6.25

A huge three months for Henry!  Since he turned six, he started school, made some friends, got the baby brother he'd been wanting for six years, and is trying hard to be a true suburban Minnesota kid.  

Our big guy, who seems so very big this year, has been way up and down lately.  Sometimes he's so helpful it's like having a third adult in the house. He gets Heidi up from her nap.  He can do food prep in a way that is helpful instead of "helpful."  He loves bringing in the Amazon packages and breaking down the boxes.  He also walked the dog one time, but I saw him scoop the poop into the poo bag using his totally uncovered other hand, so we took dog-walking off the list of suggested chores for awhile.  

But he's also pushing our buttons sometimes and seems to have a knack for pressing his luck when Karl and I are feeling our least patient.  Lots of continuing obnoxious behavior, even after repeated warnings in my most annoyed tone of voice, and my annoyed-mom voice is not subtle.  This weekend I finally got a shot at 20 uninterrupted minutes, after four very long, interrupted days, and laid out materials to hem our curtains.  Henry wouldn't quit walking all over them and badgering me about nothing until I snapped and yelled at him.  He's also super anxious at bedtime.  Karl puts the older kids to bed but Henry insists on second bedtime with me after I get Frederick to bed, which often doesn't happen until after 9:00, and he comes into the baby's room fifteen times to verify that I'm coming soon, which does not hasten the process.  And then after second cuddles he sometimes still loses his mind when I leave the room.  Sometimes it seems like he just wants company, sometimes he seems sincerely anxious, but either way it's tough for me to continue being my most warm and loving after 14 hours of continuous child care.  Hard to know whether this is delayed behavioral fallout from the move, needing extra attention post-new baby, or Just A Phase.  

The wonderful upside to neediness is that he is intensely affectionate right now.  He loves to write and leaves us the most charming notes.  Kindergarten/third-year Montessori spelling is THE BEST.

Here's one night's worth of notes, left on the floor outside Frederick's door during the bedtime routine:

For those of you not versed in six-year-old spelling, that's, "Mom will you cuddle me," "I love you mom," and "Please come cuddle me mom."  And this tear-jerker:

"From Henry to Mom, I will always love you, I also love you right now." 

His friends also received personal notes for Valentine's Day.  Henry hand-wrote individual cards to every single person, just like he did last year, and I was amazed at how much his spelling had improved.  Last year I had to spell every word for him but this year he just sat down and cranked out notes all by himself.  Query whether anyone else will understand them.  This was my favorite:

"Soren, I like your style, from Henry."  How awesome and sweet is that?

But let's not forget that he is a six-year-old boy:

"Oh mom, you forgot to wipe our butt."  He came home from school with this one.  I'm sure his teacher will be pleased to discuss our hygiene standards at the next conference.  

School is still going well.  He resists going in the morning sometimes, but it's February, and frankly none of us really wants to get out of bed and go outside.  He's always happy when he comes home.  Based on the papers he brings home, it still seems like the work is too easy for him, but his reading is nonetheless progressing by leaps and bounds.  So he may be doing reading work at school that we don't hear about, or it may just be the reading we do at home.  He can knock through a Level 2 beginning reader book or Henry & Mudge, a little halting, but without much trouble with individual words.  I need to get some video of him so I can remember what it sounds like.

There is much more social norming in a class with a bunch of other boys the same age.  Henry notices what other kids are wearing and doing and wants to do the same things.  He comes home asking for different shoes, a certain backpack, to grow his hair out, sign up for soccer, root for the Patriots or the Packers, etc.  We didn't see this in Montessori and I have some angst about it.  It's sweet and innocent now but it's one aspect of rigid age-grouping that I dislike most about traditional classrooms.  But it's wonderful for him that he has so many more friends in class.  We regularly hear about five or six different boys and their personalities vis-a-vis the friend group.    

Thanks to Carol and Dave, I made it to Family Night and his Valentine's Day party without the other kids in tow, giving Henry some much-needed solo attention.  He was so super proud to show me his class' basket for the raffle, his classroom, his cafeteria, and his entry for the Minnesota-themed art show.  

This is his playground.  Those of us from normal climates would just call this a sheet of ice.

He is the most Viking of all of us when it comes to temperature.  He plays outside for at least a little while after school almost every day, regardless of weather, and still tells us with genuine enthusiasm that he loves his "huge yard like our own park."  I find it very sweet that what we considered a modest inner-ring suburban lot feels like a hundred acre wood to him.  It's awesome that he can go out by himself, even if he has to play alone until spring comes and the rest of the neighborhood comes out of hibernation.

My baby seems very mature lately.  He's making the leap from little kid to rational big kid and asking all kinds of sophisticated questions.  This week also marked his first jokes that actually made sense (Why didn't the skeleton go to the party?  He had noBODY to go with!).  Getting a punchline is a big cognitive leap!  Also, 6.25 means that -- take a deep breath with me -- assuming he goes to college in the fall after he turns 18, he's now one third of the way through his time living at home with us.  

I'll leave you with this gem from the easel, which is Henry at six summed up in one image.  

It started as a math lesson to Heidi and Nona and somehow devolved into, "Mom look at my penis, stinky poopoo, butt and poopoo farts and will you cuddle me at night [?] kiss butt from Henry to Mom."  Brains, butts, and cuddles.  That's my guy.