17 Months, 1 Week, 4 Days

When i went to pick Henry up at Ms. Brenda's today Henry and the other kiddos were all sitting on the floor individually working on puzzles. Henry was right in the center and working on matching up farm animals with the spaces they came out of. He couldn't necessarily get them back in the puzzle, but he did great and putting the cow piece at least on top of the cow slot. Brenda and i cheered him on and he finished the whole puzzle. He wasn't very happy though when the other kids took it over as we were leaving. We really have to work on this sharing thing.

He took a bath without incident tonight, so now we're just waiting to see what normal daily occurrence becomes terrifying next. My bet is on brushing his teeth, but he already dislikes that so it will probably be something like his books.

Speaking of teeth. Henry has at least one new tooth on the bottom and maybe more that are farther back. He really won't let me look in there or even get my fingers in so i really can't tell.

17 Months, 1 Week, 3 Days

I accompanied Henry to therapy this morning and after a slow warm-up he did quite well. He's definitely more cooperative when i try to get him to do something than his therapist so we practiced walking up the stairs and down them like an adult (holding the railing and my hand to start). He was using the very tiny baby therapy steps, but did a great job after he got over his initial anxiety. Unfortunately our stairs are about 3 times as big and as steep, but we'll work with him on it.

He also practiced climbing from one item to another until he had climbed up onto a table about 4 feet off the floor. He did this very anxiously last week and this week couldn't wait to get up there, get back down and repeat the whole thing several times.

We're all still a little congested but i think we're starting to feel better. We're hosting a dinner party at our house this weekend so it's a good thing the health gods are smiling on us. I have some front steps to bleach this Saturday!

17 Months, 1 Week, 1 Day

A weekend of first for the season. I enjoyed my first bath in our new bathroom this beautiful fall weekend and Henry and I came down with our first colds. So, some good and bad.

I was able to entice Henry into the bath with me after a very multi-pronged strategy. He was happy and content as long as we sitting on my lap. We may have to take a few baths with him over the next few days and hopefully he'll be able to ease back into enjoying the bath on his own.

He's walking more than crawling now and if he falls down he gets back up and finishes walking to his destination rather than crawling. He's getting steadier and a bit quicker, and he clearly takes pride in standing on his own. He'll often be right next to something he could pull up on, but he'll stand up on his own and just beam.

All this mobility means that you're likely to find a pretend piece of toast under the couch and the top of a sippee cup next to his crib. We do our best to keep things picked up and when you ask Henry he's generally obliging about putting things back where they came from.

Jt stayed home with him today because he just seemed a little out of sorts this morning. He got better as the day was wearing on, and after his 4 hour nap this afternoon (!) he had a grand time playing tonight. Mostly his nose is runny and he has a cough. I think he'll be fine to go to Ms. Brenda's tomorrow.

Construction Complete!

Henry news is pretty light today. He had a good day at Brenda's and was ready to give me a big hug when i picked him up. We all went out for a quick bite to eat tonight before i headed out to quilting. JT said Henry enjoyed playing with all of his toys for awhile after they got home. We skipped the bath again tonight so we'll see if he fares any better in our new bathtub tomorrow night!

Here are all the pictures. It turns out i didn't have any before pictures so i'll have to convince you of the Wow! of the after shots. First picture cracked black and white floor tiles with all the grout flaking out, the toilet in the narrow entry-way, black rubber (!) moldings, an old (not so nice) cast iron claw foot with a scraggly shower-curtain surround, and a rusted large medicine cabinet with fluorescent non-working bulbs on each side of the mirror.

Ta-Da!

17 Months, 3 Days

Henry has us stumped. We skipped the bath last night but tonight he gave me a repeat performance of the torture screams during bathtime. I asked him if he wanted to go upstairs and take a bath. He signed bath back to me, said "yes" (or what sounds like yes) and started heading for the stairs. I figured this was a good sign.

I carried him upstairs and put him down in the bathroom while i started to turn the water on. He walked right up to the tub and was about to put his hand under the water like he normally does and he started getting whiny and then very clingy. I reassured him it was fine and started to take his clothes off and then the full-on crying and screaming started. He hadn't even touched the water, so i know it wasn't too hot or anything. I asked him if he wanted me to take a bath with him, and he just kept crying and pointing outside the bathroom.

I told him he had to take a bath and that i would take it with him. I was inconsolable so i just tried to make it as short as i could. The only time he wasn't freaking out was when i was brushing his teeth-- which he normally doesn't tolerate well. So go figure!

Tomorrow night JT's going to try giving him a bath and we'll try in the new tub downstairs to see if that makes a difference. In the meantime i'll ask Brenda if anything happened involving the bathtub that i don't know about...

17 Months, 2 Days

Sorry for the late-posting. Last night i had to make a trip to Home-Depot for (hopefully) some of the last supplies for our bathroom remodel. It's supposed to be completed tomorrow, and today they got the room painted, the toilet and sink installed and all shower stuff in as well. The color is a tad bright, but i'm hoping that with a big white shower curtain it will look cheery. If not we can always re-paint. I'll take some pictures when they're all done tomorrow.

