Recently I've been inspired by a friend's great home-schooling blog to do some new things with Henry. Today we ventured into the wonderful world of "cooking" and made Peanut Butter Cheerio Treats. We had a great time doing it, too! He was surprisingly focused and followed directions really well. (He didn't even lick or eat things he wasn't supposed to so we can share these treats with friends.)
Here are some pictures from our cooking adventure:
I let Henry lick the measuring cup we used for the peanut butter. He thought this was a delicious and fun treat!
Henry transferred all of the marshmallows from the purple bowl into the white bowl. First he used his hands...
Then he used a measuring cup.
Henry wasn't so sure he liked how sticky the mixture was but he did help me stir a little.
Henry with the finished product.
Henry wanted to use the bowl and spatula more but they were sticky so I gave him some of his fuzzy pom-poms and a new utensil. He played with it long enough for me to write this blog post!
Yesterday marked five weeks since Henry got his robot (pacemaker). He celebrated by participating in the Ridgewood Memorial Day Fun Run (one mile). He ran/walked/meandered about 70% of the mile and took his time to play in the hoses and sprinklers people had out along the route. He finished in 27:56.
Lots of energy at the start!
Proud Race Finisher with his medal
And just for a little walk down memory lane, here are two photographs from last year's Memorial Day Fun Run.
Daddy helping Henry finish the race. (He rode in a stroller the rest of the way last year.)
It's hard to believe that Henry is now 21 months old (as of the 16th) and than in just three months we'll have a two-year old on our hands. I know it sounds cliche but time really does fly!
It's been four weeks since Henry got his pacemaker. Besides the scar we haven't noticed any difference in him. He was a super-trooper during the whole ordeal from the initial testing to the surgery to recovery. We feel very lucky to have such a "go with the flow" kid who is generally happy.
In addition to keeping our family and friends up to date with our activities, this blog is an electronic baby book for Henry so I want to keep up with his milestones. Here are some lists to help us remember what he's up to these days:
Things Henry Loves:
-Going to the library
-Playing with balls
-Doing puzzles
-Reading
-Dancing
-Going to music time at the library
-Watching the videos of himself that we have on our phones
-Drawing/Coloring
At 21 months Henry seems to genuinely love learning and is very curious about almost everything. (I hope this continues!). We've always been good about reading to him, pointing out letters and being fairly educational even during play with him. We never expected it to pay off so young.
He can:
-identify the letters of the alphabet by pointing at them and/or saying the names of letters we draw or point out to him. His favorite is spotting H's.
-can draw an H (with such flourish on the horizontal line!)
-identify basic colors (though blue and purple get mixed up sometimes)
-make most animals sounds (including a peacock!)
-sing the "Hey" part of the "Hey Song"
-do the motions for many songs like Itsy Bitsy Spider, Wheels on the Bus, etc.
He still uses some signs and some in conjunction with words (like saying More while doing the sign for More). We've found that he has his own Henry way of saying some words right now like a weird gutteral Kkkkkkk sound for Milk (not sure why he fixated on the end K sound) or "BoBo" for Toby the Turtle (his stuffed animal). Though we never set out to teach him signs beyond the basics, I am glad that we did because I feel it has really cut down on the frustration level of both Henry and us as he is able to communicate most things using some combination of sign, word, gesture, pointing, etc.
Some spoken words he uses (not including the signs he knows):
-Most of our family names (Mama, Dada, PopPop, Ellen, etc.)
-logo (as in the Mets logo in his Hello Mr. Met book....very useful word...haha)
-guitar ('tar)
-car
-ball
-Devils (du-dus)
-bubble
-turtle
-spoon
-tree
-poop and pee-pee (though he sounds like he's saying tse-tse,which is funny)
-moon
-yes
-no
-more
-up
-down
-Go go go! (Horse races, Devils hockey, getting ready to go in the car, etc.)
-choo-choo
-vroom (for cars, motorcycles, etc.)
