More "Needs"

This morning, Henry went to the pantry after waking up and pulled the box of Bisquick off the shelf. He was frustrated b/c it was too heavy to carry by himself (it was the Costco sized box of Bisquick). He announced that he wanted "pancakes."

As Jeff began making pancakes, Henry announced "I need food for Henry." So cute!

Henry ate a lot of breakfast. Three or four pancakes (where does he put them?!?), sausage, and Morning Star veggie bacon. Miss R barely touched her food. She didn't feel well upon waking up and threw up a little bit.

After breakfast, we played in the room formerly known as the dining room. The kids played with the trains. Miss R had Henry's carnival train. It has a little door that opens. There is a picture of a lion inside. When you open or close the door, it roars. Henry kept trying to take it from Miss R, saying "thank you, thank you" to make it OK. I told him that he had to wait until she was finished, which didn't make him happy when he'd been so polite about taking it.

We dropped the kids off at my parents' house and headed off to Phoenix for the Diamondbacks vs. L.A. Dodgers game. The game was not noteworthy.

The kids had a good day. Miss R was very easy to take care of, but my mom said that she was obviously not quite herself and rather subdued. Henry was active. Miss R napped. Henry did not.

My mom tried to put the kids down for a nap in my parents' bedroom. Henry scooted down the bed and announced, "Poppy's in the TV room. We watch sports." And then he trotted off to find Poppy.

At one point in the day, Grammy reported that Henry said, "I need money." Apparently, he wanted something to put in his pocket. Money is a wise choice.

Miss R wanted to go swimming. My mom called us when we were on the road heading back to Tucson. We planned to take her swimming when we arrived, but she was asleep on the couch. So we had dinner. Henry played with dinner, didn't really eat. Miss R woke up in the middle of dinner. She had a few bites of banana but didn't really eat either. We came home after dinner.

Before we left, however, Henry was on the floor of the TV room pretending to sleep. He was pretending to snore too. Jeff and I squabbled over who he was imitating. My mom asked him, "Henry, does your mommy snore?" Henry threw himself dramatically over a pillow and gave an impression of me snoring. We laughed. Then, my mom asked him, "Henry, does your daddy snore?" Henry did another impression, snoring even louder this time.

Henry fell asleep (for real) in the car. Miss R was awake. I got her "food" at her request. But she just ate the cheese and ignored the pasta that I had put out for her. Halfway through the meal, she said she wanted "Daddy," so I got Daddy for her. Daddy took care of her. I attended to Henry who was having a nightmare of some sort. That makes me sad b/c unlike most kids his age, I know that Henry has some truly bad experiences in his past from the NICU and I hope that he isn't reliving them. Having been away from the NICU with some perspective, I know that what Henry endured was tantamount to torture in what it must have felt like to have needles poking into his fetal tissue with raw nerve endings. Obviously, the goal wasn't torture but survival, but the neonate doesn't know that at the time. I held him. He snuggled into me. Fell back to sleep after having some water.