Weekly Update 8.29.2010: List Style

This week Henry:
Learned about all different kinds of families in school.
Learned to sing a song about families in Spanish. His Spanish skills now almost surpass Mama's after 3 years of Spanish in high school.
Perfected his robot dance.
Drew 500 pictures of robots.
Managed to convince Gigi to buy him more Transformers,
Played with his friend Tay-tay for 3 hours, a record in the world of 4 year olds.
Brushed his own teeth.
Amazed strangers at the store with his adding and subtracting skills.
Watched some of the Transformers movie and then stood up on the bed and said "This is the best day of my entire life."

This week Mama:
Started a running program
Made 3 kinds of soup, lasagna, black bean burgers, muffins and granola (it's like the show Hoarders, freezer style).
Finished her 16th to last week of school.
Ate too many Fig Newtons
Did 25 loads of laundry
Teared up when she realized that she is in school with people that were born in the 90's

This week Papa:
Mowed the lawn
Stressed about work
Made a really cool t-shirt for friends that are adopting a little boy from Ethiopia
Changed the words to Goodnight Moon in a way that made Henry and Mama laugh so hard they both almost peed their pants.
Wrote music
Played with Transformers and Legos

Next week you can expect:
More food hoarding.
More music being made.
More close calls with the peeing in the pants.
More laundry.
Aunt Susie and Uncle Ted in town.
Hopefully a few photos.

Enjoy the week.

Weekly Update 8/22/10: Mini Version

And so begins Henry's last year of preschool and Laurie's last semester of college.

This is going to be a quick update folks. We are fully immersed in the chaos of school and work, so much so that I only have a few minutes to post. 5 day preschool seems to be going well. Henry has some buddies and is having fun. He obviously (see above) is growing like a weed. At this point he is mostly just legs and a blond puff. He has grown 3 inches and a whole shoe sizes since May 31. We ran into a friend at the grocery store this weekend and she asked Henry how old he is now. His response, "4 and 3/4 plus 3 inches."

On Saturday Henry went downtown with Papa and Rachel and Estrella and they put up fliers for his show this week. Henry really likes Estrella. They are close to the same age and Henry loves holding her hand. After their visit downtown Henry said "Well, I have 4 girlfriends now and the good news is that when I get to 5 we are going to have a parrrr-teee." Ridiculous.

I spent most of Sunday in the kitchen preparing for the week. I feel like the only way that we are going to get through the next 15 weeks of me being on campus 9 hours a week, plus my full time job and Henry in school every day, plus Wade playing 3 shows in the next month (whew!) is for us to be super prepared. I am trying to make some dinners to freeze for busy nights, plus get all of my beans soaked and my tomato sauce made so that I don't even have to think about those things during the week. Speaking of tomatoes, heirloom cherry tomatoes are one of the only things that make mid-August in Kansas bearable. I grabbed two pints at the farmers market this weekend. Yum. While I was busy stocking up the freezer like we were about to be snowed in, Wade and Henry made plans to shoot some hoops at the park down the street. It was hot but Henry was ready for action. I acted as ball chaser/paparazzi while the boys played. We also hung a Henry "H" above his bed. Here is he pretending to sleep. Enjoy the rest of the week blog peeps.

Weekly Update 8.15.10

It's a scorcher out there friends. We spent most of our week in a dark, air-conditioned house, trying to save our energy for those brief moments when we had to burst out of the house and run to the car.

I'm not going to lie, coming up with indoor activities for an active 4 year old is challenging. Poor Gigi had Henry all day Monday-Thursday this week because preschool has not started and it was so hot they couldn't even play outside in the mornings. On Thursday they took a trip to the Natural History Museum. Henry was very excited about watching the bees work. The rest of the exhibits were just a little too old for him. Lawrence needs a Children's Museum. On Wednesday they went to the movies. They had a great time.

Smelly markers have also come in really come in handy this week. On Tuesday Henry spent hours making his own transformer book. He took the one that we checked out from the library and copied the pictures and then Gigi wrote out the story, making note of a few changes-mainly that all the good guys had become bad guys. Henry is very interested in bad guys right now.

On Friday we had a massive thunderstorm. The sky was dark by 7 pm, which is at least 2 hours earlier than normal. It was the perfect opportunity to set up a flashlight on the bed and make shadow puppets. Henry made a very good alligator and bunny.

The guys also wrote a song on the piano about Transformers. It's called "The Battle of the Ages". I'll try to get it on video, although it is a lot harder to get him to sing on video these days, he is a little more self-aware then he was back in the Moon Walkin Cowboy days.

On Saturday we went out for breakfast at our usual place and then hit the farmers market. Henry worked on his second Transformers book.

In the afternoon Henry and I both decided that the only real way to combat the heat was homemade ice cream sandwiches. We made coconut ice cream and chocolate chip coconut cookies. It was good and messy.

The weather on Sunday was fantastic. Wade spent at least 3 hours in the morning working in the yard while Henry and I ran to the store, make homemade pita and hummus, did 500 loads of laundry, watched a little Star Wars, played with Transformers and cleaned the house. In the afternoon friends came over to play in the sprinkler and go for a bike ride. The weekend ended on a sour note when Wade got a speeding ticket while trying to rush our overdue books to the library 5 minutes before it closed. Ouch!