Henry went with JT to physical therapy today and supposedly had a great session. He was walking all over, squatting all the way to the ground and coming back to standing, standing on his own, etc. JT said they were in the bigger room today and she was trying to work with him on new things like climbing and sliding. I think JT may take over PT for a little while now that his work schedule allows. He's going to ask about Henry's long-term timetable next week.

Sorry for the lack of pictures. I know i've fallen down on my photojournalist's job. Hopefully we'll build up a reserve soon.

17 Months, 2 Days

Sorry for the late-posting. Last night i had to make a trip to Home-Depot for (hopefully) some of the last supplies for our bathroom remodel. It's supposed to be completed tomorrow, and today they got the room painted, the toilet and sink installed and all shower stuff in as well. The color is a tad bright, but i'm hoping that with a big white shower curtain it will look cheery. If not we can always re-paint. I'll take some pictures when they're all done tomorrow.

Henry went with JT to physical therapy today and supposedly had a great session. He was walking all over, squatting all the way to the ground and coming back to standing, standing on his own, etc. JT said they were in the bigger room today and she was trying to work with him on new things like climbing and sliding. I think JT may take over PT for a little while now that his work schedule allows. He's going to ask about Henry's long-term timetable next week.

Sorry for the lack of pictures. I know i've fallen down on my photojournalist's job. Hopefully we'll build up a reserve soon.

17 Months, 1 Day

We had an uneventful day back to work and daycare. Henry practiced standing on his own quite a bit this evening and continued to walk around a good deal.

We had a slight bit of drama during his bath. Normally he loves to take a bath and enjoys splashing around in the bubbles from his soap. Tonight he saw a few bubbles and started to get really whiny and seemed upset. I added some more soap to show him those flat bubbles were really the same as the bigger ones he loves. He completely freaked out and demanded to get out. None of his toys would assuage him and he just kept pointing at the bathroom floor.

The water was definitely no hotter than normal, but it's like there was something bothering him in the water. It was curious. He seemed tired after he got out so after wrangling him into pajamas we read a couple stories and he was off to bed. Hopefully he doesn't have a newfound fright of the bathtub.

17 Months!

Henry has been quite the little walker this weekend. He also started climbing a bit, which is the first we've seen. Jt snapped some pictures of this feat while i was downstairs cleaning. He hasn't attempted to climb on furniture yet, but i'm sure we'll have a little monkey on our hands before too much longer.

Friday afternoon we met up with Henry's playgroup at the park. We've been mostly on hiatus over the summer, so it was so fun to see how big everyone has gotten and catch up with people. Henry is generally more interested in putting leaves in his pockets than playing on the playground equipment, but by the end he seemed pretty content and adjusted to all the new people.

We checked out the baby stuff sale my old church was having as a fundraiser this morning and came away with some good bargains. We picked up a second pack-n-play for the new baby and several really nice toys for Henry including a huge bin of wood blocks. He's been pretty contentedly playing all day with his new finds and his favorite drawer of plastic bowls and utensils. His nap was slightly short today, so we're off to an early bedtime.

Arrival

I got back home last night and was happy to catch a flight early enough to see Henry before he went to bed. The house is disgusting again with dirt and grit while they work on the bathroom, but it's coming along and hopefully will be done by the end of next week.

Henry had a great couple of days with JT and seems to have started walking more after a few days of a slump. He's also been squatting and picking things up unassisted which is one of his "skills" we're supposed to work on.

Unfortunately he has ringworm. We thought it was an excema outbreak, but the steroids prescribed for his excema weren't making the thing better so we got him in to the Dr. today. You just use an over-the-counter cream, but supposedly it takes quite awhile to clear up. Poor thing has his a big patch on his forehead, so he looks a little crazy. I'm hoping it's gone in a month when i was planning on getting his 18 month pictures taken.

My first-trimester screen came back completely normal. For all three tests i had the lowest results possible 1 in 10,000 which was encouraging news. Unfortunately i've been extremely nauseas the past several days. The only thing that eases it is sleep so i'm off to bed early again...

16 Months, 3 Weeks...

I'll be on temporary hiatus for a few days while i'm traveling on business.

Henry and i visited the zoo with two other moms i've (gasp) met through the internet that have babies Henry's age. I've actually met both of them before and this was a chance for us all three to get together. The boys had a good time at the zoo. They're actually old enough that as long as the animals are sufficiently large or not a million miles away, they actually SAW the animals and seemed to enjoy watching them. It was hard getting them to cooperate for a group picture, but i have several in which at least one looks pretty cute.

Also, Friday saw Henry's first haircut. I decided to just trim him myself, after reading about several children's specialty hairdressers that are employed mostly by teenagers. Henry was so interested in the process that he sat almost completely still. I certainly couldn't do this forever, but for a first haircut we think it turned out quite nicely. I left it a little long on the top but it's trimmed up and not so scraggly in the back. If it's possible, we actually think he looks cuter.

