Henry Likes Jazz

Henry had a good week. On Tuesday afternoon, we headed over to my parents' house after a brief appointment with Elsa, his temporary developmental coordinator. His OT Selah had cancelled the appointment a couple hours before she was supposed to come, which was fine. Jeff watched Henry, while my mom and I visited Lucinda in the hospital, who was recovering from an operation. I'm hoping that Henry will get a chance to visit her once she is out of the hospital. Henry had a good time at my parents' house. Went swimming with Dada. Took apart the place as usual.

On Wednesday and Thursday, I worked from home. That was OK. It was a little loud. Jeff had told me that Karina, Alicia's daughter, was loud, but I wasn't prepared for just how loud. I was unprepared for her screaming that didn't seem to be related to anything in particular. In contrast, Henry is a mellow kid. When he yells, he has a reason...some kind of purpose. We are lucky in so many ways. It is nice having a baby/toddler that all in all is quite rational at such a young age. I suspect that like most kids, he'll go through a terrible 2 phase. Just hoping that we can keep the temper tantrums to a minimum. So far, so good on his end.

At lunch on Wednesday, Henry had a major vomit episode. I don't know what caused it: too much to eat, the type of food just didn't sit well, or if he had a virus. In any event, the entire lunch came up. Jeff and I had to give him a bath before letting him return to play with Karina.

My mom came over in the afternoons. I can't remember if it was Wednesday or Thursday (Wednesday, I think), but at one point, Henry didn't want Alicia and Karina to leave. He wanted all of us to stay in the living room with him. He "pet Karina nicely" before she left. Alicia said that she has witnessed a hug between Karina and Henry...she thought it was initiated by Karina.

Henry has been working on his chin ups, using the playpen side as his bar. He can get up pretty darn high...almost having his chin above the rail.

On Thursday afternoon, he showed me how he could mount and dismount Xena the Zebra.













He also decided that it was fun to crawl over Roger, again and again and again. Roger truly deserves an award. He is such a fantastic dog.















Shirley, his PT, was back from vacation. She came over this afternoon (Friday). Henry showed her his walking skills with the Hippo. And, he kept pulling himself up on the playpen rail. He is definitely going to be a climber. She had some new techniques for us to help develop his walking skills. One involves a hula hoop. She also wants us to practice with us holding his hands and Henry walking in-between us. It will force Henry to walk a little more upright. So that he doesn't push the Hippo cart too fast, she recommended putting something in the cart, to slow Henry down. Jeff put two 5 lbs weights in it. Jeff started off with 3 lbs weights, but Henry was picking them up. He was practically doing bicep curls with one of them. It was cute, but we were afraid that he'd drop it on his foot or something. So the 3 lbs weights were put away for the time being.









The last two nights, Henry has not been a good eater at dinner time. We've been taking our walks a little later than usual. The picture on the left is of the moon over the desert on Thursday evening.

Tonight, Henry stayed up kind of late. Didn't head to the back until after 10PM. He was having fun in the living room. Jeff turned on the radio via our satellite service. He turned it to the 40s station where they had some Duke Ellington playing. Henry really liked Ellington. Jeff said that Henry was moving his whole body to the music. We pulled out a box of CDs that we haven't played since we moved here. Henry went through the jewel cases with us, looking at the pictures as we listened to Grease. He liked it...but it was no Duke Ellington. We've noticed that Henry seems to like soul and jazz. Sam Cooke, for example, is one of his favorites. When it comes to jazz, we have a limited selection: some swing from the big band era, some Brubeck, some Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, but not much. Guess we'll have to pick up some more for him.

Signing off.

Three Great Days with One Amazing Kid

We had a fabulous family weekend. On Saturday, we went to the UA, had breakfast at Joel's Bistro outside on the patio, walked around campus, and then camped out near the turtle pond, reading "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows." In the shade, the temperature was fantastic. In the afternoon, Henry visited his grandparents, while Jeff and I went to the movies. In the late afternoon, we all went swimming together in my parents' pool.