We have a busy week ahead of us friends. Monday is the first day of school for Henry. He starts the afternoon class at preschool, which is only 4 and 5 year olds. I start my last semester at KU on Thursday. I'm taking 9 hours this semester so I apologize ahead if I am grumpy for the next 16 weeks. Wade has 4 shows coming up in the next 2 months. Plus we have 3 weddings, a couple of birthday's, family coming to town and a trip to Colorado. Whew! See you in December ;)

"I like to live close to danger"- H

Henry has been doing all kinds of new things all by himself. One of these things is washing his own hair in the shower. Last night, while he was working up a good lather, I reminded him that his shampoo is tear free. He decided that the next logical step was to squirt of blob of it into his eye.

**Result: Not tear free when placed directly into the eye.

I'm thinking of keeping a log of all the items that he has consumed as a child, so when he is an adult and discovers that he has an abnormal tolerance for dangerous household items, he will understand how he made it happen.

On Thursday Henry attempted to knock out his two bottom teeth by jumping out of the car and directly into Gigi's forearm.

**Result: Blood, tears and two prematurely wiggly front teeth. The upside is, of course, the potential for an earlier visit from the tooth fairy. Better get busy making a pillow.

10 things I love about Henry

1. He is soft all over. From his blond curls to what's left of his baby thigh roll.

2. He loves to make us laugh. He'll stick with a joke for hours as long we are laughing.

3. He is fully committed to play. It reminds me to slow down, stop cleaning and enjoy life.

4. He likes to sit on my lap when he eats, and I let him, even if it means that I will have orange Nacho Cheese Doritos powder all of my shirt.

5. He tells me every night that he loves me 150 million hundred times, to cyberspace (a little confused on that one) and back and that he will live with us until he is 100 years old.

6. If the music is right he will start dancing anywhere-restaurants, the store, the sidewalk.

7. He likes to help me fix dinner and pretend that we have a cooking show. He says that I am the Head Chef and he is my "Sushi Chef".

8. After he uses the potty he yells "Clean up crew, wiping system".

9. He really loves people and he tells them he loves them and shows it every time he is with them.

10. He calls the piano "the pea-an-yo". It kills me.

From the Archives

I was digging through our photos today and I found some old videos. They are two of my favorites. Watching these is bittersweet, on the one hand it is so amazing to watch Henry grow and get to know him and on the other hand I miss him at almost every age and these videos are a reminder of that. But I'm still so glad that we have them.

Weekly Update 8.8.10

Hi party people. Well, we have just completed the birthday weekend extravaganza. I had a great day on Saturday with my guys and my little sis. Henry and Wade gave me some beautiful flowers and I got to spend some quiet time on the front porch planting and enjoying the breeze. Quiet time doesn't happen much at my house. :) (A blurry one, sorry. It's all I've got. )
After a relaxing breakfast and a trip to the garden center, Wade and I sipped on coffee with one hand while playing transformers with the other and contemplated going to the fair. But then we realized that we were insane and that it was 100 degrees outside, so we called up Henry's buddy, Rosa, and headed for Aunt Lillie's pool. Henry jumped in by himself several times. He had two floating rings on at all times, plus a life jacket, so I'm pretty sure that he was actually only in the water from the knees down, but hey, everyone has to go at their own pace. And by the end of the day he was blowing bubbles and feeling very brave. Then Henry and Wade headed to another friends house for a bike ride. While the boys were out I threw together a birthday cake that ended up looking better than it tasted. Henry coated it in about 3 layers of sprinkles, so it had a nice crunch. We went to The Burger Stand for dinner. Kelly joined us and was kind enough to share her truffle oil fries. Henry had his first corn dog. He is a fan. Papa had a beer. He is a fan. After dinner we headed home, way past Henry's bed time, to sing Happy Birthday and eat a very tiny sliver of cake. Henry was concerned about the fire hazard of having so many candles on one cake. I was not amused. At bed time Henry asked for an extra hug, because I am the birthday girl, and he told me that he would always love me and always be my friend, even with my stinky armpits.
Since we goofed off all of Saturday, we spent Sunday playing catch up. Right now I have about 8 loads of laundry to fold on the bed. Wade is out for a super run to combat the all the treats we ate this weekend. Including a lovely Sunday dinner downtown with Gigi, Grandpa and Aunt Kelly. Henry got some smelling markers and drew pictures of robots, bulldozers and crocodiles with Grandpa the whole time. Kelly gave me a slice of one of the best cakes I have ever eaten and Mom and I planned our strategy for trying to mimic the recipe at home. Other items of note during the week:
Henry ate an entire 8 inch sub. His feet fell asleep half way through so he had to stand up. We skipped the fair and opted for a ride that was in air conditioning. It's lame, I know. We've promised Henry a trip to Worlds of Fun in the fall to make up for it. And last but not least, we got a lovely card from Wade's grandmother, Nana, on Saturday with a photo from her mother's 102 birthday. This is Henry's Great Great Grandmother, Eva. There are 5 generations alive in his family, which is so very special. When she celebrates 103 next summer, we are going to be there. :)