Happy Birthday, Henry! The Big 2!

Today was Henry's birthday. Alicia made him pancakes for his breakfast. Karina didn't come with Alicia b/c she wasn't feeling well.

I had a meeting at school at 9AM. As soon as it was done, I came back home because we had an appointment with Patty Cakes, which is a company that makes molds of children's hands and/or feet and then bronzes them. When the person from Patty Cakes arrived, he showed us different layouts and such. Henry was fairly patient during this process, although I did give him a "time out" warning when he tried to climb the glass shelves in the dining room. The Patty Cakes fellow commented on how it shouldn't be too hard as Henry seemed like an easy-going child. Jeff and I paused and then said that he was "some times" an easy-going child and to expect him to act otherwise when asked to do the molds. The man laughed. He said that was good to know. He anticipated that it would go well b/c of our warning. Had we said it would be no problem at all, that's when he'd expect problems. He told us not to ask Henry to do the molds. It would go more smoothly if we just had him do it with no "question" offered to him given his age. And the process did indeed go smoothly. We should have prints of Henry's hands and feet back to us in 8-12 weeks. We're planning to have his Wall-E crocs bronzed too, but we had left them at Grammy and Poppy's house. Those will have to be done later.

In the afternoon, we went to the park. As of late, Henry's been making request for the "park" almost as often as requests for "o-tube," "computer," "pictures," and "Jungle Book." Henry had a great time. He even went on the really big slide that's incredibly steep on the big jungle gym for 5 to 12 year olds (with Jeff's help). Sigh. Luckily, I didn't see it. It probably would have stopped my heart. I was swinging Miss R at the time.

We met Grammy and Poppy at Swenson's. This was Miss R's first trip there. Henry was pleased that the train that travels around the restaurant was working. Miss R was mesmerized by it. They spit a children's menu grilled cheese sandwich and fries. Miss R loved the meal. Henry enjoyed birthday cake ice cream. Miss R wasn't that excited about it, much to my surprise. But she drank tons of water.

Afterward, we went to Grammy and Poppy's house so that Miss R could get used to the idea of going to their house. She wasn't a big fan of Indiana, who was trying to lick her. She has a slight fear of dogs, although she has overcome this to pet Roger on a few occasions. Henry got landed in "time out" for lightly kicking Ramses. It wasn't hard, and I suspect he was just trying to push our buttons. He didn't stay in time out long b/c the time out location is the crib and he was trying to figure out how to climb out of it. He'd hurt himself if he succeeded getting over the railing. Double sigh.

Henry announced that he had to "potty" to Jeff with 23.7 seconds left in the Chicago-Boston playoff game that was in triple overtime. Turned out that he didn't really have to go potty; he just didn't want to watch b-ball.

We came home b/c Miss R was really tired. I put her into the crib b/c Jeff frowned when I suggested putting her directly into our bed. Henry watched some of the Jungle Book. I talked with Carolyn on the telephone, asking about dogs and air travel. When I got off the telephone, Jeff had already taken Henry to bed. I went to check on them. Miss R is in my spot (guess Jeff changed his mind), and Henry is dropped on his Daddy pillow on the other side of the bed. They all look comfy.

It is hard to believe how much our lives have changed in the past two years. Henry has changed so much in the past year, let alone two years. He still looked like a baby this time last year. Now, he is tall and has hair (enough to get a haircut!). Not only can he walk, but he can run and climb. His vocabulary is stellar as is his enunciation most of the time. I'm just as dazzled by him now as I was last year, probably even more so if that's possible. He amazes me all of the time.

Henry is also getting into trouble more often...that's for sure. My mom claims that all kids do that. In her words, he is "typical," and I was no picnic as a toddler. I'm not sure that he is "typical." He seems to be a bit more of a handful than other children we've encountered on the playground. I was tempted today to entitle the engraving on his hand/foot print plaque as "A Handful of Trouble" (instead of "Handful of Joy," which was one of the suggested sayings). He is perhaps "typical" on steroids. And I'm not sure that the latter part is true regarding me being no picnic. I'm inclined to think that's just revisionist history. Her storyline on me used to be that I was independent and liked to be left alone in my playpen, which is a lot different from Henry. Henry was never very tolerant of the playpen. He is independent but wants his freedom too. Being an extrovert, he also wants an audience most of the time. He also tends to do the exact opposite of whatever we ask. Frankly, I wasn't expecting so much opposition until he hit puberty.

