Indian Food

Henry has been a good sleeper at night. He slept until 7:15 or so yesterday morning and did the same thing today. This morning, I thought that Bitsy was going to wake him up around 5:30AM. I had gotten up at 3:30AM, couldn't sleep so I did some data analysis. Went back to bed around 5AM. Bits got on my side, purring up a storm. She licked my hand. Then, she went to the other side of the bed to lick Jeff. She gave Henry a couple licks on the head, then came back toward my side and tried to lick his legs and feet. I tried to shew her away, but then she took that as I sign that I wanted my face licked too. Henry slept through the whole thing.

We had a visit from Selah yesterday. She commented on how smart Henry is. He, however, often gets out of certain tasks by finding a short-cut. She was trying to get him to use his pincher fingers instead of using his thumb against the side of a toy to extract a Gerber puff. She thought he looked great. She still doesn't like that he uses the bear crawl. She did make a plausible argument as to why. Basically, she says that the bear crawl uses the back of the legs more than the hips, which changes the muscle development. I buy that to some extent. At least Henry doesn't bear crawl all of the time. He certainly uses his knees when it suits him, but he is really good at the bear crawl and has incredibly well-developed arms because of it. In fact, the other day, he practically did a chin up on the side of his play pen. I do think that the bear crawl has lead him to turn his right foot more out rather than straight, so it is something that Jeff and I are keeping an eye on. Jeff has noticed that he doesn't bear crawl as much when he is wearing his sandals, so we'll probably be more diligent about his foot wear.

Henry crashed with Jeff for a nap around 5 or 5:30PM. I was convinced that he was out for the night. It was rainy during that time. When the rain subsided, I took the dogs on a very muddy walk. I wiped the dogs feet before letting them enter the house. Nevertheless, Marley climbed on the breakfast table leaving dirty foot prints. Yuck.

Henry woke up at 7:30PM. He was wide awake. I had a craving for Indian food, so we took Henry to our local Indian food restaurant. It was his first visit there. The people who run the restaurant have kids, so we figured that it would be a good place to take Henry. We didn't let him crawl on the floor, which made him a bit peeved. He tried a lot of foods, but I think that he was so taken by the surrounding that his quantity wasn't great. I gave him some papadum with tamarind sauce, which he liked, much to Jeff's surprise. The papadum have a strong black pepper taste. I also tried some mint chutney on him, but he wasn't a fan (yet). He loved watching the ladies in their brightly color clothes. He tried chicken masala, palak paneer, dal, naan, and potatoes. He loved the dal. The waiter really liked Henry. The feeling was mutually. Henry gave him several winning smiles. That said, Henry did burst out into song a few times. It didn't take much to quiet him down, but I can't exactly say that it was a relaxing meal. I think that we may be entering a phase where our restaurant visits are few and far between.

We haven't seen any repercussions from giving him the paneer. And, I strongly suspect that there was some butter in the dal. We still plan to be cautious on the amount of dairy that we give Henry. We do want to challenge his system and see what he can and can't handle. But there's no need to push the envelope now. He obviously is able to eat a wide variety of foods. But I have no intentions of giving him straight cow's milk for several months. We also have no intentions of giving him sugary foods, especially when he clearly enjoys fruits and veggies.

He played a bit when we got back to the house. After awhile, he exhibited the signs of any overtired tot, rubbing his eyes and flopping around. His dad took him to the back where they fell fast asleep.