Baseball, and More Baseball

We are short on Henry pictures this week as our second digital camera in the past year has gone kaput. Sigh. Many missed photo ops.

Thursday:
Grammy came over in the afternoon. Can't remember anything else.

Friday:
Shirley, Henry's PT, came in the afternoon. She thought that his ankles looked good and said that he is making progress. Henry tried some gazpacho soup (wasn't crazy about it, but he did come back for a second bite).

Saturday:
Saturday marked Henry's 1 year homecoming anniversary. Henry came come from the NICU on August 16, 2007. We went to the zoo in the morning. Henry liked the monkeys a lot (who were very noisy). His favorite animals were the ducks. Afterward, we headed to the university area for breakfast. We ended up at the Marriott (I really like their omelets). Henry was super social. I think that he had a crush on the waitress. He also gave big smiles to some guests at a nearby table and liked the bus boy too. He had pancakes, strawberry, hash browns, and omelet with goat cheese and asparagus (which is turning into one of his favorite veggies). In the afternoon, Henry visited my parents for a spell. We ate dinner at their house. Then, Jeff, Henry, and I went to another Sidewinders game. Henry wanted to crawl around and stand, which we didn't let him do much. He made friends with a lady in the row in front of us. He also had some lemonade, which he managed to extract from a foot long straw. He absolutely loves the music at the games.

Sunday:
Jeff went over to Carolyn's house in the morning to help her and Chris pack up the truck, because they are officially moving everything they own to Pullman. I was going to take Henry over to my parents in the morning, but Henry had a different schedule in mind. He got up and had some breakfast. We played a little bit in the living room. We headed to the bedroom (the bedroom formally known as "Kate and Jeff's bedroom" but I think that Henry's laid claim to the king bed in there). I put him on the bed to change his outfit. He started playing on the pillows. He was rolling around. Then, he took a two and a half hour nap (give or take a few minutes). Jeff ended up coming home before we had left. So, after he came home and got ready, all three of us headed to Grandma and Grandpa's house. Henry's big thing was climbing into one of the chairs on his own. Henry spent a lot of time with Grandpa. Later in the evening, we had an informal family get-together for dinner, watched the Olympics, and then said our goodbyes to Carolyn and Chris.

Monday:
Alicia called in sick. Jeff took the day off of work to take care of Henry. I headed to school to work on a paper. Got side tracked at my lab. While talking to Dale, the professor with whom I share lab space, a leak started dripping from the ceiling about three feet from my brand new computers. A similar leak happened in June, right on top of my old, junky computer. Apparently, they didn't fix it right. We could see where it was coming from b/c "facilities" never replaced the damaged ceiling tile. Ellen, a staff member in our main office, called "facilities" but they said that they didn't know when they would be able to come (maybe the next day)...and this is for A LEAK (as in water dripping down from the "fill-in-the-blank" ceiling). What a first-rate operation. I asked Ellen to call them back and tell them that by leak, I meant water, and that it was dripping near $3,000 worth of equipment. I went back to the lab, waited an hour, moved all of my furniture out of the way, and "facilities" was a no-show, so I left a note.

Henry had a good day with his Daddy. I was a bit moody when I got home. Henry certainly lifted my spirits. I introduced the pen and paper to Henry. He's got the idea, but doesn't quite get how to hold the pen. I decided that we needed to buy Henry some toys (specifically, magnet writing pads), as we had neglected to buy him gifts for his due date day and homecoming anniversary. We started off at Petco. While Jeff was buying kitty litter, Henry and I looked at the fish, lizards, turtles, and creepy things. We didn't find much at Babies R Us. The toy selection was lacking. Henry started off in the cart, but ended up getting held by Jeff but placing his hands on the bar of the cart and pushing it around. Jeff said that Henry did an excellent job steering. Having not found what we wanted at Babies R Us, we headed to Toys R Us a couple blocks away. We bought Henry a writing mat and some animal magnets for the refrigerator. Our last stop was Borders. I had a gift certificate to use. We ended up finding Henry lots of books.

Tuesday:
Alicia came back to work. I went to school to see what state my lab was in. One of the graduate students said that "facilities" stopped by in the late afternoon Monday, look at the pipes, said that whoever did the patch work in June didn't do it right (really, wow, what an insightful observation), and then left. So, I spent the day reconfiguring the lab so that my space will be somewhat functional and my equipment will be several feet from the leak (still dripping occasionally). My dad spent the afternoon with Henry. In the evening, Jeff, Henry, and I met up with Steve and Jamie at the Sidewinders. It was a nice night with a slight breeze. We sat on the grass near the outfield, which was a different view than I've experienced before. It was nice. We brought a sheet to sit on. We thought that Henry would stay on it b/c in the past, he hasn't liked the feel of grass. He stayed confined to the sheet for about a half hour. Then, he spent the rest of the game, climbing up and down the grassy hill. It was great having four of us to watch him. The boy has no shortage of energy, that's for sure.

Wednesday:
Henry and I slept until 8:26AM. Then, Henry rolled around in bed for awhile. Alicia and Karina didn't arrive until after 8AM. I didn't get to school until about 10:30AM. Paul, one of the graduate students, said that "facilities" stopped by in the early evening. Basically, they moved a ceiling tile from one part of the ceiling where there was not leak to where the leak was. Don't know whether or not they actually fixed anything.

When I got home in the afternoon, Henry was active. Jeff reported that Alicia said that Henry is saying "Pop" at the right times during Pop Goes the Weasel (one of the songs on Henry's big song cube). I ended up feeding him a large snack. He had already eaten quite a bit for breakfast and lunch. It appears that he is drinking less and eating more...at least for the past few days. At some point, I changed his diaper. While in the process of changing him, he grabbed the baby wipe from my hand and then tried to wipe himself. Luckily, it wasn't a messy diaper. We went to Bookman's to look for more books for Henry. On the way home, Henry fell asleep. He got up 45 minutes or so later. Ate some French fries, turkey, chicken, and Gerber's vanilla custard with banana. Played. Had a bath. Played. At 10PM, we decided it was time to try to get him to bed. He fought going to sleep. But he and his Daddy are now fast asleep.