It’s been a long couple of months, and I really don’t want to talk about it here. Our loss of Marilyn Sue — Henry’s Grammie Sue — is documented on the We Miss You Grammie Sue website. Instead, I want to focus on what the last couple of months have been like with Henry.
Henry’s language skills have exploded, though you would never know it by 97% of his daily verbal output, which oscillates between “I want it!” and “I need it!” He is actually capable of long, complex sentences, though his capability for long, complex thoughts is, well, negligible at this point (i.e. see above favorite expressions).
With heightened language skills comes some wackadoo communications. The other morning I went into his bedroom to get him out of his crib, and he was quiet and thoughtful. He looked up at me with these eyes that reminded me of a primordial bird, and his expression didn’t change at all through my cooing and backrubbing and smiling. Finally, he said to me all deadpan, “Don’t take my head off.” I said, “Henry, I would never take your head off, and anyway, I can’t. Your head can’t come off. No one’s head can come off.” He looked at me suspiciously and asked, “What about that girl?” “What girl?” “That girl?” “Henry, did you have a dream?” “Yeah.” “Was it scary?” “Yeah.” “It wasn’t real. When we dream, it’s just our imagination, and none of it is real. No one can take your head off, okay?” “Okay.” “Can I give you a hug?” “Mama hug.”

Hank is also really into rules these days. The other day he was feeding me pretzels, and just before he was about to hand me a second one, he said, “One at a time, mama.” He also reminds me to cover my mouth when I cough, and when I tell him he can’t have another vitamin until tomorrow, he responds, “One per customer.”
His grasp of discipline is now (gasp!) reasonable. He finally understands cause and effect, though maybe not in a way that’s very flattering to me. First, often when I get frustrated with him, I mutter under my breath, “Henry, I’m going to throw you out the window.” Second, one of my pet peeves is that when I changed his diaper, it usually resulted in a wrestling match. LOTS of kicking, which was frustrating and painful! Once I lost my temper and popped his bottom. Not enough to hurt, but enough to get his attention. Which it did. He was aghast, shocked, insulted and hurt. For the next ten minutes, all he would say to me was, “You hit myself!” I apologized for losing my temper and told him that I popped his bottom for kicking mommy, and that it hurt.
A few days later, he was wild and kicking me again during a diaper change, and I said, “Henry, stop kicking mama!” And he said, “Or you pop my butt?” And I said, “No, I’m not going to pop your butt.” He nodded sagely and said, “You throw me out the window.” Time to watch what comes out of my mouth.

On the positive side of disciple, he understands choices, chances, counting and time out. He understands the choice of either reading one book or two books before bedtime; the fact that he had two chances to pick up his mittens and that he has one more chance before a time out; and that he has to the count of three to pick up the apple he threw on the floor. I do believe we’ll be able to get this boy civilized yet.
His passions these days are dancing (which often involves running back and forth with crazy hand movements), especially when daddy plays guitar, singing (Wheels on the Bus and Old McDonald are his favorites, but he’s also making up a lot of his own songs), Karate poses (SO sad I don’t have a photo of one yet), and “working,” which involves taking screwdrivers or rachets to his toys, furniture, or appliances and “fixing” things.

His other passion is flooding the bathroom with water from the sink, but really, can that count as a passion?
So enough blither blather. Here’s a chronological rundown of the last couple of months in pictures, because, come on, aren’t you really just zooming through the text to get to the pictures? Here goes:
Floyd on skis for the first time.

He loves it, can’t wait to do it again, and thought he might have given himself a minor concussion the first time. I said no more skiing until he gets himself some health insurance.
A warm January day in the town of Lyons, home of Oskar Blues and the largest pinball collection in the state AND an old firetruck.

Have I mentioned that Henry is obsessed with firetrucks?
A get-together with the McAndrews turned into a jam session, with Henry jamming himself onto Amanda’s lap and refusing to budge:


We took a trip to the Denver Children’s Museum one afternoon when it was FREEZING. Henry loved it, especially the old-fashioned general store:

The fishing pond:

The firetruck:

And the arts & crafts room:

My mom came and stayed with us for eleven days while Floyd was in Houston, but he also had the camera so unfortunately I don’t have any photographic record of Henry’s time with Aya. However, Henry will mention, unprompted and several times a day, “Aya says boom-de-yay!” So glad he got so much out of the visit.
While we didn’t take many photos at all when we went to Missouri and Wichita for Marilyn Sue’s services, I did manage to snap a couple of lovey shots with Henry’s Aunt Gina and Henry’s Grandpa Michael:


Finally, to end on a couple of random shots. If Henry’s career as a mechanic or construction worker doesn’t take off, he’s been practicing an alternate career as an underwear model:

And last but not least, I wanted to demonstrate the evolution of Henry’s table manners. Here he is eating dinner at 11 months old:

Here he is eating dinner at 2 years, 3 months:

We’ve come so far.