Now that spring is here...

... It is time to post a winter picture.

When we were in the Midwest for Christmas, Henry was able to sled for the first time! There isn't much snow on the ground, but he loved it. My mom managed to capture this moment of sheer joy with her camera when Henry was flying down the hill.


Here is a short video of Henry sledding.

Our little scientist.

These pictures are from October so they are a bit dated. However, they are just so cute and always make me smile. Henry loves to measure, pour, sort, funnel, and transfer liquids and solids from one container into different sized containers. Apparently, this activity is a real skill that his teachers use to evaluate the kids on their "scientific interest and abilities." For Henry's first parent-teacher conference (yes, they have them for 2 year olds), his teachers told us that Henry excelled in scientific interest and abilities. Imagine our pride. In these pictures, we had set up a little station outside so that Henry could play with different colored water. Since we didn't want him to get his clothes discolored and we wanted this to be a truly authentic experience, we dressed him as a typical graduate student, in my old tie-dyed t-shirt. (BTW, I made this t-shirt in Girl Scouts, which may make tie-dying the most useful and lasting skill that I learned from my years in the scouts. Also, speaking of Girl Scouts, a little one came by a few weeks ago to sell cookies. It was late afternoon, snack time, and since I am pregnant, well, let's just say that her sales alone may be sending her troop to a broadway show in NYC this year for their annual overnight instead of a butter churning demo, which, again, is another one of my own personal GS experiences).

Out of the mouths of babes

Now that Henry's verbal skills are increasing at an exponential rate, his choice of words and tone are really starting to reflect his personality and demeanor. For example...

Henry loves band aids. He loves getting one on a boo-boo and then immediately ripping it right off and asking for another one. The other day he said to me, "If I have a boo-boo, then I get a band aid." I replied, "Yes, but you don't have a boo-boo, Henry, so there is no need for a band aid right now." He looked at me squarely in the eyes and clarified with a tone that suggested impatience and exasperation, "I said IF, Mommy."

***************

Henry has a favorite song from school about finding worms, caterpillars, and spiders in one's food and then screaming "Ewww... yucky! Yucky!" He then laughs gleefully. The other night he was in the bath and starting improvising a song about finding a spider in his hair while he shampooing it. I happily jumped in for what I thought would be the chorus of the song, "A spider! Ewww... yucky! Yucky!" He then stopped singing, looked at me flatly and said, "Mommy, it's a joke."

****************

And finally, Henry has begun to master the classic divide and conquer technique. The other day, Mike and Henry were going to the park, and Henry asked me if he could bring two cars with him to the park. I told him that I didn't think that was a good idea because he might lose his toys and then he would be sad and disappointed. Mike claims that he didn't hear this conversation because when Henry immediately went over to Mike and said, "Daddy, can I bring two cars to the park?" Mike said, "Sure!" Henry then returned to me at once with a triumphant tone and said, "Mommy, Daddy said I can bring two cars to the park." I smiled stiffly at Mike. Mike looked guilty. They left with two cars. They returned with one. Need I say more?

I hold it.

Now that Henry is talking more and more, he has developed his own way of expressing particular feelings. For example, Henry wants lots of things - balloons, school buses, firetrucks, cereal, and really anything that is brightly colored and shiny. Instead of loudly demanding these items (well, he does from time to time loudly demand these items, who am I kidding?), he has a unique approach. He offers to take those pesky treasures off of your hands, or off of their shelf, or off of the road, or off of store shelves and selflessly carry them himself.

While grocery shopping several weeks ago, Henry's eyes locked on a most amazing sight - a 3-tiered bright purple and green cake in the bakery display case. Our local grocery store conveniently positioned the bakery display case with cakes, donuts, cookies, chocolate dipped strawberries and other assorted deliciousnesses directly across from the produce section. So, while you at least pretend to shop for fresh fruit and vegetables with your child, they can be taunted by the fabulous baked goods. Oh, and just to really be evil, the bakery entices children over by offering them free cookies. This cake, though, was too much to resist for Henry. Not only was it the purplest cake I have ever seen, it was jungle themed so it was decorated with exotic animals and jeeps. Oh, and it was $80. And did I mention that it was 3-tiers high? Henry immediately started to point - and lean over the cart as if to will the cart over towards the cake display. To get from the produce section to the meat case of the store, one has to stroll in close proximity to the cake display case (really, the store designer thought of everything). I tried to distract him while we passed, but no luck. Henry looked at me, looked at the cake, and smiled sweetly. "Cake, Mama."

"Yes, I see the cake."

"I have cake?"

"No, sorry, we don't need the cake."

Long pause. Wheels are turning.

In a quiet voice, "I hold it. I hold cake."

Then, in a bright, friendly tone, with a big smile, as if he were doing me a HUGE favor, "Mama! I hold cake." Then, he gestured with his hands as if he were holding a cake. "I hold cake for you, Mama."

Yes, because the reason we weren't buying a large, $80, overly frosted, 3-tiered jungle cake for no special reason whatsoever, to be consumed by 3 people only, was because I couldn't be bothered to hold the cake myself.

