Milestone Minutiae

At bedtime, out of nowhere, Luke says to me, "You'll move out when we grow up, right?" Surprised, I asked, "You mean will I move out of my house when you grow up? Um, no. You'll move out." Then he said, "But you'll give us money and stuff, right?" So I explained that we'll help them while they are in college, but after that they'll need to get jobs and their own places to live. Maybe I should revisit this one once in a while so he's not surprised when the time comes...

When putting Henry to bed, I always end with a story featuring him and a friend starting out doing something fun, and then getting tired, having a snack, and listening to me tell a story. The "story within a story" is either the Big Red Barn or Goodnight Moon, because I know those two by heart (we do "story time" in the dark so Henry is asleep or nearly so by the end of it). Tonight he picked Big Red Barn and I quickly realized that he knows it by heart, too. Even though his words aren't very clear, he was reciting much of the story with me! When I was slowing down near the end, he finished a line for me. I said, "And the little donkey gave..." and he jumped in with a pretty clear "one last bray!"

We had some mini-cinnamon rolls from Costco, and there were enough left for each of us to have one after dinner. When we went to eat them, Emmett announced that he was going to have his tomorrow, so he'd be able to have one when Luke didn't. (thanks, kid!) Upon hearing that, Luke decided to just eat half tonight, and save the other half for tomorrow. Later in the evening, Luke told me he wanted to eat 1/4 of the roll tomorrow, and 1/8 for the next two days. Thus baited, I suggested that instead, he should eat 1/16 on the next day, and 1/32 on the next day, each day cutting it in half so he'd never ever run out! He thought never running out sounded great, though Emmett pointed out to him that the pieces would get very tiny, very fast.

Here are the current stats from the doctor's visit: Height: 35.5 inches (just under 75th percentile) Weight: 26 pounds 12 ounces (just above 25th percentile) Head circumference: 20 inches (just over 90th percentile) He didn't scream at the doctor this time, just looked at him warily. Notably, the height requirement for the Matterhorn is 35 inches.

David was on his way out the door this morning, so I said "Bye-bye, hon!" Henry immediately parroted, "Bye hon!"

My next door neighbor and I have been swapping kid duty for 30 minutes at a time on weekday mornings so we can both exercise in an empty house. It's been working out great, with the added bonus that Henry (just 2) has gotten used to being at her house without me. He loves playing with Lily (6-9 months older than him), and having Emmett and Luke around surely helps , not to mention that my neighbor is great with kids. He's gone over in the afternoon a few times, sometimes when I'm home, and sometimes when I need to run an errand, for as long as 90 minutes or so. Today I went to a FIRST LEGO League meeting at the University of Utah. I'd communicated with some of the people on the committee by e-mail, but really wanted to check things out in person. I was a little nervous - Henry would be next door for about 3 hours. It all turned out fine - when I got home he was a little clingy for a half-hour or so, but he wasn't upset (visibly) while I was gone. While we got r

Henry loves strawberries, so when he left most of them on his dinner plate, I said, "What's up today, Henry? Sometimes you eat your weight in strawberries!" Emmett overheard and asked what that meant, so I explained that "eat your weight in strawberries" means "eat a number of strawberries that would weigh the same as you do." He replied, "Well it would be much more clear if you said 'eat the number of strawberries that would weigh the same as you do.'" And it rolls off the tongue so nicely, too.

Maria made some mother's day popsicle stick picture frames with Emmett and Luke on Thursday last week. She even brought little flower-printed bags so the boys could "wrap" the presents. I was vaguely aware of it - there was a little flower printed bag behind the couch in the living room, and when I moved it to a nearby table (thinking it was "lost" behind the couch), someone moved the bag back behind the couch. On Sunday afternoon, Luke asked me if it was Mother's day, and then he and Emmett brought me the bags. It was very sweet. David did a pretty good job, too, cleaning the toaster oven (really cleaning it!) and getting me a sweet red rose.

Emmett and I were working some very simple algebraic equations this morning, when we came across this one: 5 - 2n = 10 He looked at it and started laughing. "Five minus 2n equals 10?" The very idea of "n" being a negative number was hilarious, apparently. Next, he said, "2n must equal minus 5! N is minus one and a half!" He fixed that error pretty quickly, but I still went through the equations with him to get to the answer. When we got to -2n = 5 he was stumped again. More laughter. I realized that he doesn't really know that negative*negative=positive etc, so I helped him figure out that he needed to divide both sides by -2 here. Watching him struggle a bit and then make connections is fun. The laughter seems to come up when he's right at the edges of understanding something but not quite there yet (it's almost nervous laughter, but he really seems to think the way math works is funny).