On tomorrow's agenda, I'm going down to Miss R's parental hearing to determine the outcome of whether or not she remains in foster care. In the afternoon, Shirly, Henry's PT, will be coming for her monthly visit.

He Doesn't Listen

Henry continues to be a handful. Jeff said that he just wished that Henry would be cooperative some of the time. He seems to always want to do the opposite of what we'd like him to do.

Today, he was trying to get behind the television every five minutes. The big screen resides in a nook that has a lot of room behind it. That's good for the TV b/c it generates a lot of heat. We don't want Henry playing with the wires back there.

We had a visit from Alison and a woman, Jennifer, who is working with the lawyer who is representing Miss R in court. We'll be seeing Jennifer a couple days before each of the parents' appearances in front of the court. Jennifer was nice. Interestingly, she has an almost 2 year old who is also named Henry Joseph! We liked her.

Miss R continues to do well. She got a bit cranky before dinner time. I was talking with Alison and Miss R took my hand and led me to the kitchen (hint, hint, it is dinner time). I got a piece of cheese to keep her happy. She got mad when I just gave her pieces of it when she wanted the whole slice at once.

Henry watched the Jungle Book during Miss R's visits with Alison and Jennifer. We then took a family walk with the dogs. Henry fell down on the dirt road so now he has some scratches on his arms. Between him falling off the playground equipment during the quarterly on Saturday, the dog bite, and now this, he's looking pretty banged up. He got up and dusted himself off and kept moving.

The Twins seem to be picking up on each others' vocal intonations and banging on the table during dinner. Yet, they don't seem to mimic each other when the other one is quiet.

We gave them a bath. That was fine until Miss R had to go to the bathroom. She's got constipation issues. She started crying in the tub. So then Henry decided to yell to copy her. She was genuinely upset, Henry was just acting. His acting isn't convincing and we had a hard time not laughing at him. I suspected the root of her crying, pulled her out of the tub, and stuck her on the potty. Indeed, she went #2. So that was good. We haven't figured out the exact trigger on her dietary issues yet. We still have a lot of work to do on the non-white flour/starchy food fiber front. We're making progress, but it is slow in coming.

We watched a little Sponge Bob after the bath. Miss R fell asleep on the couch. Henry dutifully went to the bedroom when TV time was over. Miss R is still asleep on the couch now. I'm going to sign off and move her to the bedroom.

It is after 1AM as I write this blog entry, which means it is Henry's birthday today! He is two years old! Wow!

Not a Great Day

On Tuesday, we had a bobcat walk through our backyard. The dogs were going crazy barking at it. Then, Alicia and Karina arrived. Henry was in the living room, having just gotten up. I was in the bedroom with Miss R trying to get her up. The nanny went to the kitchen leaving Henry and Karina with the dogs, which is a no-no. We have a house rule that says don't leave children around Marley as she is nippy. Put the dogs behind the gates if you happen to see them by themselves. Long story short, Henry got bitten.

I ended up spending the morning taking Henry to the doctor's office. No problems anticipated. Henry is OK. Well, at the moment he doesn't "look" OK but physically, he will be fine once the bite heals. I then took Henry back home and went to Walgreen's and waited over an hour for his prescription to get filled. Antibiotics...just to play it safe.

The long and the short of it is that we have to find Marley a new home. Jeff talked with his father last night and he is willing to take her. We think that they'd be a great match she'd be an only dog with no children around. Plus, Joe's house resides on 5 acres. Lots of grass to run around, which Marley loves.

This has been a trying situation for us because we love our animals through and through. I know that a lot of people (IMO) don't attach to animals and treat them like property. But not us. We feel like they are a part of the family. Roger is going to be very sad about this. Marley was Jeff's dog in particular, so he is feeling quite down about this.

Henry is doing very well. He got to watch an episode of Sponge Bob last night, so he was happy. Miss R actually ate a green bean last night. It wasn't until the very end of the meal, but she did eat one, which is a step in the right dietary direction.

