2 years

Happy birthday to my sweet boy!

When Henry woke up this morning we both went into his room and sang Happy Birthday to him. He was like, yeah yeah yeah, gimme some milk.

Henry had his 2 year check up yesterday. He weighs 29 lbs 11oz (50-75%) and is 35 1/2 inches tall. She actually measured him at 36 1/4 but she didn't see his head was not touching the other end (they do the height with them laying down). So according to them our child is in the 95% for height but he's probably more like 75%. His head is 50.5 cm which is 95%

Likes: Dancing, singing, playing trains, coloring, swimming, reading books, playing with friends (not just alongside them anymore but actually with them) playing pretend with toy food, running, climbing, playing with cars and blocks, playing with the water table, kicking and throwing balls, shooting baskets, watching Curious George, Thomas the Train and of course Elmo. Henry's favorite treats are chocolate, ice cream, lollipops, and popsicles. He gets treats once or twice a week, although lately with all the birthday festivities it's been more. Favorite foods are oatmeal, cereal, tacos, avocados, frozen peas, tomatoes, kiwi, mango and of course NOODLES. I've started making him sandwiches and he likes that.

Dislikes: Yogurt, and anything remotely scary on his shows. Sometimes I even have to fast forward stuff on Thomas the Train--and we can't watch the movie Cars anymore.

Changes: He seems to like to rough house now. Not 100% happy with being upside down unless he puts himself there. But he likes doing somersaults. He is eating a lot still but it is inconsistent. He can have 1 or 2 days of eating small portions and then the next day he woofs food down to the point where our jaws drop. He is also becoming more independent. About 2-3 times a week he will get very upset that he can't do something, to the point where he gets so frustrated that he begins to cry real tears. It's actually quite distressing for me to watch b/c i want to help him so badly and he won't let me. For example, this past weekend he wanted to push the stroller up a curb and hill and it was not physically possible and yet he tried at least 50 times to make it happen. I had to go inside because I could not watch anymore. Justin sat down on the grass next to him and waited I guess for Henry to figure out it wasn't possible but that never happened and so Justin picked him up and carried him inside. Henry was just heaving these big huge sobs and I held him until he stopped crying.

Talking: Henry narrates everything he sees...all day long. It's like descriptive video for the visually impaired. If we're driving he will tell me all the things that we pass and there's a lot of "Look at that mama!" I like the sweet stuff he says, like when he's eating and stops to say, "Yummy, mama". Or when I sneeze, "Bless you, mama". He also ALWAYS says "Thank you". He'll say simple sentences up to 6-7 words like"Throw rocks in the water with dada" or "I want some orange mama, right now", and shorter ones like "Let's go mama, outside" or, or "Stop it dada, go away". Today he said, "Cereal on the ground, no table" so he still springs these random words on me (ground?) and when we were outside, "Where the water table goes? There it is! I found it!" so more like a lot of short sentences strung together.

Sleeping: We tried to do a 7:30 bedtime but he can't make it past 7. When he was going to bed at 7:30 he was waking around 7 and now he's back to waking between 6 and 6:30. But still...this is 11 hrs min. of uninterrupted sleep. I'll take it. Naps are around 12:00 and last 1 hr and 40 min.

The last thing I wanted to mention about Henry is his adulation of older children. He seems more aggressive with the little kids and very docile and sweet with older kids. My friend Michelle and I met at her son's school the other day and all his kindergarten friends took Henry under their wing. There were about 4-5 of them and they held Henry's hand and played ball and sat with him for an hour and a half. Henry barely noticed me at the picnic table. He was perfectly content and happy to be with those big boys. I was of course terrified they were cooking up some nefarious plan but they were sweet as could be.