3.75
It's been a big quarter for the little man. Quite a few developments that I kept meaning to document on their own, and then never got around to posting. So it's an epic quarterly report.
I asked Karl what Henry is up to these days. He answered, "Besides generally being violent?" Indeed. He's high-energy. Today he played tackle with Daddy for 90 minutes after Karl got home from work. To Henry's credit, he does turn it off (for the most part) with me and Ingrid.
We're getting a preview of what it will be like to have a teenager in the house. He's alternately a really fun, mature, capable little companion, and a total emotional nutcase. Something will be really funny....until it ISN'T, and he breaks down in tears. He asks, "Do you hate me?" all the time. It was really heartbreaking at first, and then it became sort of funny, and now it's just ridiculous. Even Ingrid knows the script. Henry goes, "Do you hate me?" and Ingrid goes, in a super sweet voice, "No, I love you!" Seriously, I'll say something totally innocuous, like, "Please put on your shoes." Henry will storm upstairs going, "WHY DOES EVERYONE HATE ME?" I try not to laugh.
He's going through a "just like Daddy" phase. I placed a monster order at Old Navy so that he could make it through a week wearing only clothes that Karl also has in his closet. When Karl comes home and changes into comfy shorts and a white shirt, Henry goes upstairs and changes into comfy clothes and a white shirt. Sometimes I'll come downstairs to see Henry sitting on the couch in some funny position, because he's trying to arrange his body just like Daddy next to him, except he can't get his feet on the coffee table and his arm on the back of the couch at the same time.
Karl's been letting him stay up late occasionally to watch movies together. Henry lies to me about it in a way that is simultaneously hilarious, because he clearly gets that it's a joke, and terrifying, because he's stone cold awesome at it. He'll walk by Ingrid's room while I'm putting her to bed and say, serious as can be, "I'm just going downstairs to get more milk." Or if I come to the basement and they're still watching, he'll say, without skipping a beat, "We just came down here because we forgot Blankie and Puppy."
After a year and a half of refusing to get out of bed in the morning, he suddenly started getting up and coming downstairs on his own. He used to holler until I came up and retrieved him. Then one day his little face peeped down the basement stairs and that was that. He likes to "surprise" us, so even if I see him upstairs, I'm supposed to pretend that I didn't.
He's also been sleeping less overall. When he gave up the nap last fall, he started sleeping really late in the mornings -- often as late as 10:00. Over the course of this summer, it has crept earlier and earlier, and now he's consistently up around 8:00. I hope this keeps up when school starts.
He's interested in writing and letters again. I find it curious how non-linear his development has been in this area. When he was really into letters last summer, I mentally extrapolated his skills and thought he might be starting to read by this summer. Then he totally lost interest for an entire year. He has picked it up again this summer, with more of an emphasis on the writing of letters, rather than working on the sounds. He does know almost all of the letters and most of the sounds they make, but there's definitely no light-bulb going on when I try to get him to combine the letter sounds. It will be great for him to have all of the letter materials available to him when he starts school in a couple of weeks.
He's been cutting a gluing a lot. We make these superhero guys during quiet time. It's the first time he's ever been remotely interested in a fine-motor-skill artsy-craftsy thing.
But alas, the love of superheroes is waning. He doesn't want to dress up as often. This makes me surprisingly sad. I loved his superhero-suit swagger. It lasted a solid year, which is a really long time when you consider he's only three. He's been reading Harry Potter and The Hobbit with Karl and is much more into those stories now. He got a bow and arrow (with suction cups) while we were in Vermont and plays Legolas all the time.
He discovered rhyming and thinks it's awesome. When we ride around in the car, he'll entertain himself for half an hour at a time going, "Hey, mom, you know what rhymes with car? Far, bar, lar, mar, dar, gar. Hey, mom, you know what rhymes with banana? Fanana. Hey, mom...."
He's still so friendly. We can't go anywhere without him making buddies with some stranger, which is totally baffling to me and Karl but makes perfect sense to Uncle Eric. One day we were at the park and there was only one little baby there, so Henry just made friends with the kid's mom. He told her that he was three and a half and wanted to be an engineer, and then she said she really was an engineer, and then they had a thirty-minute conversation about the logistics of building a bridge over lava. The downside to loving people so much is that he's terrible at being alone. I'll leave him playing or watching a movie in the basement, and he seldom makes it two minutes before wandering upstairs and asking, "Whatcha doing, Mom? Can I help?"
School starts on September 29 (his school does a rolling start for new kids), so the next quarter will be another big one for him. I'm going to miss him terribly when he goes off with the big kids every day. But I think the wild man is ready for it.
