"Dop yaf at me!"

Again with the whole, "I don't know where he gets these things" thing.  Matt, Henry, Evie and I were sitting in the living room the other evening, just talking and playing and spending a bit of family time together before bed time.  Matt told a funny story and we both started laughing when dear little Henry stopped what he was doing, got very indignant and yelled, "Dop yaf at me, Daddy!"  We both stopped laughing and looked at him for a second before I lost it completely.  Matt laughed a bit but composed himself very well and told him, "I'm not laughing at you, buddy."  Laughing, I assured him that I WAS laughing at him and he got soo mad!  He looked almost like he was going to cry before I started tickling him and got him to forget it.  But where would he have heard that?  Why does he know the concept of "laughing at someone"?  Doesn't he seem a little too young to know what that is?  It's crazy what a clever clogs that boy can be sometimes.  :)

"Thank you so very much"

Henry loves a British cartoon called Peppa Pig.  He likes all of the characters but I think Daddy Pig is his favorite.  Being British, they obviously speak English but they have some different sayings than we do and it's so funny and wonderful to hear Henry use them.  Most recently, it's been Daddy Pig's "thank you so very much" or "you're most welcome."  Imagine thanking a 2 year old for listening and having him respond, "you're most welcome."  It's such a delight.

Naughty Mr. Dinosaur

Henry loves his dinosaurs.  Specifically his T-Rexs.  I wrote before about the Grandma dinosaur with the booboo on its side, but Santa also brought him a big T-Rex for Christmas.  That has been his new obsession lately.  It's kind of taken on the life of Henry's alter ego and is responsible for all of Henry's evil deeds.  If Henry is accused of making a mess in the living room, he points out that Mr. Dinosaur has done it.  If Henry spills his spaghetti on the floor, he assures me that Mr. Dinosaur is responsible.  Usually, Mr. Dinosaur is kind enough to apologize with a deep voiced, "saw-see, mommy" but one day, he was being particularly naughty and Henry decided that Mr. Dinosaur's apologies just weren't enough.  So he got sent to time out.  I cannot describe to you how darling it is to see a 2 year old put a dinosaur into a chair in the corner and tell it that it has to sit there until it is ready to follow directions and listen to mommy.  Three times Henry sent Mr. Dinosaur to time out that day.  And he hasn't misbehaved since.

"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.  :)