Nearly 2-Year Old Moose

we've had a great couple of weeks. went to a fantastic wedding last weekend where we celebrated, with great family, a great couple. we all stayed at a dude ranch, so henry got to pet goats and pigs and miniature horses and tiny alpaca's that were shaved badly and resembled star wars misfits. i didn't put him on a horse this time, he seemed awfully little next to the other kids who were getting pony rides.

and he's having a good time at 'school' (daycare).  learning letters and numbers and how to push people and make it look like they pushed you. so, that's good. :) he talks a lot about a few friends. our good friends' daughter is on his mind CONSTANTLY. and he has a frienemesis at school named "kyle" who gets a lot of talk-time, too. apparently one or both of them is pushing or hitting the other regularly and one or both is getting time-outs and nice hands are to be used "ok?"  it's a little hard to piece together these tales. especially because the staff all swears that he and kyle are chums and never beat up on each other. so i guess henry is just fantasizing about terrorizing this poor kid, or they're doing it all when the staff isn't paying attention. so that's good...

he turns 2 next week! so robb took him to his well-child visit and it went great. he's right on track for motor and verbal development (henry, not robb. well, i mean, robb, too, i guess). and the pediatrician with 30 years of experience treating children told us he was the most smartest, precious-est child she's ever seen. (well, i mean, she didn't SAY that per se, she sort of said it with her eyes. but i'm sure that's what she was thinking).

he's growing big. in the 60th-80th percentile for everything.

35" tall (2' 11" almost as tall as his grandmas!!!)
29.5lbs

he still eats like a champ. this is him putting away 3 pieces of pizza (hold the cheese, add arugula, tomatoes, and basil to the crust and sauce) and part of a salad.

he can eat entire melon in one sitting. blueberries still fear him. he's a great little mostly-vegan kid, enjoying veggies and fruits, beans and rice, nuts, pastas, and smoothies (in which we sneak all kinds of good stuff). every time we get a clean bill of health for him at these visits it makes me feel better about our quirky diet choices.

i mean, don't get me wrong. he'll still be a social mutant because of us not letting him eat a normal hotdog with the other kids, but at least he'll have a healthy heart! so, that's good....

Keep the Good Bugs Happy

now, we chase the ants. no longer afraid, now they must be our friends.

(speaking of 'aunts'...my own sister, henry's dear auntie E, went through her own 'summer of the slug' when she was small. but it didn't really go from fear to friendship, it was more like at the beginning of the year she caught them and named them and put them into little slug families in little slug homes...and by the end of the year, she just ran them over with her bike).

anyway.....i also think that we can make some money off him as the tiniest rickshaw driver ever. people would find it charming and would tip a lot, right? :)

I Got It Wet AND I Exposed It to Sunlight AND I Fed It After Midnight, So I Kind of Had it Coming

henry usually makes it pretty easy to feel super awesome about my parenting skills. most of the time he sort of just does what he should and i'm like, 'oh, thank God. i can just sit here.'

but once in a while, we have a moment like tonight when he didn't eat much dinner and later asked for specific things, which, when given, he promptly got mad at and rejected like i was trying to feed him dead squirrel or something. all this time screaming at the top of his lungs. so to shake him out of his crazy, i (gulp) sat him down on the couch with me to cuddle and watch some TV (ok. to be fair, they're PBS cartoons, so it hardly counts).

he calmed down and after a few minutes, i tried to turn him around to face me to talk, and he hit me on the cheek.

so i made him say he was sorry and then i turned off the tv and refused to turn it back on.

and so henry leaves and Zuul shows up and is out-and-out hairy-fitting all over the place. like actually climbing backwards up the walls and creepy spider crawling across the ceiling and stuff.

he banshee shrieked through his entire bath. the worst part, that he kept repeating "I SOLLY. I SOLLY. I SOLLY. CAT IN HAT. I SOLLY. GEOOOOORGE. I SOLLY. MUPPET SHOOOOW."

eventually he calmed down and we made nice while he ate an apple and i read him books in my bed.

and then it took him next to no time to fall hard asleep.

but i feel like a giant mean failure. i told him as i was rocking him to sleep that sometimes he'll have to help me figure out how to be a good mommy and i promise i'll do the same and help him figure out how to be a good (mogwai) little boy. 

