See How Strong I Am

Some Henryisms: during the Easter egg hunt, Henry popped his head above the fence, waving a Reese's peanut butter cup that he had found inside a plastic egg.  "Look, Mom!  It's a tiny pumpkin pie!" (Imagine his disappointment to find it was only peanut butter.)

Henry is starting to enjoy hide and seek, but just learning the concept.  A couple of weeks ago, we were sitting on Mom's porch and Henry had the idea to hide something he was playing with underneath the stroller, sitting at the bottom of the steps.  He had an elaborate game where we would each take turns finding these cards he had hid-- but he just kept hiding them in the same place.  Mom and I took turns looking all around, pretending to be stumped, and Henry was so delighted.  The first time he hid it and I said, "I wonder where it is?" he couldn't stand it.  "IT'S UNDER THE STROLLER!"  The next time, getting the concept a little more, he tried to fool us.  "It's not under there!" he said, pointing right at it.  The third time, he was cooler still.  "I don't know..." he said.  He loves to hide green bear and ask me where it is, and is not above lying if I guess too soon.

Happy Easter

It's still not as warm as it should be here, but we had a beautiful, clear sunny day.  Two Easter egg hunts (one at our next-door-neighbors', one in our yard), a ham dinner for 11, and only one time-out (infraction: hurled truck).  We've had the same group of friends over for four years in a row now, and it is becoming a nice tradition.  Both kids seem to have new colds on top of their old colds, but are still mostly cheery and fun.  Henry hate-hate-hates taking any kind of medicine, but he really has to take something for his cough, to help him sleep.  Tonight he still panicked and freaked out but he did manage to swallow most of the medicine, and I told him how proud I was of him, and asked him if he was proud of himself.  Boy, was he! "I swallowed almost all of it, Dad!  I am so proud of myself!" 

Agatha now disdains almost all spoon-feeding.  I think this is partly because she is teething and the spoon hurts her gums, and partly because of her rugged individualism.  It's a challenge thinking of foods that she can feed herself and fill up on-- cheerios, at the rate she eats them, only get you so far.  Bananas are great, and she can eat a whole one at a sitting.  My latest brainstorm is to mix up her baby multigrain cereal to a thick consistency and putting balls of it on her tray, which she can then feed herself.  Messy, but good. 

So Darling

Mom left her camera here after Easter dinner, so I filched these darling pictures of Agatha from it and had to post them.  They are from a couple of weeks ago.  

Zen chimes

We had a bit of a rough afternoon yesterday, but by 6 pm Agatha was sleeping, and Michael, Henry and I sat down to eat dinner together.  By way of making conversation, I started mentioning to Michael all the things Henry had told me about his day on his way home from school.  "Henry made a globe today using a balloon."  "No, Mom, not a globe, it was the world; we put all the continents on it."  "Okay.  And Henry came home with a snakeskin in his backpack."  "He did?! Where did you get that, Henry?"  "From Tate's class.  And I saw geckos and lizards and snakes there!"  "Who is Tate? Is he a teacher?"  "No, he's a friend."  [Hmmm...]  "And Henry got to ring the chimes today."  "No, not the chimes, Mom, the ZEN CHIVES."  [Imagine this said forcefully, in the most un-zen-like manner, with a mouthful of pasta.]  "The ZEN CHIBES." [He's still trying to pronounce it correctly.]  "The zen chimes?"  "YES, THE ZEN CHIVES."  Ah, Montessori school!  

Curse of the Blogspot

No sooner did I push the "publish" button on my last post bragging about Agatha's good sleep than she woke up screaming.  I did resettle her after a couple of tries and she slept through till 4:30 am, but then she was up again for good at 5:30 am Sunday.  What's more, there was NO NAPPING on Sunday (well, only about 30 minutes for each nap, which is as good as nothing). What the heck?!?!  By the end of the day, I concluded it had to be teething.  She's the right age, and was as cheerful as she could be when she was awake, but something was disturbing her sleep.  It's not a cold or ear infection, so I think it must be a tooth coming in, even though I can't see or feel anything.  We had the same sleep pattern last night, and this morning she really didn't want to nap, even though she was so tired.  After a couple of tries and about 10 minutes of fussing, she did fall asleep for her morning nap, thank goodness.  I've forgotten how bad teething can be-- holy heck!  Just when you think you're getting into the clear...

Here are some early morning pictures, playing with Agatha's ugly plastic thing (which was Henry's ugly plastic thing) that they both love.  Note Henry's fake smile.  

Halushka

I know, I need to post some pictures!  But one more textual post today.  Yesterday and today Agatha had her first meal with the family-- red lentil soup yesterday, and halushka today.  She is eating like a horse lately and loves to feed herself.  She can pick up peas and corn kernels, and also is eating rice cakes, cheerios, and pieces of soft avocado and banana.  Her sleeping is still great-- about 12 hours at night, with one wake-up around 3 am at which I just replace her pacifier and pat her on the back, no picking her up or nursing.  I'm hoping that one of these nights she'll sleep right on through.  She also naps well, about 2 hours in the morning and about 1.5 hours in the afternoon. Just a wonderful, happy, sweet, easy-to-manage baby.  The only times she gets mad is when she has to take a bath or I have to take a too-large piece of food out of her mouth. 

Henry is more intense and high-maintenance, but is also doing wonderfully.  He's been fighting some illness off the last couple of days, so he's been taking long naps and not eating too much, but it doesn't seem to really be getting hold of him, so I'm hopeful he'll be back to normal tomorrow.  He came home from school with a neat piece of work the other day: his kindergarten-age classmates do work where they sound out words, match them with a picture, and then write the word in their "composition books" (I hear all about this from Henry, who is fascinated by the older kids).  He has been doing the sounding out and matching for a couple of months, which we thought was wonderful.  But this week he came home with a little worksheet that his teacher had made for him so that HE could write the words too.  He had carefully written three words: jet, pan, and something less intelligible; maybe FAN.  I put the page up on a hook in the kitchen because I thought it was so great, but today Henry asked for it and was dissatisfied because he made a mistake so he crumpled it up and threw it in the trash.  So much for my little heirloom.  

One more funny story: it was chilly today, so Henry came running back inside and went up to his room.  We heard him thumping around for a while, and then he came back down suited up for outdoor play-- he had put on three shirts and three pairs of pants, one on top of the other.  The outermost pair of pants was his doggie-print PJ bottoms, pulled on skin-tight over his cargo pants.  

Quickie

Too busy to really post right now, but I had to say hello and that all is well.  Agatha has, for the last couple of weeks, been undergoing a developmental change in her sleeping that means she is almost sleeping through the night-- perhaps one wake-up at 1:30 am or so, and then sleeping on through until almost 7 am.  Henry has been sleeping "late" too, so we are in heaven!  It is wonderful to feel so well-rested.  It's the mad dash till the end of the semester now, complicated by the fact that we are bringing in three job candidates for a new position, so thank goodness Gran is in town!  Henry's big thing of the moment is building complex lego ships.  They have tall masts, pirate crews, and cargo.  "Daddy, can you play Construction Guy with me?" is the constant refrain at our house these days.  

More soon, when I can!