Miss R ended up coming to bed with us last night. She was a little fussy, and I was super tired. So now we have two little ones co-sleeping. Jeff was on his sliver of bed, I was on mine. The kids took up most of the room.

Miss R's CPS case worker called yesterday. There is a PPH on Friday. I think that PPH basically means a parental hearing where the judge decides what course of action needs to be taken. Do the children return immediately to the parents? If not, what would be required for the parents to reunify with their children? I learned yesterday that the older children are still in separate foster homes. Unfortunately, the agency wasn't able to find a home that would take them together.

Two Timeouts and a Mini-Vomit Tantrum

Today was a good day on the work front. I'm not caught up exactly with the work I missed last week from Miss R's arrival, but I made a lot of headway. Somehow Alicia made it through the day with three kids. I helped occasionally but got to work for the most part.

In the late afternoon, we took The Twins to the park. A different park from yesterday's adventure. This one was in Marana. It was a very good park. The jungle gym equipment was really neat. Loved the layout. As Jeff pointed out, it is really with kids in mind, not the parents who have to track them down. There were several danger points that a kid could dangle from up high, so the parents' role is to run around madly trying to ensure that they'll catch junior before he takes a leap. But for the kids, it is a blast.

I'm really proud of Henry's climbing skills. They are excellent. Although I'm proud of him, I'm not super happy that he has them from a monitoring point of view. Jeff thinks that he's now getting so comfortable with climbing that he's beginning to be a bit careless b/c he takes those skills for granted and doesn't always watch what he is doing.

Miss R had a great time on the swings. The swings were a huge hit. She is getting better at climbing but still requires a lot of assistance. Toward the end of our excursion, she followed Henry up to a really high point on the big equipment, having shown limited interest in exploring previously. Jeff ended up climbing to get her. She had a good time on the slides too.

We got Eegee's for dinner. We got a meatball sub for The Twins to share. Henry gobbled down the fries and meatball. Miss R was more reserved about the meatball at first, but ended up gobbling down most of the olives that were on my veggie sub. Finally! A non-starchy food that she'll eat! It made my sandwich kind of sad, but I was pleased that she likes black olives. We can certainly get some of those for her future meals.

Henry decided to hit Miss R on the head with a toy after dinner. She was unphased, which surprised me. She didn't even blink or seem to care. Henry got placed in timeout and was pretty upset about it. He hates time out and cries a lot when he gets put there. After being released from timeout, he got the same toy and then hit me on the arm. He hasn't hit me on purpose before. It wasn't hard, but that landed him in timeout again. Jeff didn't let him out of timeout until he said "sorry." He did, but to Jeff. Jeff told him that he had to tell Mommy and Miss R that he was "sorry." He sort of did, but wasn't really convincing. Jeff told him to give me a hug. Henry got upset and acted like giving me a hug was as bad as being put in timeout. Long story short, Henry ended up crying and Jeff told him not to. Then Henry vomited a little on Jeff. Just what we were afraid of. He finally ate a decent meal and then threw up. Sigh.

We put the kids in the tub for their bath. Henry threw a toy at Miss R. At some point, I think that Miss R tried to hit Henry. None of this was hard hitting or throwing, but we are obviously trying to keep tempers in check. Couldn't put them in timeout b/c they were naked and we were more keen on just having the whole bath done and over with. Miss R was upset during the bath when I tried to condition her hair. She threw a tantrum that included lots of wailing and big tears. Plus her face got bright red and she looked like she was going to burst. So Henry tried to match her wail with his yell. He has a lot of work to do on his play crying before it becomes convincing.

As soon as we got Miss R out of the tub, her tears stopped...leading me to think that she's playing us big time. If that's the case, she is indeed a very good actor when it comes to crying.

We watched a little "Jungle Book" after the bath. Miss R crashed right away. I think that the trips to the playground really wear her out. Henry didn't protest when we turned off the movie and headed toward the bedroom. Henry and Miss R are sleeping now. Jeff and I are going to try to clean up this Wild Kingdom of a house.

Tomorrow, Alison, our family specialist, is supposed to come by for a visit. We also have the second round of shots for Miss R so that she can get caught up on her vaccinations. She was quite behind on her shots. That basically means we'll have one definitely cranky toddler on our hands tomorrow, if not two.

