For Halloween we dressed Henry in a Yoda costume and went to dinner with Kate's parents at El Charro. We tried to go to our usual hangout, Swenson's, but it was closed. El Charro turned out to be great. All the employees were dressed up and many of the customers as well. Henry received a great many compliments and was fawned over by a couple of waitresses. I was shocked he kept his Yoda hat on all night. He hates hats and usually pulls them off in a few seconds. We had a great time and felt lucky that Swenson's wasn't open that night.We didn't take him Trick or Treating. He is a bit young for that still.
On Saturday I had some work to do in the morning so we didn't go to our usual breakfast at the U of A. We did go to Costco with Kate's parents. Henry had a good time and picked out some new books. From there he went to his Grandparents for the duration of the day. Grandma makes salmon for him regularly, which Kate and I don't do because she's vegetarian and I don't like fish. It's good that Grandma gives him his brain food.
On Sunday we did manage to go out to breakfast at Tohono Chul. Henry wasn't as enthusiastic about the black beans as he was the week before. He still ate a decent amount.
From there we went to Kate's old elementary school to play. They have a great shaded playground as well as soccer fields. The down side was that there were no other kids. We took along Henry's putter and basketball and he had some fun with those. He was most excited when some older boys showed up but they weren't interested in playing with a 1 year old. I had to restrain Henry from getting involved in their teatherball game.
After that he went to his grandparents again. Kate and I had some serious house cleaning to do before our election day party.
On Monday we had a road meeting at our house so Henry was able to show off for all the neighbors. He is always strapped to my back when he sees them on our walks so some were rather surprised to see how mobile he is. He behaved himself for most of the meeting. All meetings need a good high pitched scream now and then just to make sure everyone is paying attention.
Tuesday Henry had an annual checkup with his eye doctor. She said his near sightedness has become a little worse, which is to be expected from a growing child. She didn't think a prescription was necessary at this point but we are to expect he will be wearing glasses rather early on. I was a bit saddened by this. He's doing so well that it has been easy for me to pretend that his prematurity won't have any effect. He is so cute and sweet and smart that I hate to think of him wearing coke bottle glasses and being called names at school. He's overcome enough for one lifetime. The news really wasn't bad all things considered. I just want him to be as happy as he is now for the rest of his life.
We had a few people over for election day. One of them had been a nanny for some time and loves little kids so she had fun. Jaime brought Henry a new hat, a green knit hat with Yoda ears on it. It is so adorable I can't even believe it. It will be perfect for the winter if we can keep it on him.
We decided to pull out some of the other hats Jaime had knit for him when he was in the nicu. The contrast was really shocking. As Jaime said, the nicu hats looked like muffin cups while the Yoda hat is pretty big.Today Kate and I have been having some serious talks about the future of our nanny. We both found her doing things today that we had explicitly told her not to do. We've never had a great feeling about her and we are starting to think maybe we should heed the tingling of our "spidey senses" as Kate calls them. As Kate pointed out, she had the same bad feeling about her OB who, if left to his own devices, probably would have let Kate and Henry both die as he dismissed every concern and his staff provided bad advice and lied about blood pressure readings because they didn't know how to do them.
On a lighter note, Henry has 2 new teeth coming in. These are a little further back and are molars. I think he will like having something to grind with back there.
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Just wanted to add a few things about the week. On Friday, we had a visit from Elsa in the afternoon. She hadn't seen Henry in a month and needed to get a visit in; I guess it is a work requirement in the EIP for the social worker to touch base with the children monthly. She said that he looks great. He does. I’m still not quite used to the Elsa’s hands-off approach. She’s really nice, but it is a stark contrast to Tara’s completely hands-on approach. On the one hand, it is good because we did have a ridiculous number of appointments this time last year and now we can spend more time parenting than shuffling Henry from appointment to appointment. Not that we aren’t parents during appointments, but there is a loss of control of the schedule, loss of quality parental time spent. On the other hand, I think that Jeff and I are both perplexed over the "parent-driven" nature of the early intervention system, which paid for by the state. I guess that it is good for us because we are knowledgeable, have created good goals for our son, and have utilized the resources well. But what about other parents who don’t have time or the same cognitive capacities to create well-constructed early intervention schedules for their kids. I know that the state can't be a substitute parent, but it seems to me that the EIPs should have goals in mind for children in the state. They can’t force parents to utilize services to meet those goals, but at least there should be a stronger rationale to entice parents toward certain developmental goals for their children.
When we got home from the Grandparents’ house on Sunday evening, Henry wasn't tired. He played in the living room while I read aloud "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire." I finally got to see him do the Sit'N'Spin by himself. He learned earlier in the week how to turn himself on it. He also showed off his step walking skills. He can now walk up and down the steps without using his hands. He likes to practice.
On Monday, Grandma visited in the afternoon. I picked up dinner on the way home (Sinbad's). Henry was excited to get "Baba!" (babagounush). We had a meeting at our place this evening with the neighbors regarding the grading of the round. Henry was get trying to give Nick his toys. Janice was concerned about germs and tried to not touch the toys, etc. Kind of hard when a toddler is thrusting them at you. Henry showed Nick how his car goes vroom vroom. Henry also showed off his putting skills. He was taken with our neighbor Karen and nuzzled into her size at one point. What can I say? The boy is very social. He got bored with the talk though and got mad when I wouldn't let him go into my office to look at "pics" during the meeting.
A really funny thing happened tonight (Wednesday). Henry has been scaring me by climbing high on furniture. So during one escapade when Henry was trying to climb on the top of the chair in the living room, I said something like, "What do you think you are doing monkey boy?" To which Henry responsed, "Ooooh, Ooooh, Oooh" just like a monkey.
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