Milestone Minutiae

Henry has been waving good-bye for a loooooong time. A few days ago, though, he started saying, "Bye!" while he waves. "B" is not a common sound from him, except when talking about the sound a sheep says, so I was a little surprised the first time he did it. He's done it three times now, all while waving and in context. He may just learn to talk yet! In other language development news, the pediatrician suggested that we get Henry evaluated by speech specialists. Since he's so young, step one is an audiology evaluation. We know Henry can hear - he wakes up if you even think about going down the hall while he's sleeping. The audiologist is looking at frequency responses and tests each ear individually, which is a bit more rigorous than "he responds to sound." The appointment was pretty fun - it turns out to be incredibly easy to train a 22 month old to look towards a sound they hear. Just a few iterations of playing a sound followed by a

Having recently started a LEGO team (Jr. First LEGO League), we have a huge kit of LEGOs featuring gears, axles, and a motor. It's a whole bunch of the specialty pieces that let you make models that move. Today Emmett and I set out to try to make stuff that moves. Emmett wanted to use the bevel gears to make a prototype for a helicopter where moving one of the rotors would make the other one move too. I was trying to make a car that could be connected to the motor and drive. Emmett's worked! I was initially afraid that he wouldn't try to make it without my direct help, but since I was engrossed in my own project, he jumped in. Soon enough he had a working prototype. I, on the other hand, learned lots about how the LEGO motor and gears work.

Henry has a little cough and cold, which caused a very short nap yesterday. This leads directly to a super-tired little boy in the evening, so I put him to bed around 7:30pm and he fell asleep very quickly. Unfortunately, sometimes his body views this early bedtime as a second "nap" and when he woke up 9:45pm he was ready to play! David and I were tired after the long day yesterday, so while we were getting ready to sleep, Henry was doing laps around the room climbing on the bed on one side and jumping off the other side. As David and I chatted, Henry was leaping into the air on the bed and landing cross-legged, laughing his head off. It was nice - I didn't have to spend much energy keeping him happy and entertained. Then all of that bouncing had it's consequences. He started coughing a lot and then he threw up. Poor kid! It seems to have been a purely physical effect - he seemed to feel fine and was even interested in more bouncing while we cleaned up. I imm

Emmett has been playing a game on their iPods called "Unblock Me" - it's a game where there is a set of blocks that can only be moved along their length and a colored block that you're trying to release from the playing field. You have to figure out how to move the other blocks to make a path for it to get out. Emmett has been playing it for a while, and has solved over 100 of the puzzles. Last night Luke started playing the game too. Emmett worked thorough a couple of puzzles with him and he was off and running. He's not bad! After watching him quickly solve one of the early puzzles, Emmett said, "I taught him everything he knows."

Luke's been doing swimming lessons for 4 months now, and four weeks ago his regular teacher wasn't there. He didn't want to go in the water with the woman they scheduled in her place, and I had to carry him to the water and hand him to her! I was really scared that he'd get stubborn and refuse to participate that week, but in less than 2 minutes he was happily swimming with her. Since then he's had a sub again two of three weeks (I hope Richelle is ok!), and he's happily gotten in the pool with both of them! I think he makes more progress swimming with a teacher who is more familiar with him and what he's working on, but these few weeks with the variety of teachers is giving him an entirely different kind of confidence. I'm thrilled. It's transferring, too - a couple weeks ago we took him skiing the first time and he went into the ski-school room to join his class and unknown teachers easily. He loved skiing.

As part of the bedtime routine, I get all of the toothbrushes ready with toothpaste and put water in a cup for Emmett and Luke (Luke can't easily reach the knobs on the faucet just yet, though he has some creative ways to get it done). Henry has realized this, so he follows me to the sink, grabs the cup of water, and gleefully pours it down the drain.

Henry has loved Curious George for a long time. He watches the cartoons, reads the books, and at Christmas, he got a Curious George stuffed animal and a George-in-the-box, which he adores. But just a couple weeks after Christmas, he started refusing the Curious George cartoons. He wanted to watch Mickey Mouse Clubhouse instead! Since then he's rarely watched Curious George, but he does still carry around his George and we still read the books. At bedtime, I used to use "Curious George Comes to Our House" stories exclusively. Shortly after he switched over to Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, I decided to tell a "Mickey Mouse Comes to Our House" story. He got so excited that it really didn't help get him to sleep. But since then, whenever I'm telling a bedtime story, if I start out with Curious George, he'll yell, "Uh unh!" and I switch over to Mickey. Tonight I told a "Mickey Mouse and Curious George Come to Our House" story and he