Going to the Park

Henry and Jeff napped until nearly 3PM, which meant that going to the zoo was out of the question yesterday afternoon (zoo closes at 4PM). Instead, we had a great time going to the park. On the way to the park, I caught Henry and Miss R holding hands for a brief moment. They were very cute in the back seat together.

Miss R was a bit scared of the slides at first. But she eventually got the hang of it. After awhile, however, she wanted me to pick her up and put her at the top of the slide, rather than having to climb the stairs herself. I acquiesced a few times, but I encouraged her to do some climbing b/c she needs the activity. It was a help having Henry climb everywhere so that she could see how things are done. There were also several kids around their ages (maybe a little older but in the same ball park so to speak).

Henry turned into quite the daredevil. He started climbing latters and such. He looks so mature these days. I asked Jeff how many times he thought we'd be visiting the ER for broken bones in the next 10 years. With my luck, Henry will decide that he wants to be a professional skate boarder or something.













Afterward, we went to Trader Joe's. Henry knew where we were going when we pulled into the parking lot. I don't think that "Trader Joe's" was on our word list. I'm having a hard time keeping up with everything he has learned verbally. He is using sentences more and more. He said a couple last night.

349. Trader Joe's

We had dinner. The Twins spent their time playing with the food more than eating it. We managed to give them both a bath. As I mentioned before, Miss R has been petrified of the water ever time that we have tried to bathe her. Last night, we started off by putting them both in the tub with only their diapers on. We had several toys in the tub. Then, I gave them bath tub crayons. That worked well b/c Miss R likes to write. Then, I pulled out the bath tub bubble paints. She liked those too. Next, we took their diapers off, and Jeff started the water at a slow drip at Henry's end of the tub. We eventually managed to fill it w/o much commotion. Miss R was wary but allowed us to wash her. We did Henry's hair first. Then hers. She didn't like it, but it got done.

We watched a little bit of "Robin Hood," which made Henry happy as he hadn't seen the TV in a 48 hours. Then, Henry went to bed with Jeff, and I let Miss R fall asleep on the couch. I eventually moved her to the crib.

She woke up at 5AM b/c her diaper was wet. And she didn't want to get back to sleep in the crib so I brought her into our bed. Henry was draped over Jeff as usual so I had plenty of sleep on my side. She fell asleep right away. Our mattress is awesome. We may have to do something to make the firm crib mattress more accommodating. It was the top of the line in baby mattresses, but it may not be very comfortable. Because she is older, it would probably be OK to get some nice memory foam or something to put on the top of it so that there's more cushion. Henry got up at 6:45AM. Jeff attended to him. Miss R slept like a log. I ended up getting her up at 8AM b/c Alicia was fixing breakfast, and I want Miss R to have a schedule.

The Twins

I've been calling Henry and Miss R "The Twins" because Miss R is about 2-3 months younger than Henry's adjusted age.

On Thursday, Miss R did well playing with Karina. I called Miss R's CPS case worker at 8AM and left a message informing her that I had two specific questions for which I needed answers. One question was about her medical history b/c I told her that we were talking her to the doctor's office at 10:30AM. Then, I spent some time in the morning with Henry, because I wanted to make sure he felt confident about his place in the family and in our hearts. He got to watch some youtube.com, which he loves. Then, Alicia watched Henry as Jeff and I took Miss R to the doctor's office, to get her some clothes, and to see Grandma for about 2 minutes. Note: No returned call from the case worker before we went to doctor's appointment.

My mom picked up Henry in the afternoon. I wanted to keep Henry's routine as normal as possible. He had a great time with Grammy and Poppy. At one point when Henry was at Grandma and Grandpa's house, he patted his hair and said "Haircut...Todd." Todd was the hairdresser who cut Henry's hair. My boy is so darn cute.

Miss R was very easy to watch in the afternoon. All in all, she is a much lower maintenance child than Henry is by far. No contest. Henry is just a super duper active child; plus he is an extrovert and likes being with people constantly. He is definitely an HM; Miss R is an LM. For those of you not familiar with HM/LM, HM=high maintenance and LM=low maintenance (straight from When Harry Met Sally).