The Eleven Things I Like Best About Being a Mom

i tried to make it ten. i failed. i could easily make it 100, but that seemed excessive.


1. there is always someone around who is stranger than me and smells worse than i do

2. i never feel unimportant, because there's always someone who needs me RIGHT NOW to do THIS

3. it has taught me to laugh at myself more and to chill the f**k out. and to swear less.

4. i have a built-in excuse to be silly and watch cartoons and to drink chocolate milk

5. my smile is closer to the surface and faster to pop out because life is joyful and because i want to see him smile back at me all the time.

6. now i have a great excuse for my house and car to be total disasters. i mean, they always were, just now people nod understandably and blame the kid.

7. i've learned i don't mind drinking cold coffee or warm wine. i'm lower maintenance in general.

8. now i have a great excuse for my belly pooching out over my jeans and my armpit fat oozing out the side of my shirt. i mean, they always did, just now people nod understandably and blame the kid.

9. i love watching our parents be grandparents and our siblings be aunts and uncles. it turns out that this whole time everyone was just waiting for an excuse to get ridiculous. and they're all better for it.

10. i love parenting with robb. he's really good at it. organized and responsible and fun and loving. he takes amazing care of henry, and me, when i need it. it turns out that i was underestimating him all those years that i thought if i died he'd be helpless in our house, living in his own filth with the power shut off and forgetting how to talk to people, like Gollum. i think now that he (they) would manage just fine. (besides, the electric company sends 2 notices).

11. i love how it feels to love like this. and i think i feel closer to God because i'm assuming that the huge love i feel for henry is a mere fraction of how God loves me. and, like....whoa.

23 month-old (Mostly) Benevolent Leader Over His Fiefdom

well, tiny dictator is a scream lately. he knows exactly what he wants and spends much of his day demanding it. we get a lot of "THAT" and, more often, "NOT THAT." and lately he's labeling everything 'henry's _____.' it's usually fine when it's 'henry's toy' or 'henry's apple.' but sometimes it will be 'henry's car' or 'henry's tree.' cute, unless he really expects to be able to keep for his very own anything that he puts dibs on, then it will be 'henrys disappointment in life.' :)

(i will not get him an oompa loompa. i have to put my foot down somewhere....ok, maybe just a small one....but i'm NOT getting him the matching dream car and mansion. will not. )

over all, he's just doing great. more and more verbal and physically coordinated. he is better and better at following multi-step instructions (i mean, if he's decided that they're good enough for him) and he usually uses polite language (pleases and thank-you's) without being prompted. he says 'excuse me' if squeezing past you or if you sneeze/cough/burp around him. he also uses "NO THANK YOU" as a way to cut you off from doing anything he doesn't like. it's pretty funny/pitiful.

he's almost 2 and i think i still look at him once or twice a day and think, 'how did this happen? how is this person here and so wonderful?' it just blows my mind that God would bless us with this much good. and i'm not taking any of it for granted. not a moment, not a silly face, not a temper tantrum even. i love it all.

(that's not to say that we're not working on overthrowing the tiny dictator with our guerilla parenting forces).

