"Daddy pooped?"

I just asked Matt if he has ever tooted in front of Henry.  I asked because I did the other day while he was rambling on and on about nothing.  In the middle of his little toddler chatter, he paused for just a moment and said, 'toot' before continuing on with what he was doing.  You know, just to acknowledge that he knew what had happened.  Haha, it was so funny.  But not as funny as what he apparently says to Matt.  Matt's response to my question was this:  "Yes, I have tooted in front of him before.  And more often than not, he'll say to me, 'Daddy pooped?'"

Taking Care of Henry's "Fwiends"

Aunt Amy gave Henry a set of Finding Nemo bath toys yesterday.  It's a set of Nemo's friends, including Dory, the little squid (Pearl), the little turtle (Squirt), and the Great White (Bruce).  Henry calls them his "fwiends."  "Mommy, my fwiends come, too?"  He can't seem to bear to be separated from them for even a minute, so they clearly went into the bath with him last night.  After his bath, he spent an unusually long time loitering in the bathroom (he usually bolts out naked and we have to catch him in order to get him dressed).  I went in to find him standing next to the tub with his hooded towel draped over his head and his back facing me.  I went around to his front and found him with a dry wash cloth, meticulously drying off each of his "fwiends."  Every single drop of water.  And talking quietly to them as he was doing it.  After he was satisfied that they were dry enough, he ran and put them on the carpet then ran back into the bathroom to dry off the next one.

Mr. Dinosaur's Grievous Injury

Grandma has an old Jurrassic Park T-Rex with a bite out of the side from when her kids were little.  Henry LOVES it.  It was the whole reason Santa brought him such a big, nice T-Rex for Christmas.  He's just obsessed with it (Grandma's) and yesterday, Grandma let him borrow it for a little while.  What a lucky boy.  On an unrelated note, he woke up this morning with pink eye, so we got him into the doctor as quickly as we could.  While packing up to go, he asked if he could bring his "fwiends" (a set of Nemo's friends that Aunt Amy got him) and his "Grandma din-saur".  On the way to the doctor, he kept saying over and over, "Enny have boo-boo, din-saur have boo-boo, mommy no have boo-boo, Dordee (Dory) no have boo-boo, little one Pearl no have boo-boo, little one Squirt no have boo-boo, big one shark no have boo-boo."  Then he'd start over with "Enny."  When we got into the exam room, he showed the nurse that his dinosaur had a boo-boo and she reacted appropriately dismayed.  It was cute.  Then the doctor came in, did her usual exam on Henry (during which she exclaimed no less than a half dozen times how good he was, even going so far as to ask him if he wanted to come back and teach her other patients how to behave during an exam), and went to leave the room to get his paperwork.  When he realized she was going, he shouted, "no!  'Top, doctor!" and he shoved his dinosaur at her.  The dinosaur had a boo-boo, too, you see, so he needed to make sure the doctor checked him out, too.  Because,  as he learned at the ER when we thought he broke his wrist, doctors make us feel better and fix our boo-boos.  And what a lovely doctor she is.  She assessed the dinosaur and decided that he needed a "big one bay-bay" [band-aid], so she went and got one and bandaged him up.  Henry was VERY pleased.  And so is mommy because our boy truly believes that doctors make you feel better.  I'm going to write the doctor a thank you note because it was just such a kind thing to do and I really think it helped reinforce that going to the doctor is good and not always scary and full of shots.  

"Tenteen"

A lot of times, Henry will tell me that he has to go potty, only to absolutely refuse when I say, "ok, let's go!"  My method of quelling the tantrum that generally follows this is to tell him that we'll just go real quick, that we'll just sit down on the potty, count to ten, then get off.  Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't, but it's what I try each time.  The other day was one of the days it worked and after we counted to ten, Henry kept going.  I had no idea he could count past ten, so I let him go to see how far he'd get.  "Eleven, twelve, firteen, fourteen, sisteen, sessenteen, eighteen, nineteen..." then he paused and said, "tenteen!"  I'm not sure I've ever been prouder of anything in my life.  Yes, he skipped fifteen and no, tenteen isn't what comes after nineteen, but the thought process was so clear and logical and it illustrated to me that he really gets it.  He didn't just memorize a bunch of numbers but he truly understands the how they relate to one another.  If he's still saying tenteen when he's tenteen, then we'll have a problem but for now, I was one proud mama.  :D  Clever clogs.  :)

Crush

As noted in previous posts, HT is enamored with Finding Nemo right now.  If you recall, in Finding Nemo, there's a sea turtle named Crush who speaks with a gnarly surfer accent.  Mr. Henry has taken to mimicking him.  See the video for examples of him saying, "righteous!  righteous!" and "duuuuuude..."

"My Blue Cross"

I hadn't realized it, but I guess our boy has had a lot of occasions where other people were getting gifts and he wasn't.  Since Christmas, there's been Aunt Allie's, Brooklyn's, Alexander's, Uncle Geoff's, and his friend, Daniel's birthdays.  We've baked cookies for Uncle Geoff and the neighbors who had a new baby.  We bought Valentine's Day gifts for Brooklyn and Carter.  He made a Valentine's day gift for me at school.  We gave Daddy some Valentine's Day cards and a box of chocolate.  But I guess I hadn't really thought about the fact that there haven't been gifts for Henry in that time.  The sweet little guy was up in my office playing the other day and he found a sweet blue Precious Moment's cross that Nana had given him for Christmas (that I haven't hung on his wall yet).  He picked it up and asked, "What dis, Mommy?"  I told him that it was a special cross that his Nana had given him for Christmas.  He said, "For Enny?"  "Yes, Bubbie, for Henry."  His little face lit up and he said, "Not for Mommy, not for Daddy, not for Gee-gee, not for Ca-ger, not for Brookie, for Enny!"  And then he proceeded to hug it.  Such a sweet little guy.  And really, he's been so good about giving other people gifts that I hadn't thought about how it was affecting him and what he was thinking about it.  The little sweetheart.