On Sunday morning, Henry got up early. We seized the opportunity and went to the zoo, which opens early for members. There were a handful of cars in the parking lot; it felt like we had the zoo to ourselves. The giraffes came over to visit us. Such friendly and magnificent creatures! The lions were lounging closer to the glass than I had ever seen them before. One of the polar bears was taking a swim. Jeff rushed Henry down to the underwater observing area so that Henry could watch the bear swim around using his gigantic paws. More than anything, Henry enjoyed watching the people...specially, watching the children who became more plentiful as the morning wore on. The gibbons were making quite a racket, swinging from the tops of the cage. But it was a little boy who held Henry's fascination. As we left, it was giraffe feeding time, so we rushed over to the giraffes and bought a few treats to hand feed them.

Then, Henry spent the afternoon at this grandparents' house, while Jeff and I returned how to get some work done. I worked on a book chapter, while Jeff cleaned the carpets, which have been worse for wear. We bought a Spot-Bot, which has worked out some stains from Marley and Princess. We love our pets, but they can be frustrating at times.

Yesterday (Monday), Alicia had to take Karina to the pediatrician, so she had the day off. I decided to make it a Mommy and Henry Day. Henry got up at 6:30AM. I guess he's decided to switch back to an earlier morning schedule. We started off the day at Village Inn. It was a Monday morning, rendering the place practically empty. The waiter put us toward the back. Eventually, a man who I gather is a regular sat a short difference from us. Henry craned his body around to stare at the man and wave. The man was very nice. He asked about Henry and said "They grow up so fast." I asked him if he had children. He said, "Just one. My daughter's 53." Henry waved at the wait staff as they passed by and any new comers to the restaurant. A couple with twins (probably about 2 years old) sat about 20 feet from us. Henry was again fascinated. At one point, one of the boys started howling. So Henry tried to imitate. It was pretty funny. Later, I let out a cough, and again Henry tried to imitate it, which cracked me up. I coughed again, just to see if he was imitating (because his cough didn't sound genuine). And indeed, he was mimicking me. We had pancakes and hash browns. I made the mistake of waiting for Henry to tell me when he was full. The problem was that he never stopped. Then, he threw up a little bit. Oops.

After breakfast, we headed to the Tucson Mall. It was about 8:30AM. The stores in the mall don't open until 10AM, but the mall opens at 6:30AM for mall walking. Henry was asleep when we arrived. I walked around the whole bottom of the mall and most of the second floor before he arose. We stopped by the window of a pet shop to look at the puppies. Then, we visited a children's area on the bottom floor that is just for kids who are 42" or less. There are things to climb on. Henry met Faith, who turns 4 in August. He was fascinated by her climbing skills. And she really took a shine to him. At one point, she gave him a kiss. Her parents were afraid that she was going to hurt him, but she was very gentle. When he'd stand up against something, she would put her hands lightly on his waist to make sure that he did not fall. He wasn't going to, but she didn't know that. Her protective instincts were so cute.



























We then headed to Grandpa's office. I hadn't seen the new Kyl office yet, and I thought it would be a nice surprise for Grandpa. And this gave me the opportunity to introduce Henry to Julie and Melissa. Henry liked the office. He had fun crawling around Julie's office and playing with the blinds. The window reached the floor, which he liked.

In the afternoon, we spent time with Daddy, playing in the living room. When Jeff laughed, Henry would laugh. When I would throw my arms in the air, he would throw his arms in the arm. It was super cute. Roger, once again, demonstrated what a saint of a puppy dog he is. He is so patient. We took a walk in the evening. It was a beautiful night.

"Hi, Dad!"

Henry has been a bit moody the past couple of days. I said to Jeff the other day that I wondered if he was teething again. Today, my mom was here this afternoon and mentioned to Jeff that Henry was drooling quite a bit. Hope the tooth breaks through soon.