DISNEY WORLD 2013

what does a pirate say, henry? "arrrrrr, matey! yo ho ho...." he also will walk up to you now and bonk his forehead against yours like 'crush' and 'squirt' do in 'finding nemo.' DUUUUUUUDE. and if you ask him how his lucky fin is, he'll flop to his side and say "LUCKY!"

so, yeah. he liked disney.

we all did. it's the most fabulous, magical, bitchin' place on the planet. i think that's the motto, right?

and boy, did we do it up right!

my parents got us some very swanky digs on the property with a kitchen and tons of luxurious space, so we spent a good deal of time there, enjoying each other and the views and the pool and making our own food (it's nice not to have to go out EVERY meal). henry played with a few balloons his aunt got him for about 36 hrs straight. he also got some nemo toys and a kermit doll. overall, i was really pleased with the self-control my family displayed (mostly my dad, who suffers from spoilin'em disease more than anyone i know) in NOT buying him any 4' tall plush animals.

we spent the first few days in magic kingdom (new fantasyland stuff still being finished, but what they have so far - COOL), animal kingdom and epcot. henry loved the shows (the 'finding nemo' puppet/people show is broadway quality, amazing, all part of your park ticket price) and only got a little nervous on the rides that got really dark. and his nervous just means he squeezes you tightly around the neck and presses his face into your shoulder, so you know...we went on lots of dark rides. ;)

then robb and i went to tampa for a triathlon for team in training (fundraising charity for leukemia and lymphoma society). he did great! and it was beautiful and totally fun there. back at the ranch, my parents and sister hung out with tiny man and they had a ball at the rest of the parks.

we had been worried at one point that henry might be too young for this, that he wouldn't remember it, that he'd be overstimulated, blah blah shmackety, but no worries. he was in his bliss. and he behaved great.  he held up beautifully. no more tantrums than we have at home, without all that stimulation and odd hours, so that was good. it didn't hurt that we had 5 to 1 adults. and maybe he just knew that mickey was watching. always watching.

so it was just amazing. relaxing and fun and perfect. it'll be fun to see how his experience will be different next time he goes. he'll be bigger and his interests will change. but if he's like us, he won't ever be too old to be RIDICULOUSLY excited to be there.

thanks many MANY to my parents for an amazing trip! and for the promise of going back in the not too distant future! :)

Humpty Dumptied, but Shell Thankfully Intact

geez. i know it' s been ages since i've written anything. i shall make up for lost time.

life has been a good sort of nuts lately. both of us started new jobs in mid-april and LUV them. so that's good. but, you know, a bit chaotic. and then we went to disney world for a week of fun with my family and also for robb to compete in a triathlon. he did great and we had a ball and i'll get to all that soon.

but this happened a few weeks ago and i have been meaning to write a post on it since then. it's just too good/traumatic not to share.

i'm on day 2 of work at my new job and i got this text from robb. 

so i didn't think much of it. our dog eats stupid sh*t all the time and has varying degrees of uncomfortable/hilarious outcomes. and i figure that robb meant henry fell down a *few* stairs. no biggie, right?

not so much.

it turns out that he tumbled down the entire flight of basement stairs when he was trying to go from the kitchen outside through the side door at the top of the stairs. and these are hard wooden stairs with nary a strip of indoor-outdoor carpet on them.

when i learned THAT bit of information, i almost threw up. i envisioned all the things that could have happened and it made me crazy for a while. 

but, thank God he's like good tupperware, and is very durable, basically just brushing himself off and keeping on. 

robb took him to daycare that morning feeling all sheepish, "ummm, henry fell down the stairs..." but other than the little abrasion he got from indoor-outdoor carpet burn on his nose (which has since disappeared entirely), he was unharmed. 

again. thank God. and i'm actually glad it was robb there. he's reasonable and doesn't immediately assume the worst and so reacts sensibly. i would probably have raced him to the ER and insisted on full body MRI, PET scans and a comprehensive taste test to make sure nothing had been damaged. 

when i told my friends (guiltily) about the whole thing, EVERY one of them was like, "oh, sure. happens all the time. let me tell you the 15 stories i have about my kids falling from buildings and down open man holes. it's fine."

friends are useful.

and yet still, i'm now wrapping henry in 26 layers of 3-ply toilet paper, head-to-toe, 24 hrs a day.