Sad Bear

A couple of months ago, HT had a spell of rough nights.  He'd go to bed fine but after I left, he'd start crying really hysterically.  And he wouldn't stop for 30+ minutes.  The first night it happened, Grandma and Grandpa were here and they weren't able to console him at all.  I couldn't figure out what to do about it and after telling Aunt Amy, she suggested giving him a new bear to "take care of."  She said that a lot of times when she can't get Carter to calm down, she gives him a stuffed animal who is scared or sad and needs to be taken care of.  Carter is so sensitive that he completely focuses on helping out the stuffed animal and forgets what he was so upset about.  So she gave us a bear to try it with Henry.  He stopped having trouble going to sleep before she gave us the bear, though, so I just saved it in case it happened again.  I had it in my office in a plastic grocery bag sitting under my desk.  A couple of days ago, HT went into my office to get his Nemo while I was in changing Evie and came back holding the bear.  He said, "What dis, Mommy?"  "Dang it!" I thought to myself.  "Why would you leave that out?  Stupid, stupid, stupid!"  To Henry, I said, "That's a sad bear, Bubbie.  Aunt Amy brought him over to our house because he's so very sad and he needs someone to take care of him and help make him happy."  Henry looked at the bear for a minute and said, "I hold for Gee-gee?"  Smiling, I said, "Sure, Bub, you can hold it."  And he held it for a sec then said, "For Gee-gee?"  "No, Bubbie, it's not for Evie."  "For Enny?"  "Yes, baby, it's for Henry."  Then his face lit up like a Christmas tree and he hugged the bear with all his might.  "I yuv my Sad Bear, Mommy, I yuv him."  And he didn't leave a room without taking Sad Bear with him for about a week.

"Daddy Rescue Me"

HT got his first black eye yesterday.  Apparently, he was running around the "big kids'" playground with Carter after school and he ran behind the swings while kids were on them.  I guess he got kicked in the face by a little girl and was pretty hysterical about it.  As he should have been.  It's a pretty ugly injury.  See below for pics of my little bruiser.  Anyway, last night, he was pretty obsessed with it and kept wanting to look in the mirror.  Nobody was allowed to touch it but he kept wanting to look at it.  After he'd look at his "red boo-boo," he'd say, "Guwl huwt me.  By swings.  Ca-ger go too.  Daddy rescue me."  Daddy rescued me?  The first time he said it, I got a big lump in my throat and my eyes welled up.  How does he know words like "rescue?"  From Finding Nemo?  Maybe.  I don't know.  It was the sweetest, most endearing thing I've ever heard a 2-year old say in my entire life.  And of course his daddy rescued him.  I told him that his daddy would always come rescue him because he loves him so very much.  He said, "Yeah.  I yuv Mommy so much, too."  <cue tears> That boy of ours.

  

The end of realistic animal sounds :'(

We were reading a story the other day and in it were a bunch of farm animals.  Any of you who have heard HT's animal sounds will know just why this is my favorite part of reading stories.  I pointed to the cow and asked him what it says and he said, "moooooo" like he usually does.  Then I pointed to the horse and asked what it said.  He said, "neigh."  I paused for a second and asked him to repeat it and sure enough, he said "neigh" again.  Then I asked him what the pig said and he said, "oink-oink."  I was able to coerce him into doing the realistic sounds that we've come to know and love but it wasn't easy.  In fact, it was hard enough that I kind of think they must have been doing animal sounds at school and he got embarrassed or something by doing his usual sounds.  It broke my heart to hear those 'ordinary' animal sounds coming out of his mouth.  I guess I didn't expect our influence over him to wane quite so quickly.  :'(  Big little guy.

"Don't bite my bum!"

Henry and Daddy were playing Henry's favorite "I'll Get You" game, which is essentially tag.  With the difference that you yell, "I'll get you!" before you start chasing each other.  Mr. Dinosaur was playing this time and was helping Daddy was "get" Henry.  Henry tried to escape by getting up on Mommy and Daddy's bed, but the wily Mr. Dinosaur tracked him up there.  When he caught Henry, he started biting his bum.  Henry admonished him with the following: "No!  Don't bite my bum, Mr. Dinosaur!  Too full of poopy!"  Mr. Dinosaur promptly ceased his bum-biting activities.

Mr. Ray

Henry has been enamored with the movie Finding Nemo for a few weeks now.  A year or so ago, the Timons got him a Finding Nemo bathtub set which didn't mean much to him at the time, but was a HUGE success when we rediscovered it.  Nana also got him a giant sting ray stuffed animal to keep in his under the sea bedroom.  For about the past week or so, he's been placing Nemo and various fish on the back of his "Missa Gwey" and carrying him around singing his version of Mr. Ray's "Let's name the zones of the open sea" song.  It's quite possibly the cutest thing I've ever seen.