I asked Karl what Henry is up to these days. He answered, "Besides generally being violent?" Indeed. He's high-energy. Today he played tackle with Daddy for 90 minutes after Karl got home from work. To Henry's credit, he does turn it off (for the most part) with me and Ingrid.
We're getting a preview of what it will be like to have a teenager in the house. He's alternately a really fun, mature, capable little companion, and a total emotional nutcase. Something will be really funny....until it ISN'T, and he breaks down in tears. He asks, "Do you hate me?" all the time. It was really heartbreaking at first, and then it became sort of funny, and now it's just ridiculous. Even Ingrid knows the script. Henry goes, "Do you hate me?" and Ingrid goes, in a super sweet voice, "No, I love you!" Seriously, I'll say something totally innocuous, like, "Please put on your shoes." Henry will storm upstairs going, "WHY DOES EVERYONE HATE ME?" I try not to laugh.
He's going through a "just like Daddy" phase. I placed a monster order at Old Navy so that he could make it through a week wearing only clothes that Karl also has in his closet. When Karl comes home and changes into comfy shorts and a white shirt, Henry goes upstairs and changes into comfy clothes and a white shirt. Sometimes I'll come downstairs to see Henry sitting on the couch in some funny position, because he's trying to arrange his body just like Daddy next to him, except he can't get his feet on the coffee table and his arm on the back of the couch at the same time.
Karl's been letting him stay up late occasionally to watch movies together. Henry lies to me about it in a way that is simultaneously hilarious, because he clearly gets that it's a joke, and terrifying, because he's stone cold awesome at it. He'll walk by Ingrid's room while I'm putting her to bed and say, serious as can be, "I'm just going downstairs to get more milk." Or if I come to the basement and they're still watching, he'll say, without skipping a beat, "We just came down here because we forgot Blankie and Puppy."
After a year and a half of refusing to get out of bed in the morning, he suddenly started getting up and coming downstairs on his own. He used to holler until I came up and retrieved him. Then one day his little face peeped down the basement stairs and that was that. He likes to "surprise" us, so even if I see him upstairs, I'm supposed to pretend that I didn't.
He's also been sleeping less overall. When he gave up the nap last fall, he started sleeping really late in the mornings -- often as late as 10:00. Over the course of this summer, it has crept earlier and earlier, and now he's consistently up around 8:00. I hope this keeps up when school starts.
He's interested in writing and letters again. I find it curious how non-linear his development has been in this area. When he was really into letters last summer, I mentally extrapolated his skills and thought he might be starting to read by this summer. Then he totally lost interest for an entire year. He has picked it up again this summer, with more of an emphasis on the writing of letters, rather than working on the sounds. He does know almost all of the letters and most of the sounds they make, but there's definitely no light-bulb going on when I try to get him to combine the letter sounds. It will be great for him to have all of the letter materials available to him when he starts school in a couple of weeks.
He's been cutting a gluing a lot. We make these superhero guys during quiet time. It's the first time he's ever been remotely interested in a fine-motor-skill artsy-craftsy thing.
But alas, the love of superheroes is waning. He doesn't want to dress up as often. This makes me surprisingly sad. I loved his superhero-suit swagger. It lasted a solid year, which is a really long time when you consider he's only three. He's been reading Harry Potter and The Hobbit with Karl and is much more into those stories now. He got a bow and arrow (with suction cups) while we were in Vermont and plays Legolas all the time.
He discovered rhyming and thinks it's awesome. When we ride around in the car, he'll entertain himself for half an hour at a time going, "Hey, mom, you know what rhymes with car? Far, bar, lar, mar, dar, gar. Hey, mom, you know what rhymes with banana? Fanana. Hey, mom...."
He's still so friendly. We can't go anywhere without him making buddies with some stranger, which is totally baffling to me and Karl but makes perfect sense to Uncle Eric. One day we were at the park and there was only one little baby there, so Henry just made friends with the kid's mom. He told her that he was three and a half and wanted to be an engineer, and then she said she really was an engineer, and then they had a thirty-minute conversation about the logistics of building a bridge over lava. The downside to loving people so much is that he's terrible at being alone. I'll leave him playing or watching a movie in the basement, and he seldom makes it two minutes before wandering upstairs and asking, "Whatcha doing, Mom? Can I help?"
School starts on September 29 (his school does a rolling start for new kids), so the next quarter will be another big one for him. I'm going to miss him terribly when he goes off with the big kids every day. But I think the wild man is ready for it.
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