's 20 pounds cold" -- delivered with great certainty, of course.
Henry is still the consummate big brother to Ingrid and other little ones. When Ingrid wakes up from her nap, Henry likes to sprint upstairs to greet her. They bounce wildly together in the crib until I catch up. Our neighbor Drew, who is Ingrid's age, stayed with us overnight while his mom was in the hospital. Henry was beyond excited when he woke up and I told him Drew was downstairs. Our friends' six-week-old daughter came to visit for an hour this week, and Henry wanted to hold her the whole time. And he told me his favorite part of his trip to Seattle was taking care of baby Alden.
Current loves include his bike, doing whatever Daddy does, giving Daddy head-butts, puzzles, organizing things, playing with other kids, granola bars, making loud noises, butt/fart/poop "jokes," climbing trees, and generally being silly. He's been reading The Hobbit with Karl and still likes to watch superhero shows.
Henry's developmental years really seem to run from his half-birthdays. I distinctly recall him shifting from a toddler to a preschooler right around two and a half. I'm looking forward to more sweet, silly, and capable as our man turns three-going-on-four.
Henry has been very independent and capable for the last six weeks. We had a couple of months at the end of winter in which Henry would not do a darn thing for himself. He would lose his mind if I refused to go upstairs and get some random article of clothing -- never you mind that he had already picked clothes for himself, and I had already been up and down the stairs ten times without him mentioning that he wanted something. Then a switch flipped, and all of a sudden, he's running all over the house to get whatever he wants. He gets himself dressed from head to toe in the morning and at bedtime. He wants to go outside by himself, which I would love, but for the fact that we live in a city with busy streets and non-zero crime rates. One day he unlocked the door and let himself out while I was putting Ingrid down for her nap. Good thing the door alarm dinged! We had to have a serious talk about not going out without telling me. And we started putting the keys out of reach. So he's allowed to play in the backyard by himself, and he can zoom up and down the sidewalk in the front with the other kids on our block as long as I'm in the front yard to watch him.
With these expanded boundaries comes a better sense of his neighborhood. He likes to go up and down the block and visit his friends. He's learning to ring the bell (only once, please) and ask if his friend can come out and play. When we go to the market, he says hello to our usual vendors, and I'll sometimes give him money and let him go to a stall and ask for something he wants. The lady at the dry cleaners knows him by name and gets out the lollipop basket when he comes in. He knows which kids we usually see at which playgrounds and can navigate reasonably well between our most-frequented landmarks.
Major challenges right now fall into the "threenager" category: hyper-dramatic responses to everything, some attitude, refusal to comply with reasonable requests. And whining. Lord, the whining. Most of the time, though, he's a really great little sidekick.
Aside from his mandatory 60-minute quiet wake-up period in the morning (no idea where he got that trait), he wants to be around other kids all the time. He always asks who we're going to see that day and is very frustrated if there isn't anyone at the park to play with. I love that he considers everyone a potential friend. Just today, he played with a one year old girl, a gang of 4 and 5 year old boys, a 5 year old girl, and a 12 year old girl. It's fun to watch him engage with kids of different ages and learn to tailor his approach to the relevant playmate.
He had a phase where he was really interested in measurements and units of measure. But he wasn't entirely clear on what the units are used for, resulting in some amusing declarations, like, "It's seventy-eighty-nine degrees high," and "It's 20 pounds cold" -- delivered with great certainty, of course.
Henry is still the consummate big brother to Ingrid and other little ones. When Ingrid wakes up from her nap, Henry likes to sprint upstairs to greet her. They bounce wildly together in the crib until I catch up. Our neighbor Drew, who is Ingrid's age, stayed with us overnight while his mom was in the hospital. Henry was beyond excited when he woke up and I told him Drew was downstairs. Our friends' six-week-old daughter came to visit for an hour this week, and Henry wanted to hold her the whole time. And he told me his favorite part of his trip to Seattle was taking care of baby Alden.
Current loves include his bike, doing whatever Daddy does, giving Daddy head-butts, puzzles, organizing things, playing with other kids, granola bars, making loud noises, butt/fart/poop "jokes," climbing trees, and generally being silly. He's been reading The Hobbit with Karl and still likes to watch superhero shows.
Henry's developmental years really seem to run from his half-birthdays. I distinctly recall him shifting from a toddler to a preschooler right around two and a half. I'm looking forward to more sweet, silly, and capable as our man turns three-going-on-four.
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