Milestone Minutiae

I've been carrying Henry a lot . Today he was hardly on the ground at all. I was sitting right next to him (touching!) and he wanted to climb into my lap. I discovered that he's much more willing to be away from me if he can be standing up hanging on to some piece of furniture. So I scattered a few toys on Jenny's chair and he happily stood there playing with them for a while.

I've been signing a bit with Henry since I started feeding him, and I think he may be starting to sign back (or at least babble with signs some). In California at Oma's house, he brought his hands together and then shoved them into his mouth ("more" and "eat") while I was feeding him. Today I think he signed "milk" to me, and at dinner he seemed to clearly sign "all done" when he was finished. It could have been a coincidence, but his gestures seem to be morphing into signs.

Henry was on my back while I made dinner tonight. After a pass through the kitchen, I noticed that he had somehow grabbed a steak knife! I couldn't really reach it, and wouldn't have been able to take it safely, so I yelled to David in a panic. Henry grabbed the knife with his other hand, and David had to carefully extract it, but no one was hurt. Whew!

Sometimes when the neighborhood kids (Emmett's age) are playing at our house, they call each other names. And sometimes, they call Luke names. So far it hasn't upset him enough to come get me, I just occasionally hear about it after the fact. Fortunately, Emmett intervenes on Luke's behalf. Once they were calling Luke a "dumb dumb" and Emmett suggested they call him a truck instead (he was pushing one around at the time). We talked about different strategies to use when they name-call, and that of course Luke should come get me if he's bothered. I'm just so pleased that Emmett wants to take care of Luke.

Luke told me that he dreams about David and Emmett being flushed down the toilet. A couple of days later, he told me he doesn't always dream that.

Henry's winter "uniform" when we're inside the house consists of a long sleeved onesie and sweatpants. Since he's crawling around army-man style, he'll often crawl right out of his pants. Good thing it's not that cold in here!