I again called Miss R's case worker with whom I had yet to speak about Miss R's case. I left a message. I also left a message for the case worker's supervisor. Again, no returned calls from CPS.

Both my parents returned Henry in the evening and got to meet Miss R.

Miss R is terrified of the bathtub. We got a bath going for Henry so that Miss R could see how much fun it is. Henry did an excellent job splashing half the water out of the tube, but Miss R wanted nothing to do with it.

My comments about Miss R are going to be limited b/c of privacy reasons. Jeff and I left her and Henry in Alicia's care on Friday morning. She didn't bring Karina to work, knowing that Jeff and I would be gone. We had a meeting at the ACYF (that's a CPS division) office for the "team meeting" where CPS investigators, her biological family, and agency case workers were present. Jeff and I didn't say much, although I did try to ask a few questions about her to see if I could get the parents to disclose anything that would be helpful to her care (e.g., what words does she know? what would make her more comfortable during this time?), but I didn't really get much detail from them. I went to work after the meeting. I'll be honest. I was a little shell shocked. As far as "team meetings" go, this was the smoothest that our family specialist Alison had ever attended. I guess the thing that struck me most was that you can know things in theoretical, academic terms, but that doesn't even remotely come close to messy reality. In this case, there are other children involved, and there is a repeat pattern. Ultimately, the case will be going to court. I think that the Ivy Tower is a very apt metaphor for how academics see the world.

When I got home after work, Jeff reported that Henry was a little bit jealous. When Jeff asked Miss R if she wanted her diaper changed, Henry ran to the diaper changing pad and said "Diaper change!" OK, this is a kid who has never really wanted a diaper change in his life. Of course, when Jeff went over to change his diaper, Henry announced "All done!" before Jeff had even started.

On Saturday, it was apparent that Jeff, Henry, and I had all caught Miss R's cold. That made the day a little more exhausting than normal. I made The Twins pancakes. We had breakfast. Rushed out the door to our first "quarterly" meeting through our agency. To remain certified as foster parents, we have to attend 12 hours of meetings per year. This quarterly was on fire safety and plant safety, and it was held at a park. We got to see several of our classmates, which was fun. And most fun perhaps of all was being able to show off Henry, whom our classmates had not seen.

Henry had a fabulous time running around the park. They had several people serving as "respite" providers while the parents listened to the presentations. Miss R kept close to me. In fact, Lora (A Place To Call Home's recruiter) offered to watch her for me. Miss R was marching off into the grass but turned around, saw I wasn't there, and came running (well, walking fast) back to me. She has attached to me very quickly.

Henry had an accident on some of the equipment. He either fell or was pushed down some stairs. No one got a good look at what happened. Sigh. Anyway, he has a small bruise on his face, but that didn't stop him from wanting to play more.

We came back. The Twins took naps. A person from the Blake Foundation came to do an evaluation of Miss R. They were suppose to do an evaluation w/i 24 hours of her being in our care BUT CPS did not give the Blake Foundation the correct phone number.

Incidentally, on Friday, when Laura from the Blake Foundation called, she was looking for "Anna" again, so CPS obviously hasn't corrected the name of the foster parents of a child for whom they are legally responsible. Brilliant! (note the sarcasm). Very frustrating. Not getting our names' right or the contact information right.

Anyway, Miss R was asleep for most of the time that Laura asked me questions about her. Miss R woke up and started talking more than I had ever heard her talk/babble. She is no where near Henry's verbal skills, but she has more skills than I thought. And she picked up clapping when she does an action. She knows that Jeff and I will cheer for picking up balls or whatever. Very cute. She also pet Roger, which is huge. When she was dropped off on Wednesday, her brother who was going to another home told us that she was afraid of cats and dogs. She is still cautious around them, but she has appeared to do a 180 in just a couple days.

When Henry got up, he played in the living room with Miss R. Grandpa visited in the afternoon. Miss R likes Poppy. Grandpa took Henry outside for awhile to play in the car. Henry liked that.

We had planned to go on a family walk in the evening but Miss R ended up taking a nap. So I fixed dinner for Henry while Jeff took the dogs for a walk. Henry is back on the pancake diet, although he did try a couple bites of penne. The vegetables, however, were a no-go. He was initially irked b/c I wouldn't give him ice cream for dinner. I told him he had to try the food first and then he'd get ice cream. By the time he was done with dinner, he didn't want ice cream. So he played in the living room while I fed Miss R.

