dance

all he needs is a cleared off mattress and some music. the double finger point is my favorite move.

Week 2

So many people have been asking about Henry's preschool and I have been very bad about responding to your emails...sorry guys. He does love it and there are a lot of ways that friends and family can get involved (including a 5K run in the spring...) and I promise to write you all back and give more details than I have given on the blog just for privacy sake.

I had one of my first official "parent of a school age child" moments on Tuesday when I had to call the school to tell them that Henry was sick and not coming to school. It was very funny to be the one calling in. I can't tell you the number of times I dreamed about being able to do that for myself in high school. My friends and I would call each other to practice our Mom's voices just in case we ever got up the courage to call in sick. I never did. Anyway. Everyone said "Oh he is going to get sick a lot when he starts because he has not spent much time around other kids” and we pooh-poohed saying that we would wash his hands a lot or claiming that all the green leafy veggies would protect him…One week in and he already has his first cold. It’s not a bad cold but I did spend most of the weekend on fever patrol (basically getting up every hour to check his forehead, decide that it is hot and then attempt to take his temperature without waking him and then waking him up and getting grumped at from the kid (and from the husband) then defending myself with claims that he had a high fever but then refusing to give him any medicine because I hate medicating him). The snot situation was so excessive on Tuesday that I decided he should not go to school. It was funny, I called the teacher and then Henry came over and grabbed the phone as said “Miss Murray (not his teachers name but the name of a teacher from one of his books) um yeah dis is Henry. I am sick on dis day and cannot come to school but I will come again on Saturday.” His teacher was a good sport about it. I think I’ll ask her tomorrow if that was the first time that a kid actually called himself in and then made arrangements to make up the day over the weekend :)

But the really great part about Henry missing school was that we got to spend Tuesday morning playing with his trains in the living room while watching the inauguration of our 44th president. Thrilling! I did learn that it is very hard to explain to a 3 year old why it is that you are crying because you are happy. Henry checked on me several times through out the morning “Is you sad Mama or is you happy? Do you need a hug? It’s okay Mama. Don’t be sad. Here you can nuzzle with puppy.”

Henry is asking so many questions these days, it is really fun and sometimes quite a challenge. Like a few weeks ago when he asked “Why do people eat animals?” To which I responded “Let’s ask Papa.” :) Yesterday morning he asked me what a buffalo looks like, what it means to eject something, what does the president do, why do babies live in the Mama’s tummy, why is it not good to stick your finger in your eye, what are belly buttons used for and how come birds fly south for the winter. Good stuff. Kids pick up on so much. But I have to say the best was this morning when I took Henry’s old car seat out of the car and replaced it with a new booster seat and Henry told us, without any prompting, “Now we can put dis old car seat here for my little brodder who is a baby.”

Week 1

Henry’s first week at preschool went really well. He has a couple minor issues regarding how to play with other kids. But his teachers tell us that he is a good listener so they think they he will learn those social skills quickly. He also had a little trouble with sitting still during circle time but, again, listened well and followed instructions when the teacher told him her expectations. On Thursday I came to pick him up and Miss Stephanie told me that Henry had some great dance moves. Apparently they were singing in circle time and Henry hopped up and said “you wanna see some moves? Yook at dis.” And then he proceeded to shake, kick and jump around like only a 3 year old boy can do. After the impromptu performance Miss Stephanie said “Henry you are a great dancer. You are funny too, making everyone laugh.” And Henry said “Yeah. I crack myself up.” His teacher described the kids in his class as “a gentle, mellow group” I am thinking that our little bean is going to shake things up a bit.

Bittersweet

Henry lost his pants in the parking lot of the grocery store yesterday. He was holding our hands, jumping up and down, and singing a make-up song about losing his pants as we hiked across the very busy parking lot in the freezing cold. When we got close to the street in front of the store I looked down to make sure I had a good grip on his hand and noticed that his pants were down to his ankles. I yanked up his pants and we all cracked up (along with the other 2 couples walking behind us).

He starts preschool on Tuesday. Wade attended our first official parent/teacher meeting last week. We felt very grown up and, for me at least, a little strange to be on this end of it. I still remember being the student discussed in those meetings. Plus I can't believe he is 3. Everyone tells you this, but you never really understand it until you go through it---they grow up so fast. I can't believe we have a school-age child among us. Wasn't he learning to hold his head up just last week or something? :)

His school is a community preschool with a lot of parental involvement. We get to spend one day each month in the classroom helping the teachers. We get to bring lots of snacks and participate in several fund raisers and serve on a committee. The school wants the parents to bring their own talents to the classroom so I am sure that Wade will spend some time with the kids and his guitar and I plan on making some tasty treats and doing some fun craft projects with the kids also. We are excited for Henry to make some friends and are hoping that we make some new friends also.

Henry's Nana will be happy to know that he put his birthday money to good use last weekend. We went to Build a Bear and Henry picked a light brown bear to build. He waited in line patiently to stuff his bear and then had a pretty good time picking out an outfit for his new bear. Aunt Susie bought him some checkered shoes and a guitar. Grandpa bought the bear some shorts. And, since this present was from Nana and Nana has been such a big support for Henry as he potty trained (she supplied all of his diapers for the first year of his life and then bought Henry his potty) we bought the bear a pair of big boy underpants to celebrate Henry's new, diaper free, life!

Let's see, what other Henry tid-bits do I have to share? He loves his drums. He is able to thump out the rhythms of a few of his favorite songs and can hit his snare drum so hard that it makes my ears ring. :) He has started describing music by how it makes him feel. He'll say "This is song is sad" or "This song makes me feel frustrated". He still spends some time nearly every day building and playing with his train set. Mostly finding new and more elaborate ways for the trains to crash into each other. In fact he just made a crash and is right now telling me that the crash is called "Dump truck all the sudden smashing the bumper of a blue train." Then he says "Yook at dis crash, Mama. Do you want to see dis?" I better go have a look. It sounds serious.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

Henry is hard to catch these days. He is a blurr in almost every photo I take. And he looks way too much like a little boy. (If you don't believe me scroll down to the last picture in this group. Be prepared.) I tried really hard to capture his excitment and joy this Christmas in a photograph and I couldn't get one. But he had a great Christmas. I hope you all did as well. Happy 2009! Santa brought a CD player for Henry. Henry loves music and he also loves books on CD.

And he loves sweets :)

Santa also brought a drum kit . Yes it is loud and yes we are crazy. But he loves it.