Apparently Henry has entered into the cross-dressing-daredevil-raccoon stage of preschooler-hood. He loves to walk around in my heels, wants his nails painted, he's fascinated with me putting on makeup and begs me to put it on him, and he wants to wear my clothes. He's also, something very new to him, become quite the daredevil. He's getting injured a lot more. Taking more chances with climbs and jumps and gotten a lot friskier with friends. They think it's funny to punch kick and hit each other (just with the older boys at school, for some reason). He's also started ransacking every single nook and cranny of our house. I found him digging through the trash yesterday and then screeching, "A KITE!" and he pulled out a long piece of colorful plastic, coated in the soggy remains of the morning cereal. He's also been doing this thing where he'll find some little object, appliance, thingamajig, and then mess with it until it breaks. If you see him concentrating on some small thing in his hands, that's what he's doing. He's thinking, "Hmmm...how can I break this?"
He's also pretty out of whack on sleep, lately. He all of a sudden, out of the blue, stopped napping at school. This is from the boy, prior to last month, I could count on three fingers how many naps he's missed, in his entire life. I don't know what's going on but it is not fun for us in the evening. He's now getting about 11 hours at night. And on non-school days he'll still take a two hour nap and then sleep ten at night. So 11-12 hrs is what it is these days. Hope it's enough. It certainly doesn't feel like it's enough but there's not a whole lot I can do about it.
Lastly, Henry is a very protective big brother. He is terrified of her falling down the stairs on the front porch. I'll run back in the house b/c I've forgotten something and come back to find he's got her in a head-lock b/c she's gotten too close to the stairs (she actually is pretty careful and does not attempt going down stairs yet--she's still in the examining stage of just starting at them, trying to figure them out.) He calls her "Sweetie" and will randomly kiss her at times, and uses this really sweet voice with her. When she's not around he always asks where she is. He can also be really grabby with toys and yells at her when she touches him, but that goes without saying.
Eleanor has really come into herself these last two months. I've found myself falling pretty head over heels for her lately, and maybe that's not something to admit out loud about your child who is already a year old, but better late than never, right? She makes me feel so happy inside--just looking at her, watching her be her own person. She's so happy and smiley and lets me give her the mandatory 20 kisses per hour. She is so independent for a little thing--and really has been from the get-go. I can put her down in the front room, by the play-kitchen or train-table, and she will entertain herself for 20 min and then crawl to another room in the house, find something else to do, and then crawl to the back out of the house and find Henry or play with the toys in that room. She can now go up steps, easily stand up and get down, and knows enough words to communicate her agenda. When I dropped her off at school yesterday, she did her excited kick-laugh thing when she saw her teacher, and I put her down and she crawled over to her and got lots of hugs and kisses and I left. What a relief to see her so attached to her teacher.
I really hope to remember this image of Eleanor: When I go in her room after she's woken from her naps, she squeals and kicks her legs wildly--sort of like a right-side-up inchworm. She is SO EXCITED. Then I scoop her up and immediately she reaches her arm out to something..anything and says, "That!".
In other news, E has finally regained her weight following illness and now weighs what Henry did at 4 months old.
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