Milestone Minutiae

When it's time for Henry's morning nap, I'll say, "Henry, do you want some milk?" He'll usually say "Uh-huh!" and then excitedly run/skip down the hall to the bedroom where he stops to jump on his mattress a few times before climbing up into our bed, ready for his nap.

Just a few things I've overheard recently... Emmett, while playing a blues-y tune on the piano, stopped a few seconds in to say (to the empty room he was playing in), "Stand up, because you're going to want to dance!" Luke, while playing tic-tac-toe by himself before lunch at a restaurant today made an "X" and then said, "X! And the crowd goes wild!" And Henry, after somebody dropped something, said "Uh oh!" (this happens all the time)

Henry is pretty good at predicting the future. I was sitting on the floor in the boys' room sorting books with Henry playing nearby when Emmett came home from the neighbor's house crying. I called down the hall to ask if he was bleeding or just hurt, and Emmett said he was just hurt. Emmett came down the hallway, still crying. Realizing what was going on, Henry hurried over to me and sat in my lap. Fortunately there is still room for both of them, and I was able to make Emmett laugh by pointing out how Henry couldn't stand the idea that Emmett might sit in my lap.

Henry loves Curious George as much as Luke did. It's the only cartoon he'll watch, and he wants to watch it anytime he can get me to turn it on. When Henry is tired and cranky, I can tell him "Curious George comes to our house" stories to calm him down. It's not perfect - he loves them so much he gets really excited thinking about playing with George in the back yard, or downstairs, or in the nearby park. He'll squeal a bit, grinning and kicking. But in the stories, they always come inside for a snack and a story. Curious George always picks the story, and it's always something like "Goodnight Moon" or "The Big Red Barn" - something soothing, repetitive, and just a little boring (especially if I tell it slowly). I can usually get him to sleep by the end of the story. Luke used to love these types of stories, and now Henry does too.

In addition to "Uh-huh" and "Uh-uh" (both voiced without opening his lips), Henry has added "Uh oh!" to his repertoire.

A couple of stories from the trip... After dinner in Disneyland, we found an informal stage area - I'm guessing they have musicians up there sometimes, or something like that. Of course, give a kid a stage and they start to perform. Emmett, Luke, and Henry were all up there dancing, or "imitating dancing" in Emmett's words. While I was taking a video, Emmett thought I was taking still pictures so he was freezing every few seconds, so he wouldn't look awkward in the picture. At the end of our Disneyland day we stopped to watch the parade. It wasn't very interesting, so we started getting ready to exit the park when Luke said he wanted to go on Buzz Lightyear one more time. We were right next to it, so I said "Ok." David looked at me like I was insane. In line I pointed to Luke (who was dancing around wildly) and said, "Look how happy he is!" David said, "That's not happy. That's so overtired he's having convulsions

Today we started with an extra-magic-hour in Disneyland, which turned out pretty great. In that hour (reserved for hotel guests and people on longer park hoppers), we were able to knock out Dumbo, Peter Pan, Mr. Toad, the Tea Cups, Alice in Wonderland, and Storybook Land. At 10am when the park opened to regular guests we went to the Matterhorn. The lines were so short that we didn't use the baby-swap passes, we just went through the line twice so Emmett and Luke rode twice, once with me and once with David. After the Matterhorn we went over to Space Mountain to give it a try. Luke was willing and Emmett was eager. In the end, Emmett loved it but Luke did not - he was sitting next to me and I could tell that his head was getting rattled around a bit. I wish I had put my arm around him to help him stay anchored in the car - you can really rattle around when you're so little. He didn't want to do it again, but didn't seem traumatized. We had lunch at the pizza place

While inside the park but still waiting for DCA to open, we all saw a cat. Just before going back to the hotel to rest, David and Emmett rode Grizzly River Run, a classic round raft in rapids type ride. They got pretty wet, but it was nothing like the one at Sea World. As we were re-entering the park, Emmett, Oma, Andrea, and I rode it while David took Henry and Luke ahead to the Redwood Creek play area. Andrea got wet the most this time - it seems like this ride will definitely get your feet wet, but Emmett and I had on sandals so it didn't matter.

I was thinking I should make notes about what we did today, so I decided to do it here so you can see what we were up to... Forgive the rambling - I'm just trying to capture it all right now. DCA opened at 10am this morning, but we were allowed in a little early to get passes for World Of Color, the new nighttime spectacular water show. We then headed over to Soarin' over California, where we discovered not only is Luke 40" tall, but that they'll measure him one, two, or even three times each pass through the line! David took Emmett and Luke while I played with Henry. Meanwhile, Oma and Andrea made it to the park and got their WOC passes as well. I had "baby swap" passes to go on Soarin' without waiting, and Emmett sweetly gave up a second time on the ride so Andrea and Oma could go with me (and Luke) and our party would be all together. The line for Soarin' was short, but riding twice using the baby-swap passes is time consuming. Everyone love

For a long time Henry would rarely speak at all. He'd just point and say "Uuuuuh!" at whatever he wanted. If he really wanted something, he'd start saying, "ma ma ma." Then he expanded to saying "Uh uh" to most questions while shaking his head "no." A few days ago, though, he added "uh huh" to the repertoire, dramatically increasing our ability to communicate! This morning Henry was yelling "Boo! Boo!" David asked him to say "Dada." Henry gave it a try, but came up with "doo doo."

I just heard Emmett and Henry in the other room yelling "Boo!" at each other while jumping and laughing.

Since Emmett has had a baby brother before, he's always known a bit more about how to interact with Henry than Luke does. Now that Henry is getting older, Luke is getting better at playing with him. The other day at home, Henry was running circles around the kitchen island with Luke cheering him on. Luke was standing at one side yelling, "Go, Henry, Go!" and Henry would pause each time he passed Luke to get a little cheer before making another circuit.

Last week while Oma was visiting, Emmett wanted to talk about "obstacle illusions." You know, when your eyes trick you about what you're seeing.