The Twins were very tired by 8:30PM. Henry was leading with his head when he was rough housing with Jeff. That's his sign for being tired. So no bath was given.

We still need to figure out what to do with Miss R's hair. As she is petrified of the bath, I haven't attempted hair washing yet. No need to traumatize her over it. But her hair is very dry and needs some work. We also need to cut her nails.

I wanted to make a comment about CPS. I am both frustrated and in awe of the CPS case workers. On the one hand, the communication is lacking. I mean, we have a CPS child in our home and the case worker has yet to call us on her own initiative OR return our calls. On the other hand, they have a really tough, tough job. You have to have a special personality to do what they have to do. They have tough decisions to make. They have to work with people who are not forthcoming. They have to see a lot of bad stuff on a daily basis. And yet they have to work with the very people with whom they are charging with stuff. That's not an easy thing to do. When I use the word "special," I mean that as a compliment because the psychological fortitude required for the job is immense. The funding cuts that CPS has recently sustained certainly isn't going to make it easier for them to do their jobs. There needs to be more CPS workers so that communication between foster families and biological families is open so that vital information can be passed. Sigh.

On Sunday morning, Jeff made the pancakes. He and Henry walked the dogs while I attempted to get some braids out of Miss R's hair. We read some books. The Twins are now taking naps. I'm hoping that we'll be able to go to the zoo when the kids wake up.

It's A Girl!

Yesterday, Jeff got a call for an "Anna" on our house telephone but assumed it was a wrong number. Later, I got a call on my cell phone for an "Anna." I didn't know that Jeff had received a call for an "Anna" twice. The woman said something like "So there's no Anna Kerkewski there?" I said "no." But as I hung up, I began to wonder if maybe our last names had been melded into something new. I called out to Jeff. He told be about the two wrong numbers for "Anna." I then called back the number and said "Hello. We just talked when you just called my cell phone. Are you by chance a case worker for CPS?" She was. She wasn't the case worker for this particular child but she was doing the drop off.

Within half an hour, she was at our door step with a little girl, not a little boy. That was fine with us. No problem. We don't have a gender preference. She came in with another boy who was probably junior high age. I don't know their relationship but he seemed to know about her. I wasn't sure what I was allowed to ask. The boy left after the woman went over some paperwork with me.

Henry is handling the situation well. He was a little jealous when I held her. But we have been making sure he gets tons of attention like always. He's so darn cute. I'm actually getting a bit more mommy time because he is a tiny bit possessive. Kind of nice when he isn't completely a Daddy's Boy!

I can't really say much more b/c of privacy reasons. In truth, we don't know much too. We have a lovely little girl in our home about 18 months old. Her file didn't contain anything. We haven't received a call yet from her case worker. Last night went well. Miss R seems to have attached to me. Again, I'm enjoying, but not used to, the new found attention. We don't know how long she will be staying with us. But we are getting our ducks in a row with appointments.

Henry enjoyed the fact that we let him watch a bit more television than usual last night. He is quite the exuberant fellow. I think that Miss R kind of enjoys watching him. She is a bit quiet but on a couple of occasions, she pointed toward Henry's direction.

Here We Go!

Grandpa Joe left his morning. He, Jeff, and Henry had a nice day yesterday. They went to the park, and Henry played with a little girl who fancied him. He seems to be quite the Ladies' Boy! Henry took a long nap in the afternoon. Then, we dropped him off at Grammy and Poppy's house, while Jeff, Joe, and I went to see "State of Play." Henry had a good time as usual. When Poppy came home, he directed Poppy to the dog yard to look for "Poop!" Henry considers it his job to show Poppy where the dogs have produced presents for clean up. They watched "Robin Hood," which made him happy.

Today's Breaking News...
We just got a call from Alison at A Place to Call Home. They have need for an emergency placement for a 1.5 year old boy. This is not the same child as our call last week. We said "Yes!" We are currently awaiting a call from the case worker from CPS. I'm going to make sure that all of our ducks are in a row around the house. Here we go...

