It's hard to believe that Henry will be TWO on November 22nd. I feel so lucky to be able to spend my days with this little guy. He's such a joy- the biggest sweetheart, full of smiles, and he reminds me to stop and appreciate so many things I might not notice otherwise. And right now, at a little over 22 months, his world is just exploding with so much excitement. Vocabulary and talking are the biggest thing right now - he is speaking in sentences and can totally communicate to us what he wants, needs or feels. This afternoon he even said "Mama, I feel sad" as I was getting him ready to go down for his nap. I asked him why, and he said "Don't wanna nap." Ahh! My mind was blown! It's insane to think that all of this happens so quickly- he went from being a little baby to this walking, talking toddler in what seems like the blink of an eye...and to be able to have little conversations with him is the coolest thing ever.
I'd say one of the challenges of this stage would be eating. Some days he's the adventurous eater he's always been but other days it's hard to get him to eat anything other than his everyday favorites. He will eat fruit all day long and usually raw veggies aren't a huge problem either. He isn't a fan of meat unless I hide it in quiche, mac 'n cheese or something similar. He loves cheese (his favorite being "monster" aka Munster cheese), yogurt, crackers, pizza, and smoothies (I always sneak in a ton of kale, etc.). But on those occasional hard days it's difficult for me to get to him to eat meat/vegetarian meat options/bread items and sometimes I feel a little stressed that's he's not getting a good variety of food, but most of the time with patience I can make it work.
Henry has a tiny temper on him and I would say that's our biggest challenge when it comes to behavior. He's the most polite little boy you'll ever meet, a great sharer (we practice "Henry's turn" all day long and it really, really works), full of "please" and "thank you" and sometimes even our newest thing- "you're welcome," but he has moments where he just gets so frustrated, mainly when you take something away from him that he wants to hold on to. He'll scream and cry and do the "fish flop" as we call it, when he just lays down so it's difficult to pick him up. I've been working so much with him on this- I'm just trying to let him know that yes, it's okay to be upset but that he can't act like that. Now that he can talk more it's getting a little easier because I can ask him to tell me why he's upset, and that really seems to help. "Henry, you're upset because you can't hold Mommy's cup, right?" He'll nod or say yes through his tears, and then we'll find a solution. I'm no baby whisperer so this is not an all-the-time fix, but for the most part talking him through it has been wonderful. We'll see how it goes as he gets older. So far, so good.
So those would be our two big challenges at 22 months- the occasional picky eating day and the occasional tantrum. On the other side of the spectrum though, and the most important, is all of the good. And there's a lot. This little boy has the biggest heart, and see him grow into the person he is going to be is truly amazing. He loves animals, loves to build with blocks, loves to read and draw, and his absolutely current favorite thing in the entire world are "BIG TRUCKS!" He lives for trucks and out of everything, these are his favorite toys, shows to watch, things to go see while we're out and about. It's so funny because Hank and I aren't car people whatsoever and don't even own a truck. He just picked it up somewhere and it's really adorable how much he loves them. He loves his friends so much too, and we are lucky to be surrounded by a great group of little ones and their families. We're able to hang out with friends many times a week and I feel like all of the socializing he gets to do is great. Between that and CrossFit every night H. is around a lot of people, and I think it's been wonderful for both his communication and want to be independent.
As far as growth, he's growing like a weed and is still tall. His 2 year check-up in is November, so I'm curious to see what his percentiles look like. He's still sleeping like a champ (we were given a good sleeper this time...curious if our next little one will be the same!), and takes one three-hour nap from about noon-3. We still haven't gotten his tooth capped, although I think his Uncle Jason (Autumn's hubby) may do it fairly soon, maybe after he turns two. He's still sucking his thumb, but just when he's tired either before his afternoon nap or before bed. And it's also important to mention that we still haven't cut his hair, although it may be time for a trim as he gets called a "she" almost every single day. I do love those blonde locks though, so we'll see if I can actually bring myself to do it.
Looking forward, I'm actually pretty excited for Henry to turn two. Any time I think about time passing it's a little bittersweet, but in this case it's a lot more sweet because this age is just so much fun. I can't even imagine what it will be like when he can totally communicate.
And lastly, I take videos constantly but never really share them here because most of the time I feel like they're not too interesting to anyone outside of our family. And to be forewarned, that may be the case here too! ha. A couple days ago I filmed a lot of our morning so I could try and capture one of my favorite parts of the day, and after the fact I thought it would be fun to share some of it with all of you. So please excuse my voice, I feel like it's a little much hearing it for 6 minutes straight. And the "organic berries" thing sounds so silly too- it's just what my Mom always calls them and he picked up on it. Okay, disclaimer over! Enjoy.
Good morning Henry! from DH on Vimeo.