Lainey & Henry

Dear Henry -

Lainey is your official back seat companion & you absolutely love it.  She sings songs to you, chats, makes silly faces & keeps you completely entertained. I love it too b/c you have recently started to get bored in the backseat if its just you & me in the car.  It is also rather entertaining what Lainey will think of to keep you happy.  This morning on the way to school you started fussing, she tried to give you the pacifier & I guess you didn't want it.  Next thing I hear she says "Henry!"  I look in the mirror & all I can see is the back of her head as she is leaning in really close to you.  Lainey then looks up & tells me "Henry keeps sucking on my nose!"  She says this as if you have the ability to go after her nose....wonder if it has anything to do with her sticking her nose right in front of your open mouth.  So, in case there was any doubt - we now know you will suck on anything.

One of Lainey's favorite things to do these days is write on the whiteboard easel.  You aren't quite old enough to play teacher with her - but she often writes things about you on the board.  She called us over the other day to see "Hennrey is a happy silly boy!" and a cute drawing of you.  After telling her how much I loved the picture, I cautiously say, "Henry is spelled h-e-n-r-y, only one N and one E".  She looks at w/o blinking an eye, "No" and turns back to drawing on her whiteboard.  All righty then.

We finally remembered to bring the camera to Lainey's softball game.  At her request - you were dressed in one of your baseball outfits for the occasion.  Didn't get a picture of your outfit - but few good ones of Lainey.

In other news....you rolled over for the first time yesterday!  You've definitely been getting better at tummy time, but I was quite surprised.  You started pushing with one arm, wobbled a little and then boom - all the way over from your belly to your back.  Jack & I were watching and gave you all sorts of applause when you were done.  You were quite pleased with yourself & lots of grins & squeals followed.  A few minutes later I put you back on your belly to see if you would do it again.  Uh, no - you didn't like this at all & immediately protested as if to say Jeez mom, can't you be happy w/ one roll? Sorry kiddo, I'm thoroughly impressed!

We've been enjoying lots of lunchtime visits from Auntie Sara...and your Dad & I even had date night this week & you hung out at Sara's with Ryan.  Ryan thought you were pretty fun & was nice enough to give you one of his favorite books about fire trucks from when he was younger.  

After your bath this morning happily talking to your friend the cow.  I'm not sure what it is - but something about laying on your changing table, you love it.  You talk to the cow, stare out the window, my patience w/ standing there usually ends before you tired of hanging out!

We're headed to Manteca this weekend for a tournament - you are quite the baseball fan!

love,

mama

Flying Bigs!

Dear Henry -

Dad & I had our first night away last weekend for our anniversary & it was wonderful!  You were in great care for the occasion - Nana, Granfeather and Aunt Malisa ALL spent the night at our house with you.  You charmed all day & them impressed them by sleeping from 7:30 - 7:30.  Malisa was prepared to be woken up early by you....not quite what she expected to be  woken up at 6:30 by your grans chatting & cracking each other up!  The next day was Mothers Day and you all joined us & we spent a relaxing day in Half Moon Bay ending with soup & pie at Duartes - yumm.

Your Dad & I have a love of "the little things" - so here are some of the little things I love about you:

-  your smile.  Almost guaranteed to get a smile when someone does raspberry lips for you.  But the best is when out of nowhere you look at me & crack a big grin, as if its just for me :-)

-  your eyelashes are so long!  It is usually the first thing people comment on when they meet you - either your long eyelashes or your big eyes (they are rather dreamy your Dad says.  You lost an eyelash the other day....I plucked it off your check & I couldn't resist measuring it - 3/4 of an inch!!!  

-  every night I put you down in your crib head to one end & foot to the other.  Every morning I go to get you from the crib - you are diagonal in the crib.  The part that makes me laugh is you manage to turn yourself the same way each time - head to the left, feet to the right.

I think your current favorite activity is doing the airplane with Dad.  He lifts you up, zooms you around, smacks you with kisses & then back down for landing.  You get really excited & anticipate the next lift off...  You make a rather goofy grin - it really looks like you want to laugh, just haven't figured out how to make that sound quite yet. 

As you fly around - lots of drool as well!

You've just discovered that you can stand.  Well, so my arms are holding you up - but you have the strength to push up with your legs & can hold the weight of your body up.  You seem to quite enjoy the new perspective looking at things this way.  The funny thing is most of the time you "stand" with your legs crossed - we will have to work on that.

You continue exploring by putting everything possible in your mouth.  You can definitely grip onto things & once it is in your mouth you have a blast....getting it into your mouth is the big challenge right now.  

Love,

mama

p.s.  We've named the monkey Cha-Cha.

3 Months

Dear Henry -

No Dr appt for this month - so I did an unofficial weigh-in today: 14.2 lbs. Thats another ~pound & a half in the last month.

Highlight of the 3 month mark: sleep! I think I can officially say you are sleeping through the night! Its been ~2 weeks so I don't think I will jinx it by writing it down - you now tend to go to bed around 8 and sleep ALL THE WAY through until 6/7 am. It is amazing! We haven't had to do any sleep training, cry it out, that some of your friends have tortured their parents with....your Dad & I are very pleased. I will brace myself for teething, or a trip, or something else to disturb your sleeping - but for now I am enjoying it. Jack & Lainey were apparently both good sleepers early on too - so must be your Dad has the good sleep gene :-)

You've recently made a new friend - a little stuffed monkey. I guess we should give him a name - seems like a good thing for Lainey & Jack to think off. I tried him out with you the other day & you immediately liked him - got all smiley as I had the monkey give you kisses. You wrapped your arms around him, pulled him towards you & yup - jammed him up against your face to try to get any part of the monkey into your mouth. I will admit it looks a bit like a make out session w/ the monkey :-) The picture doesn't quite do it justice - but you provided us all with a good laugh by managing to find the banana to suck on!

You are making major progress with your hands - no problems these days getting them to your mouth. You tend to suck on your first one or two fingers. I'm curious if you will stick with that or migrate over to your thumb at some point.

You can also now grab onto a lot of things - its been funny to see which things get your attention. There is a little cow toy that is hanging right next to your changing table. For a while you've seemed to be looking at him, chatting with him & reaching for him. You have now gotten pretty good at grabbing ahold of him & pulling him down on top of you.

Yesterday you took notice of the parrot hanging above you. (I guess you like animals - monkey, cow, parrot - ha!) I was so impressed that you could grab him & that I managed to capture it on video - that I finally got my act together to figure out how to import videos - here it is:

A few seconds after I stopped recording - you got extremely frustrated you couldn't get more to your mouth & kicked into high gear with your crying....Monkey to the rescue & as soon as I handed him to you, you happily shoved him towards your face.

We've been practicing on your tummy as well, developing arm stregnth:

Its Cinco de Mayo today - and we are going to a little fiesta at SFSF with your fan club!

Love, mama