Tombstone

After making coffee for me and Grandpa Joe sometime after 6AM on Monday, I walked the dogs. Jeff and Henry got up later. Henry loves it when Jeff doesn't have to go to work in the mornings. He snuggles into him and sleeps later than usual. Then, we all got ready for our journey to Tombstone.

Tombstone is about 75 minutes from Tucson. We began our tour of Tombstone at the Court House. Henry, as usual, decided to sprawl out onto the floor and "sleep." He became a lot more animated when he discovered the stairs (27 of them). He traveled up them with me holding his hand. When Jeff caught up to us, Henry had Jeff take him up and down them several times. Jeff counted the stair number aloud. Sometimes Henry would stay a number too (sometimes correctly in place and sometimes just whatever number came to his mind).

We then headed up the main street for tourists. We took a ride on a stage coach. Henry fell asleep on the ride. We then went to "Big Nose Kate's Saloon" for lunch. Henry slept through about 3/4 of it, Jeff holding him, despite a country singer giving a good but loud performance. Henry woke up to "Ghost Riders in the Sky" and said "Again! Again!"














We then went to a show on the "Gunfight at the O.K. Corral," which was located where the fight actually took place. It was a 20 minute performance. Henry was a bit squirmy, taking turns sitting on Jeff's lap and then mine every few minutes. He learned a new word that repeated throughout the performance..."Gunfighters!" He wasn't too keen on the dialogue but loved the gunfight itself and said "Again! Again!" after the shots rang out.
















Henry enjoyed walking around the O.K. Corral. He liked a small horse carriage, which was set up for picture taking. He also sat on a mechanical horse that bobbed up and down for 50 cents. But he wanted down after a minute; he couldn't quite make it through an abbreviated version of the William Tell Overture.






We visited the famous Tombstone rose bush. Tombstone roses are from plants that have been cut from this particularly hardy bush. The bush is really more like a tree...about 6 feet in diameter. The leaves of the "bush" spread over the top of a trellis that covers 6,000 sq feet or something like that. It is a beautiful site.. the largest rose bush in the world.

We then picked up ice cream and fudge and sat in a small park. Henry rejected Jeff's strawberry ice cream in favor of my butter scotch chocolate swirl fudge. It was the first time that he had eaten fudge. He took to it right away.

New words:
347. Gunfighters
348. Fudge (which Henry pronounces "pudge")

He ran around, fell in the dirt several times, and danced for some gals who were sitting in the park's gazebo. They were highly amused. Henry responded to their laughter and danced some more, which made them break out in more giggles. I told Jeff that I think that our little extrovert is going to go into the entertainment business. Jeff and I would certainly be classified as introverts. How did we produce such an extroverted little boy? He definitely gets his energy by being around others, whereas Jeff and I are pretty content to have some alone time each day, where we retreat into our offices.

We then headed home sometime after 4PM or so. In the car, Henry talked about Aunt Erin and Uncle Brian, whom he calls "Dude." He also said "Aunt Erin pretty." When we got home, Jeff took Henry and the dogs for a walk, while I went to the store and picked up Chinese/Thai for dinner. Henry was very tired and started acting out. He ripped a book and threw several noodles on the floor after being warned of "timeout." He did, however, eat a decent amount of vegetable lo mein before throwing it on the floor, which was good.

He was just about as dirty as I'd ever seen him. The only thing that he was missing was syrup on his head. We gave him a bath. Then, we all watched some of the Jungle Book. Jeff, Joe, and I were practically asleep, but Henry was clearly awake. After the Bare-necessities song, he did go willingly to bed. It was 9:35PM. I was exhausted, so I headed to bed as well. It took Daddy, however, to get Henry to zonk out in the end.

Dinner at Poppy and Grammy's

After Henry's nap this afternoon, he and Daddy played outside. Then, we walked the dogs. We all went over to Poppy and Grammy's house for dinner.

Henry did some dancing but didn't eat that well at dinner. Before dinner, he annoyed Wembley and got a warning nip, but we stopped Henry before he could proceed to annoy Wembley any further.

346. Wembley

When we came home, Henry, Jeff, and I watched "Elmo's Potty Time" while Grandpa Joe used the telephone. Then, Henry went to bed.

Hopefully, Elmo's Potty Time will serve as some inspiration in Henry's potty training.