I bought Henry a roasted chicken from Albertson's yesterday. It was the first time that I have ever bought a chicken. We had bought Just Chicken from Trader Joe's. Henry didn't seem to care for it. I suspect it was too plain. And, I have no idea how one cooks or seasons chicken, so I figured an already cooked chicken was the safest bet. I gave the dogs the Just Chicken, which they relished. Tried giving some to our cat Princess, but she rejected it. Henry seemed to like the roasted chicken well enough. Grandpa helped feed him some. We have to give him pieces on his food tray one piece at a time. If he has food in his mouth and there is food on his tray, he'll pick it up and drop it to the side of his chair for Marley.

Late this afternoon, Jeff had put Henry in his play pen for a few minutes. Henry had a good time peering over the edge. He is so tall now that he can stand up and look out rather than through the mesh lining. I was sitting on the couch reading "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" aloud, and Jeff was in the chair. Henry waved to us and said "Hi." Then, he looked at Jeff repeated his wave and said what sounded like "Hi, Dad." It was very cute. His wave is changing. When he waves, he usually uses his whole arm. His new wave uses his hand and fingers more.

Henry had YoBaby apple, chicken, and a few bites of pizza (topped with goat cheese instead of mozzarella) for dinner tonight. When he began to get fussy, I asked him if he wanted more or if he was all done. He used the "all done" hand sign, which is great. We haven't done it that often with him, so it is amazing that he has caught onto it so fast.

Indian Food

Henry has been a good sleeper at night. He slept until 7:15 or so yesterday morning and did the same thing today. This morning, I thought that Bitsy was going to wake him up around 5:30AM. I had gotten up at 3:30AM, couldn't sleep so I did some data analysis. Went back to bed around 5AM. Bits got on my side, purring up a storm. She licked my hand. Then, she went to the other side of the bed to lick Jeff. She gave Henry a couple licks on the head, then came back toward my side and tried to lick his legs and feet. I tried to shew her away, but then she took that as I sign that I wanted my face licked too. Henry slept through the whole thing.

We had a visit from Selah yesterday. She commented on how smart Henry is. He, however, often gets out of certain tasks by finding a short-cut. She was trying to get him to use his pincher fingers instead of using his thumb against the side of a toy to extract a Gerber puff. She thought he looked great. She still doesn't like that he uses the bear crawl. She did make a plausible argument as to why. Basically, she says that the bear crawl uses the back of the legs more than the hips, which changes the muscle development. I buy that to some extent. At least Henry doesn't bear crawl all of the time. He certainly uses his knees when it suits him, but he is really good at the bear crawl and has incredibly well-developed arms because of it. In fact, the other day, he practically did a chin up on the side of his play pen. I do think that the bear crawl has lead him to turn his right foot more out rather than straight, so it is something that Jeff and I are keeping an eye on. Jeff has noticed that he doesn't bear crawl as much when he is wearing his sandals, so we'll probably be more diligent about his foot wear.

Henry crashed with Jeff for a nap around 5 or 5:30PM. I was convinced that he was out for the night. It was rainy during that time. When the rain subsided, I took the dogs on a very muddy walk. I wiped the dogs feet before letting them enter the house. Nevertheless, Marley climbed on the breakfast table leaving dirty foot prints. Yuck.

Henry woke up at 7:30PM. He was wide awake. I had a craving for Indian food, so we took Henry to our local Indian food restaurant. It was his first visit there. The people who run the restaurant have kids, so we figured that it would be a good place to take Henry. We didn't let him crawl on the floor, which made him a bit peeved. He tried a lot of foods, but I think that he was so taken by the surrounding that his quantity wasn't great. I gave him some papadum with tamarind sauce, which he liked, much to Jeff's surprise. The papadum have a strong black pepper taste. I also tried some mint chutney on him, but he wasn't a fan (yet). He loved watching the ladies in their brightly color clothes. He tried chicken masala, palak paneer, dal, naan, and potatoes. He loved the dal. The waiter really liked Henry. The feeling was mutually. Henry gave him several winning smiles. That said, Henry did burst out into song a few times. It didn't take much to quiet him down, but I can't exactly say that it was a relaxing meal. I think that we may be entering a phase where our restaurant visits are few and far between.