Today was a day to just hang around the house and get some chores done. Unfortunately Henry only took an hour nap so he was fairly cranky much of the afternoon and went into hysterics at bedtime as he was WAY overtired. Thankfully JT got him to calm down and then he just sadly cried a minute or two before i think falling into slumber. I've got to leave for the airport pretty early tomorrow, so hopefully it's a deep sleep he's got planned.

16 Months, 3 Weeks, 1 Day

JT has been out of town, which is part of why the posting has been a little sparse this week. Being a (temporary) single-parent is no easy feat, i especially have a hard time with the mornings which is designated Dad-time.

Henry got some new shoes this week, as his old soft-soled ones just weren't cutting it when he needed to be on the ground outside. He seems so excited for his shoes and appears to have figured out how to help me put them on instead of looking puzzled while i tried to cram his heel down into the shoe. He was very cooperative this morning and even posed for a few pictures.

He's sitting on one of the new carpet tiles that we're going to be installing in his playroom (the sunporch) after all the renovation is done. He managed to get one tile out of the box and he's very excited about his own personal rug!

11 Weeks, 2 Days!

I guess the squeaky wheel gets the karmic oil, or something like that. Henry's therapy appointment went quite well yesterday. He was shy for a few minutes when we first got there, but he warmed up pretty quickly and started taking steps and standing and just being himself. His therapist was really impressed because he was actually doing the things she asked him to. I think she's getting better at reading him and he's more comfortable with the stuff she wants him to do. Whatever the reason it was a much more pleasant session for me as well.

But, of course the big news-- the date at the top isn't a mistake-- it's how old our new babykins is! We've obviously known for a little while, but today i had an ultrasound and we had a chance to confirm the little guy is in there and has a beating heart and is growing like he should. I even had my favorite ultrasound tech from my last pregnancy and she remembered me which was really nice. This ultrasound was actually part of a first-trimester test to screen for down-syndrome and 2 other chromosomal abnormalities.

We'll have to wait until next week for the full results, but the ultrasound showed that everything looks normal which is obviously nice to hear. I even got a few pictures, so you can re-join me in trying to decode these dark pictures.

Surprise!

16 Months, 2 Weeks, 5 Days

Well we're off to therapy tomorrow. I have to admit i've come to dread it. Henry winds up doing many of things the therapist wants him to do throughout the week, but he's been pretty much just flat-out refusing when we're actually at the appointment. I've just come to look on Wednesday mornings with dread. I can only hope that Henry will continue to make progress and at one point we'll be released!

Brenda said that Henry didn't eat his lunch today-- at first. She told him he needed to eat or he wouldn't get any crackers and then he proceeded to clean his plate-- every last morsel. Brenda said she and her sister were just laughing because they couldn't believe he understood but he seemed pretty clear about getting his crackers.

I tried the same thing with his dinner (which he was eating pretty well to start with). He did eat a few more bites, but when he was done he was done. Then he has a massive diaper blow-out, the likes of which we haven't seen in many, many months. I'm hoping his belly was just temporarily upset and it's nothing lasting.

Losing track of dates...

Not sure how old Henry is-- my calendar is upstairs. But, i thought i would take a few minutes to get back in the habit of posting after this nice long weekend.

We had one last chance to get to the pool on Saturday. We went out to spend the afternoon with friends and it was actually warm enough to go swimming. We all had such a great time and Henry in particular just couldn't be happier. He borrowed Helen's little baby float and had so much fun just paddling along wherever he felt like going. He was even brave enough to get really close to the waterfalls.

This was the first weekend Henry switched to one nap and it seemed to go pretty well. He's definitely tired by the evening, but not unbearably so. I think the transition will take a little longer, but has mostly gone smoothly.

We enjoyed cooking out this afternoon as well, but the rain and cooler weather moved in today so JT grilled and we all ate inside. Henry had a blast this weekend after warming up to everyone and has just gotten to where he walks either more and further each day. Now we're preparing for the busy week ahead.

New 15 Month pictures are up-- access them through the "13 Months- Current" link to the right...

17 Months, 2 Weeks

I had high hopes for yesterday evening. I've been really wanting to squeeze in one last trip to the pool before they all close for the season on Labor Day. I thought yesterday was the day-- with a high of 75 and sunny i thought it just might work. And at noon, it might have, but by 5 o'clock when i picked Henry up it was mighty cool in the shade and not exactly blistering in the sun. We have plans to try on Saturday when we spend the day at the Pendleton's, but i have a feeling with a forecast high of 72 that outdoor swimming season has drawn to a close for us!

We do have a fun weekend planned with an attempt at a new nap schedule, toilet shopping, and thankfully multiple cook-outs with friends.

Henry has been taking only one afternoon nap at daycare for awhile. On the weekends with us he's gotten to where he'll take a long morning nap-- 2 hours or so, but then will zero to little in the afternoon. So, we've decided to see if he seems ready for one nap. The trick is to keep him busy and occupied in the morning when he starts to get tired. We'll keep you updated.