In Action

Henry had so much fun watching videos of his cousin the other day, I let him watch some of his own videos. Which he also loved. And since none of you get to share in the joy of living with this little munchkin, here are some recent highlights.

Henry's getting mobile (sort of) and being silly

Henry's version of "giggling"

Gone fishing! Um, anyone have a band-aid?

"I'm not really sure what I got, actually." Apparently when Matt pointed to a particular fish at the grocery store, the guy behind the counter disappeared with the fish for several minutes before bringing it back all wrapped up. The mission was to buy a whole fish, head and tail and scales and all. Why? For Life Teen, of course. (I wish I could claim that all the weird things we do were for the sake of Life Teen, but probably not.) This particular night called for a dead fish to be passed around "hot-potato" style, with each loser having to kiss the fish before leaving the game. Turns out that what the guy behind the counter was doing was gutting the fish and removing a few scales; fortunately he left the rest of it intact. Since the fish was now rather oozy, we decided that wrapping it in plastic wrap before the game was a good idea. So we did. It was a good plan, but maybe a few more layers of plastic would have been helpful. After a few rounds, the wrap was pretty loose. Eventually, it came off all together. That in itself eliminated most of the players who were still in the game, since they didn't want to touch the fish (I don't blame them at all... it was gross). It was fun, though (since I was watching and not participating, at least).

Not wanting to waste a perfectly good (if well tenderized) fish, Matt packed it back up in the cooler and brought it home for dinner. Next mission: learn how to fillet the thing. Matt took care of this, as I refused to do it. While he was cooking up the fish and I was making some rice to go with it, I hear Matt say: "Barb... he's bleeding everywhere!" At this point, you should know that the fish was in the oven and Matt was with Henry, so it wasn't the fish he was talking about. Bleeding? Everywhere? Henry? This couldn't be good. Sure enough, when I ran over (because I probably did run), Matt had picked Henry up and there was blood all over his toys. It took us a minute to figure out where it was coming from... I was relieved to see that it was just a scrape on the back of his finger. We still don't know how it happened exactly, but we're guessing that he hit his hand on the mirror propped up by his toys (he LOVES looking at himself in the mirror, and if he's close enough he'll reach out and touch his reflection). Anyway, we put a band-aid on it and hopefully it will heal well. Henry's first boo-boo. :-(

Fortunately, the fish came out well. So did the rice. And the baby is sleeping. Whew.

Food!

Henry is a champion eater. White rice, brown rice, oatmeal, sweet potatoes, applesauce, bananas, avocado... he hasn't tried anything yet that he doesn't like! The other day we were out eating Thai food and I gave him some plain rice (not even cereal... just regular rice) and he ate that, too. I'm not sure I love the cleaning-up part of feeding a baby, but it sure is fun to watch him eat. :-)

Where have we been?

It's been nearly a month since I was last here. A good month, though. Driving, visiting, new things, and of course- many adventures in Babyland. Some highlights:

1. Seeing many of our family and friends. Being in MI for two weeks meant that we had plenty of time to relax with our families and to spend time with friends.

2. Leaving the baby. We were able to leave Henry with family a couple of times and go out on our own. It feels both normal and yet completely alien at the same time. Someday maybe we'll even get to the point where we leave him an actual babysitter. Right...

3. Sitting up. Henry has started sitting up on his own! I'm gonna give the credit for that one to the music table from Mike and Jessica. He's still a little wobbly, but he's getting better every day.

4. Eating food. Henry has shown a lot of interest in eating with the big people. So I decided to let him start eating some solid foods. So far he's just had a little bit of applesauce and rice cereal. He LOVES to eat, but he's been cranky since we started, so I think we'll take a break for a few days and see if it's related.

5. Moving. Our lease is up in a month, so we will be moving across town. We have a place in mind, but it's not official yet. Over the next few weeks, though, there will be lots of packing and driving and unsettled-ness. That's the worst part of moving, isn't it? I enjoy packing. And unpacking. But I don't like to feel unsettled for so long. Maybe next spring we'll be able to buy a house, though! We'll have to see what this year brings us first, though.