Henry Can Read, Truly

On Tuesday, I took Miss R to daycare in the morning. Henry helped me drop off Miss R in her classroom. He loved running around a different room. I talked with Miss Josie for a few minutes and found out who had invited Miss R to a birthday party next week (a very cute blond gal). Miss Josie said that she and Miss Kristen were talking about how much Miss R has changed in the last 6 weeks. She is much more open and interactive with the other kids and is enjoying herself.

Henry was looking good in the morning. He hasn't had a fever in weeks, but he can't shake the cough. The daycare takes children as long as they haven't had a fever in the last 24 hours b/c that's usually the sign of contagion. But given Henry's lung history, we wanted to have him inspected by a medical professional. After we left Children's Learning Adventure, Henry and I had an hour to kill, so we swung by Barnes & Noble. Henry enjoyed riding the escalator. He obviously knew his way around Barnes & Noble b/c he announced to me that he wanted to see the train. And sure enough, he made his way to a nook where there was a Thomas the Tank Engine table with trains and tracks. We bought a couple books. Rode the escalators a up and down a couple times. Henry threw himself on the ground when I announced we had to leave, much to the annoyance of an elderly fellow. He said he wanted a snack. We stopped by the Starbucks counter. The only thing that looked remotely not as bad as the other sugary snacks was a rice crispy treat. Henry liked it. As we walked to the car, Henry pointed in the direction of the doctor's office which is in a complex across the street from the mall and said "Bianch's." Dr. Bianchi is his doctor. I'm not quite sure how he knew the direction of the office. I guess that he is just incredibly more observant about geography than I was at his age (or still am at 30-something).

When we got into the parking lot, Henry announced that he wanted to find the "Jungle Book." There is a Jungle Book in the doctor's office. Unfortunately, we were unable to locate it among the other books this time. I searched thoroughly, but no luck. Henry weighed 26 lbs 15 ozs with a wet diaper and socks on. He was 36" long. The person doing the measurements is new. I asked her to do his head circumference and I could tell that she wasn't doing it right from the get-go; you are supposed to measure from the widest spot using the area above the eye brows as a guide. She said it was 46 cm, which means his head would have shrunk by 1.5 cm since it was last measured.

The nurse practitioner said that Henry's ears are still infected. She prescribed a strong antibiotic hoping that it will knock it and the cough out. She asked if he'd been on a nebulizer or allergy medication before. I said no. She thinks that Henry might also be reacting to allergens and recommends that we discuss Singulair with Dr. Bianchi at Henry's next check up in 2 weeks. She gave me eye drops for his goopy eyes.

I dropped off Henry at Grammy and Poppy's house. I ran errands, such as getting Henry's prescription filled. By the time I got home, it was just enough time to eat lunch, answer a few emails, and then head off to my nurse practitioner's appointment and Jeff's doctor's appointment. The doctor put Jeff on an asthma medication hoping that it would open up the lungs enough for Jeff's body to heal. The nurse practitioner thought that allergies were aggravating my recovering. I am dubious at the different conclusions b/c I think that Jeff and I basically have the same thing.

We picked up Miss R after our doctor's appointments. She hadn't napped at all after she was returned from her bio parent visitation. We then headed to my parents' house and got there by 3:30PM. Henry was walking around with one of his Berenstain Bears books that has pictures of the other books on the back of it. He pointed to one and said "In the Dark." Jeff said that the book picture did indeed say "In the Dark." My mom said, "I don't think that we have that one." She went through the books and said, "We don't have it." We only have one Berenstain Bears book at our house that's about a scary tree. So again, it appears that Henry can read. Between that and his pointing to the "care" sign at Walgreens and saying "car," I'm pretty convinced of his reading skills. That said, I'm quite sure if I asked him to read something, he'd say "no." I remember my mom thinking that Erin was slow on her letters b/c she'd never demonstrated any letter skills in front of the family. When she was in kindergarten at the ice cream social, my mom caught her writing out the alphabet on a piece of butcher paper that had crayons on it for the kids to use. That's how she learned that Erin did indeed know her letters.

Miss R and I found Henry, Jeff, and Grammy in the pool area as we got ready to leave. Henry was sitting on the swinging loveseat singing "Rock-a-bye Baby." Jeff and I didn't know that he knew that song. I can probably count the number of times that I've sang it to him. I guess that's something my parents have been singing on the swinging loveseat. Henry did a great job. We then sang it together substituting everyone's name for "baby" for a verse. I often sing songs where I substitute Henry's name for a word in a song. For example, "Honey, Honey" becomes "Henry, Henry." Ever since Miss R joined our house, Henry insists that if a song is sung with his name in it, then we have to sing it again with Miss R's name in it. Quite the egalitarian.

Miss R was super fussy in the car. When we got home at 5PM, she and I took a nap. When we got up at 7:15PM, Henry and Jeff were out walking the dogs. The living room was in hurricane mode. Jeff and Henry had obviously been playing Couch Mountain. I found some chicken soup on the stove, which Miss R ate with relish (at least the noodle part).

When Jeff and Henry got back from their walk, Henry pushed the recycling bin around the kitchen. He knocked it over and dumped everything out, much to our chagrin. Miss R got out of her chair and picked up the bottles and cans and put them back in the bin, which was a pleasant surprise. Then Henry wanted to put things in the bin as well.

After dinner, we read our new books. Henry climbed Couch Mountain and sang his ABCs. He clearly got through H and then kind of mumbled through to P. Much farther than I had ever heard him go by himself. I was surprised just because neither Jeff nor I have been exactly been sticklers about teaching the alphabet. We go through phases where will sing the ABCs or write some letters on the bathtub with the bathtub crayons, but I wouldn't say that we've been consistent about it. I read somewhere that it didn't make much difference if you taught kids their numbers and letters before 3 or a little after it. It was more important to talk a lot and facilitate curiosity. That's one thing that the Catalina Methodist Day School said as well. They didn't programmatically teach numbers and letters until age 3. There was a discussion on one of my message boards about the teaching your baby to read programs where parents sit with flashcards and get their 9 month olds to read. I guess that we've been hoping the more organic approach would work best for Henry. I'm really excited that he's been reading some things for a couple months now (I won't deny that), but I'm a bit hesitant to whip out flash cards because I don't want Henry to feel like he is being forced to learn. I just want it to be a part of what he does "naturally."



We gave the kids a bath. Miss R hasn't been very easy to get in the bathtub this week. I hope that the anti-bath phase is short. She seems OK after 30 seconds of actually being in the water. After the bath, it was time for brushing teeth and bed.

This morning, Miss R was a log. I had to pick her up and take her to the kitchen. She opened her eyes when she knew food was nearby...not that she really ate that much. It was a struggle getting Henry to take his antibiotics. The nurse practitioner warned that it didn't taste as good as the other stuff. Henry's been great about brushing his teeth. I think that we are going to have to set time limits, otherwise he'd spend 20 minutes doing it. Miss R has been difficult to brush. We have an appointment with a pediatric dentist on Friday, so we are hoping that the dentist has some good tips. While I did Miss R's hair this morning, she sang a little song. I don't know what the song was, but she seemed to know what she was doing.