-He also makes an intense siren sound for fire trucks, ambulances and police cars
-Bye-Bye
-"That one" (dat-uhn)
-uh-oh
-two (his favorite number apparently)
-baby
-Body Parts: eye, nose, ear, toes, feet (he can also identify others but doesn't say them yet)
-Food & Beverage: Banana, Apple (ah-ah), Juice, Water, Cheese, Tea
-Colors: Blue, yellow, green, and purple all sound like they should. Red sounds kind of like red. Black, white and pink all are very abbreviated sounds like "ck", "ttt" and "nk".
-He's just now starting to say his name on occasion, though he has to break it down into "hen" and "ry"...and sometimes he forgets the "ry" part!
Henry also can, in his own way, relay stories by using key words. Examples: pee-pee, feet, Bobo (To tell about how on Mother's Day he peed on my feet and on Toby the turtle!) and Ding Dong, *vomit sound*, uh-oh (to tell how he threw up on my mom when she was visiting after his surgery).
He will try to repeat words we use and has his own way of saying some other words too. It's amazing how quickly his verbal skills picked up in the last few weeks. I'm sure he'll be talking non-stop pretty soon.
During our visit with my parents he was reading "Wynken, Blynken and Nod" with my mom and she left out the last words in the lines and he was able to say most of the missing words. It was amazing. I had no idea he knew that story that well. We had him do it again before we left and I caught in on video:
I'm amazed every day by the things he has learned that I don't even realize he's learned. It's a real testament to the sponge-like nature of little ones.
I feel very lucky to be able to be home with him to watch him learn and grow. We also have gotten to do some fun things. This morning we went to see the Parade of Sail come up and down the Hudson. I had scoped out a shopping center with a big parking lot right along the water (thanks Google Earth!) and it was perfect. We had a great view and it wasn't too crowded. Henry enjoyed saluting the flags he saw flying on the boats and got to dance to the music of the band that was playing on one of the ships. It was a really neat way to spend the morning.
I apologize for the lack of updates in the last week or so. We've been busy getting back to normal after Henry's surgery. If you couldn't see his incision, you'd had no idea he had anything done! He's up to his old tricks like standing on his Sit & Spin, running around, dancing, etc. It's amazing how quickly he recovered. We are so thankful that he handled everything so well and had a relatively easy recovery (once he didn't have to take his antibiotics anymore...let's just say our garbagemen probably passed out from our trash during those few days!).
He had a follow-up appointment with his cardiologist to make sure things were going well and that no fluid had collected around the heart. Everything looked great and he was a trooper again during his echocardiogram. (The cardiologist called him "mature for his age"!) We won't have to see his cardiologist anymore. Instead, his appointments will now just be with his electrophysiologist to make sure the pacemaker is working correctly.
He's able to take baths and do just about everything we usually do. I'm holding off on playgrounds for now and we haven't really wrestled just yet. The surgeon told us we could keep the bandages off his incision after the first few days but Henry's been itching it a little at night so until it heals a little more we're going to keep it covered so he doesn't hurt it at night.
We are back to our routine of library time, music time, grocery shopping, playing, etc. Right now he is really into doing puzzles and practicing his letters, especially drawing Hs. (He's getting quite good at it!) I will write a more in depth "developmental update" later this month when he hits 21 months (holy cow!).
Today Henry and I ran some errands and then went to a library in a neighboring town that we don't go to very often. They have a fishtank there and Henry loves fish so we checked it out. When we first looked in there was a dead fish in one of the plants at the bottom of the tank. Henry pointed at it so I told him that the fish was taking a nap. Henry pointed at the fish again and said "Night Night." I guess the librarians heard me because when we were doing puzzles (away from the aquarium) I heard them discuss it and remove it from the tank. As we were leaving Henry wanted to look at the fish again. He looked around the tank and then pointed to where the dead fish had been and said "Bye Bye, Night Night." Cracked me up.
To close this post, here is a picture I took yesterday morning of Henry in his PJs doing his tool puzzle:
