Henry at 20.5 months

I just looked through my posts of the last couple months and realized that I have written very little about Henry that isn't related to his eye problems. So here's a more balanced portrait of our little crab-apple.

He's closing in on 21 months old. Which means he's closing in on the big 2-nothin'. Which means Tom and I are starting to experience all the, "whoa, Henry's almost 2, where has the time gone" thoughts that are totally typical when you're the parent of a young child. We feel like Henry's changing all the time, but the milestones a kid hits in his second year are a lot more subtle than the big leaps you see in an infant. We're no longer in the age of firsts, if you know what I mean. He's adding new words almost daily, but he's been talking for months now. He's getting better at jumping, running, climbing, etc, but again, they're not new skills. But one of the big difference I've noticed in the last couple months is the ways he plays with things. This is when I can see his imagination and creativity developing. For example, instead of playing with his wagon or his teddy bear, he'll very deliberately put the bear in the wagon and take it for a ride. He does things like feed his monkey puppet snacks and make his stuffed animals dance along to music. His mania for trucks has morphed into a mania for plows (yes, we see a lot of snowplows around here, and they're all very, very cool), and he's devised a plow game for himself where he'll line up a bunch of toy vehicles in a train-like line and push them from behind, yelling "plow!" It's very cute, but when the cars inevitably bunch up and he can't plow them any more, he immediately gets frustrated and throws a little tantrum. Not so cute, but very toddler. He also remembers games that we've played in the past, like "Pretty Kitty Destroys the Block Tower" (Step One: Build a tower out of blocks. Step Two: Hurl the stuffed animal called "Pretty Kitty" at tower. Step Three: Pretend cat is attacking the pile of blocks. Step Four: Repeat. Step Five: Repeat. Step Six: Repeat). Whenever I pick up a wooden block, Henry will immediately go get the toy cat so we can play the game properly. Add to that a growing list of favorite songs, favorite books and favorite toys, and it's clear that we've got a lot of cognitive development going on. It's fascinating to watch.

Beyond that, his Bob the Builder mania has gotten completely out of hand. I'm finding I have to check myself so that I don't end up letting him watch the show for hours every day. It's just so tempting to turn it on when I have to do something like get dinner started or make myself a cup of coffee. But we try for moderation. The strange thing is that Henry is not remotely interested in any other show. He'll watch for about 15 seconds before wandering off to do something else, or to find me and say, "Bob? Bob? Bob? Bob? Bob?" At music class last week one of the other boys was wearing a Bob t-shirt, and Henry spend the class acting like the stalkarazzi, following the kid around, pointing at his chest and saying "Bob!" They ended up having a lot of fun together and fed each other raisins during snacktime, giggling away as they crammed food in each other's mouths. I'd never seen Henry interact with another kid like that. So I guess that was one first. Courtesy of Bob The Builder, no less. See, TV isn't all bad.