On Thursday morning, Henry continued to be a sack of potatoes, refusing to get up. Unfortunately, I had to get up and finish up some data analysis for a meeting, otherwise I would have been happy to lounge around with him. When we would call his name or rub his back, he would bury his face in the sheets. Jeff finally got him up, with much effort. Henry ended up taking a nap just short of 3 hours long midday.
Grandpa visited in the afternoon. Henry went for a walk with Dada and the dogs in the evening, while I made dinner. By the time he arrive back home, he was sound asleep in his backpack. He didn't stay down long. When he got up, he ate a decent amount of dinner. He was very fussy in the evening, until I gave him some Tylenol. We suspect that he is teething again. The Tylenol worked its magic. He didn't go to sleep easily, although it was clear that he was tired.
On Friday morning, he got up around 7-7:30AM. Shirley, the PT, didn't come this week, because she was going on a trip. When I got home around 5PM, Henry was sound asleep in Jeff's arms on the bed. They took a nap that lasted until 6:25PM. Jeff then took the dogs for a walk while I fed Henry. He grazed on a lot of different stuff (fresh peach and strawberry, pieces of toast with margarine, turkey, Gerber's Lil Crunchies), but did not eat much of anything in particular.
The big news was that tonight was the big communication department party at Chris Segrin's house (he's the head of the communication department). He lives on the West side, not too far from us (probably 5 miles away, which on the West side is nothing...it is a more "rural" side of town, where houses tend to be located on large lots of land). It was fun showing Henry off to everyone...many have been following Henry's story and praying for him since he was born. Grandma and Grandpa were already at the party when we arrived. Grandma was excited to see Henry b/c she had been on a road trip to Pullman since Monday. Craig Hullett, an associate professor in the department who has a toddler, brought Henry a new toy. We are excited to try it out tomorrow. Craig was the one who recommended the vibrating seat when Henry first came home; the seat was such a soothing device during Henry's infancy.
Grandma took Henry around to meet people. A couple minutes later, Jeff and I went looking for them and found Henry sitting in Dale Kunkel's lap engaged in play with Margarite, Isabel's toddler. They were touching fingers; it was very cute. Henry looked perfectly happy with Dale. It certainly didn't take him long to adjust. He usually scrutinizes people heavily before making contact. I asked Dale his opinion's on children and television, specifically "At what age is it appropriate to have children watch television?" Dale is one of the country's leading experts in the area of children and television; his research focus is public policy in that domain. Anyway, Dale recommended not before 2 years of age (although there is not a whole lot of "hard" evidence in the literature). He contends that there are two potential problems with introducing television before 2 years of age. First, young children learn through tactile activities. Obviously, if the kid is sitting in front of the television, they are displacing their time, such that tactile learning gets the short end of the stick. Second, there is a feed back problem with television that confuses children. In normal human interaction, if I make a gesture in front of you, you will respond. But if a child makes a gesture to the person on the television, the person on the television doesn't respond in an interactive way. That's confusing and gives children mixed signals. This confirms what Jeff and I have already thought about television. Keep it off. There is also some evidence from the medical literature (sample size in the thousands) that suggests that television viewing at a young age wires the brain, such that the chances of developing ADD increase.
I can't claim that Henry has never watched television. Baseball tends to be on at my parents' house. But Jeff and I really don't want Henry exposed to television for the next two years. So, it is definitely off at our house.
Talked with Jamie a bit. She said that she'd like to knit Henry a new hat for winter. That's exciting. We used his other hats so much (as evidenced by the bazillion pictures of him in his Kennealy wear).
Henry loved Chris' house. He zoomed around the place, weaved in and out of people, with one of us trailing behind him making sure that he didn't get stepped on. We finally said adieu around 10PM, even though Henry was still going strong and could have probably lasted a while longer. We just wanted to make sure he didn't reach the "overtired" point, which he is often tempted to do.
It was a great evening all the way around.
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