We haven't seen any repercussions from giving him the paneer. And, I strongly suspect that there was some butter in the dal. We still plan to be cautious on the amount of dairy that we give Henry. We do want to challenge his system and see what he can and can't handle. But there's no need to push the envelope now. He obviously is able to eat a wide variety of foods. But I have no intentions of giving him straight cow's milk for several months. We also have no intentions of giving him sugary foods, especially when he clearly enjoys fruits and veggies.

He played a bit when we got back to the house. After awhile, he exhibited the signs of any overtired tot, rubbing his eyes and flopping around. His dad took him to the back where they fell fast asleep.

Grammy's Boy

Henry gave me a big hug this morning before I left for work. He didn't want me to leave, and he cried as I left. It broke my heart. Made me wish that I was a SAHM.

When I returned in the afternoon, Henry was playing with Grammy. He was definitely a Grammy's Boy today. Before I arrived, Henry apparently got upset when Grammy left him with Dada for a few minutes. When I arrived, he was pretty content just to smile at me but continue playing with Grammy.

He was active as usual this afternoon. Very busy. He managed to topple over the caterpillar on its side (it had been propped against the fire place).



At one point in the afternoon, Henry took a long leaf from a house plant and gave it to Bitsy to play with on the landing in front of the front door. Then, he circled around her while she played with it. It was very cute. They are definitely good buddies.

While Jeff was playing with Henry, I found Marley in our family room area that's behind the gate. It is also Jeff's former work area. Over the weekend, he bought a desk and moved his computer into Henry's room, which is now Jeff's office until Henry gets bigger and we manage to build a studio onto our house. Anyway, Marley was lounging on the breakfast table. Pretty much illustrates the amount of order that we have in the house at the moment. It is clear that neither Jeff nor I are in control.

At dinner, Henry tried gnocchi. He rejected his Trader Joe's Just Chicken pieces. He practiced cause and effect by throwing his chicken pieces on the floor beside his chair and watching Marley rush to find and eat them. When he was finished, both Jeff and I heard him say "Done." And, when I asked "All done?", he made the all done sign with his hands.

We went for a walk after dinner. We ran into our neighbor Paul, whom Henry gave a smile. It was dusk. Henry was incredibly loud on the first part of the walk. He was enjoying his voice. Jeff wondered whether the neighbors would get perturbed. He fell asleep on the way back home. He napped for awhile. Gave a holler. Jeff went to comfort him. They are both fast asleep.

Henry the Book Worm

On the evening of July 4th, we went to my parents' house for dinner. Henry had a great time. He spent some time with Uncle Jim. Uncle Jim and Grandpa decided to forgo the fireworks and watch the Diamondbacks in the 7th inning. Grammy, Jeff, Henry, and I went to Oro Valley to Michelle and Leo's house to watch the fireworks from their yard. It was a beautiful display. Henry enjoyed the fireworks and could be heard to say what sounded like "boom boom" after each one.

On Saturday, Jeff made pancakes, which Henry enjoyed thoroughly. We spent a long time in the living room playing. Henry likes his stacking rings toy. We bought it the other day because he enjoys the one at Grandma and Grandpa's house. The only color that they had at Babies R Us was pink. We figure that it adds some variety to his toy color scheme. He spent a long time looking over his books. He has for awhile now insisted on turning the pages himself. He used his Hippo to walk across the room back and forth. Jeff observed that he is looking up at us, rather than at the ground, when using it, which suggests he is gaining some confidence in his stride. In the afternoon, Henry visited Grandma and Grandpa.






Today (Sunday), Henry went to Grammy and Grandpa's house, while Jeff and I headed up to Phoenix to watch the Diamondbacks beat the Padres. It was a good game. But it was a long time to be away from Henry (about seven hours). Henry had a great day. Very busy taking a part things at his grandparents' house. He likes to get into their basket of keys and hide the keys around the house. Over the last two weeks or so, he has mastered the art of crawling while carrying objects in this hands or mouth. He has, on occasion, found some of Bitsy's cat toys and put them in his mouth and carried them around (much to my dismay). Hopefully, my parents have found all of their keys at this point. My mom observed that Henry likes to spend some time on his own when looking over books. He is, after all, getting to be a big boy, which means he is quite independent. Henry used his walking car toy at my parents' house to walk down the main hallway, which is made of brick. I was a bit surprised, because the brick is a fast surface, but Henry seems to have managed just fine.

Henry Hot Pants

Henry spent yesterday at my parents' house. I got there a little before 3PM. In my absence, Henry got bitten by Wembley, Aunt Erin and Uncle Brian's ferocious pooch. Apparently, Henry was trying to extract a toy from Wembley's mouth when the incident occurred. Jeff joined us at 4:15PM. My parents, Jeff, and Henry went swimming, which Henry enjoyed. Then, we headed home to beat the rain. When we got home, Henry was sleepy, so Jeff took the dogs for a walk while I held a sleeping Henry. We were convinced that he was out for the night, but he had a rebound of energy as soon as Jeff left the house. Jeff saw a beautiful rainbow on his walk. I think that we managed to get Henry to bed by 9:15PM or so.

We had intended to get up early and go to the zoo before it was really hot. But Henry decided to sleep in (which means sleep until 7:15AM). I took the dogs for their walk around 6:30AM. It was already a bit warm by that point. We all played around the house for a good while. Then, we went for breakfast at Ghini's around 10AM. We sat on the covered patio, which was not crowded at all. It was warm outside, but not uncomfortably warm. Henry had bites of french toast, potatoes, toast with orange marmalade, spinach from my crepes, and orange. He tried a lot of stuff, but I don't think that he actually had a large quantity of food.

Afterward, we went to Trader Joe's. For most parents, taking their kids to the grocery store is not an event (something they probably take for granted). But for us, this was an event because it was the first time that we had every taken Henry inside a grocery store. As it was the Fourth of July and late in the morning, the store was not crowded at all. Henry got to ride in the basket. And, yes, I did take pictures of the event.














We came back home. Henry had a whole tub of bananas and about 80% of a Yo-Baby apple yogurt container. Then, he was ready to take on the world again.

A week ago during our PT therapy session, Shirley had mentioned that she thought Henry would benefit from wearing some special pants a few times a day. She lives in my parents' neighborhood, so she dropped them off at my parents' house last Sunday. The "hot pants" as we call them are designed to encourage Henry to keep his legs closer together. He has a tendency to want to spread them far a part for balance (kind of like doing a horse stance in karate), but he'll be better off if he learns to use his legs closer together. Today, the hot pants didn't hold him back. He managed to push his Hippo all around the living room. He even ran over Bitsy the Cat with it. Then, he and his Dad did some reading. And Henry just managed to pass out on the bed a few moments ago. When he wakes up, we'll be heading over to Grammy and Grandpa's for a small BBQ with Uncle Jim.

Opa!

Henry had a good day yesterday, but he was a bit stubborn about his eating. Alicia and Karina came over in the morning. Alica weighed both Karina and Henry on the scale in Henry's bedroom. Henry weighed 20 lbs 11.5 ozs, so I guess the doctor's scale was right. I still can't believe it.

Grammy came in the afternoon. Henry showed off his "in" skills. Sometime last week, I think, Henry figured out how to put the balls in the slots in the dinosaur toy. When you put balls in the toy, it sets off some music. He showed Grammy that he knows where the levers are to turn on the music, even without putting the ball through. Jeff referred to the past week or two as a cognitive explosion in development for Henry. Everyone says that babies learn skills in fits and starts. Sometimes, it is their motor skills that take off. Sometimes, it is speech. Henry is still consistently making progress on his motor skills, gaining strength and stability every day. But I do think that he has been making significant amounts of progress on speech, cognitive, and fine motor skills as of late.

We had a visit from Elsa, Henry's temporary developmental coordinator from Project Amor while Tara is on leave until October. This was the first time that I had met Elsa. I liked her a lot. She has a thick Spanish accent, which was pleasant on the ears. She spoke to Henry in Spanish several times. I wish that Jeff and I were bilingual. Anyway, Elsa thought that Henry looked great. Jeff gave her the update from our appointment with Dr. Bianchi.

In the evening, we went to Opa!, a relatively new Greek restaurant in central Tucson, with my Grammy and Grandpa, Aunt Carolyn, Uncle Chris, Chris' daughter Jennifer, and Uncle Jim. It was good. We were excited to take Henry there, because he can gave feta cheese (made from goat's milk) and a lot of Mediterranean dishes. Henry, of course, decided that he didn't want to eat anything at all. I think that he was a bit indignant that we didn't let him crawl on the floor of the restaurant. The highlight of the evening for Henry was Uncle Chris. He was just fascinated with Chris and stared at him a lot. Henry also made friends with an older couple who was eating dinner not far from our table. He smiled at them a lot.

We came back. Henry played in the living room. I wasn't feeling well and passed out on the couch. When I woke up around 11PM, Jeff and Henry were snuggled together on the bed.

Today is Karina's birthday, so Alicia took the day off. I just dropped Henry off at my parents' house. That's it for now.

Doctor Visit, Still Growing

Kate and I have not been weighing Henry regularly and our attempts to measure the wiggly little bugger haven't yielded much success. So when we took him to the doctor for a checkup today we were a bit surprised. He weighed in at 20 lbs 11oz, 29.5 inches long and a head circumference of 45 cm. Around May 1st Henry was 18 lbs 4 ozs, 28 inches long, with a head circumference of 44.7 cm

We were not expecting his weight to be so much because we had weighed him a few weeks ago and he had not gained much since his previous doctors visit. He does seem like he has grown longer but we were still a bit surprised at how much he had grown. His head did not grow at the same rate but the doctor still thought it was well proportioned to his length.

The doctor thought he was doing very well. He said that if you would have told him eight months ago that Henry would be where he is now he would not have believed it. Henry received his last Pnuemococcal vaccination. We are still trying to work out the logistics of getting him a single shot of the Measel's vaccine. We held off giving him the Chicken Pox vaccine because we want to give him only one shot at a time.

After the doctor's visit we dropped him off with his grandparents and Kate and I went to see a movie (Forgetting Sarah Marshall, one of the funniest films I've seen in years). We returned to find him in the pool with Grandma and Grandpa, which he enjoys greatly.

Going back in time, yesterday he had a nice quiet day. Karina spent the day with her father so Henry had Alicia all to himself. He slept a lot, taking a half hour nap in the morning, a two hour nap around noon and another 45 minute nap on Grandma in the afternoon.














Then in the evening we were going to go to Swensen's, a local burger and ice cream joint, to celebrate Brian's birthday. However, Erin and Brian's house was broken into so they couldn't make it. Fortunately nothing was stolen, just the back door was open. I believe their dog Wembley, a cute scruffy little dog, savagely protected the place. The alarm may have had something to do with it.

We went to Swensen's anyway because I have been dying for a hamburger for weeks. Henry loved to watch the toy train that circled around the top of the restaurant. He wasn't crazy about hamburger but enjoyed french fries when dipped in ketchup. He also enjoyed Grandpa's iced tea.

Further back, on Sunday, I had to work so we stayed home for breakfast. He spent most of the day with Grandma and Grandpa. He had salmon for the first time, which he found acceptable if not thrilling. In the evening he had spaghetti with us. He enjoyed it but didn't eat much, opting for a bottle instead. That is rare these days.