A Chin chopper Announcement and a really long story.

Since my post in August about Henry liking cheese, he continues to consume cheese with gusto and is also stringing more and more words into sentences. Those halcyon cheese-discovering days seem so long ago to me, though, because since that moment, someone in the house has been sick. And 93% of the time, that person has been me. You see, I am expecting another little chinchopper! Another little boy chinchopper! Yay - big news! But enough about them - this is about me. With pregnancy comes unmitigated nausea, exhaustion, and immunosuppression. I have had a sinus infection since the beginning of August. And when you are pregnant, you are not allowed to take any medication that might actually, well, help. The doctors give you suggestions for natural remedies like cough drops, tea with honey, and the Neti pot. I tried all of those remedies, and, unlike the good stuff that requires a prescription or at least proof of age, those "natural remedies" are easily accessible to everyone for a reason - they don't work.

[And, if I may, allow me to take a moment to comment on the Neti pot. If you are unfamiliar with the Neti pot, it is small pitcher that you fill with warm saline. You then pour the saline in one nostril, allow it to infiltrate your entire sinus cavity, and then endure the disgust as it “drains” out the other nostril. According to the fervent believers, the Neti pot is a miracle – your sinuses will thank you and you will breathe freely. The fact that I even tried the Neti pot is a testament to my misery. I positioned myself over the sink and began the saline infusion. I could feel the warmth penetrating my upper sinus cavity and then… nothing. Nothing came out the other side. About 1 cup of fluid went it, but none of it came out. I stood with a craned neck for several minutes, I jiggled my head, I jumped up and down – the fluid remained inside my head! Mike said, “It will probably drain out slowly just give it some time.” After an hour I went to bed – still with at least a cup of fluid sloshing around in my head. About 30 minutes later, I woke up with a horrible, relentless earache. It felt like the ear pressure from airplanes but 100 times more intense. I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t lie down – the only position that was even slightly tolerable was sitting up completely straight with my head cocked ever so slightly in the direction of the painful ear. After about 5 hours of misery, and I mean tear-inducing misery (although, admittedly, the crying was mostly self-pity mixed with sheer exhaustion), slowly, my ear started to open gradually, the pressure released, and I could once again hear and return to bed. Naturally, Henry woke up about 10 minutes later. To this day, I don’t know what became of that saline. It must still be sloshing around up there in my head. So, if you are desperate enough for the Neti pot, consider yourself warned and best of luck.]

In addition to the respiratory infections, and all 3 of us have had multiple bouts since August (Mike and Henry get over their "colds" in about 3 days. My colds last, well, I still have one...), August/Sept were tough months for us because every week, either Mike or myself had to travel for work. I usually feel like we barely have things under control when all cylinders are firing - two healthy adults, no crushing work deadlines, no out of the ordinary circumstances - but when just one of the cogs is missing, the house of cards comes tumbling down (how many metaphors can I use in one sentence?). So, with only 1 adult present most of August/Sept, 2 sick parents, and 1 sick kid - we crumbled*. Poor Henry, he really suffered through some lax parenting. How many times did we beg him to watch TV while we shivered under 3 blankets during the hottest month of the year in one of the hottest cities in the country? But no, he wanted "to play outside." How many times did we feed him cookies for breakfast because we were too exhausted to assemble a nourishing breakfast? (Actually, I don't know the answer to this question, but one time Henry seemed so indignant that he couldn't have cookies for breakfast it made me wonder if I had ever fed him anything but cookies for breakfast?)

During this period of fever hazes and all night coughing fits, I had to go to the mother ship to give a talk at a conference. The morning that I left home, I woke up blind in my left eye. Literally, I couldn't see anything. I could tell by the horrified expression on M’s face that either my eyeball had popped out during the night and was dangling from the optic nerve or something even more disgusting had happened. My eye was sealed shut and taken over by conjunctivitis. Coincidentally, Henry also woke up with his left eye completely sealed shut. After prying our eyes open with crowbars, we both had one hugely swollen, red, leaky, puffy eye. I sighed. I had to get on a plane that morning and then give a talk the very next day. "What am I going to do?!" Mike answered quickly, "Wear an eye patch over that eye." He said it as if an eye patch was the most obvious and natural solution to the problem. I protested, "I can't give a talk wearing an eye patch - I'll look like a pirate!" Mike got a far away look on his face, and I could tell he was visualizing me giving my presentation as a pirate. He beamed.

So, off I went to the airport wearing my sunglasses all the time so people would assume that I was a celebrity who was flying incognito instead of a pregnant sick lady who was so congested that mucus was coming out of her eyes.

The next morning, the morning of my talk, I woke up blind in my right eye. Well, at least now my eyes were even - they were both equally puffy, red, leaky, and swollen. In addition to my eyesight, I also woke up to discover that I had lost my voice. Another sigh. Ok, well, I thought, I will use a microphone, it will be fine. Wouldn't you know it - at a conference center of all places - the podium had NO microphone? So there I was preparing to give the first talk of the first session** of the day-long conference - in a room that suddenly had become standing room only - in front of 200 + people, with NO voice and NO microphone.

I began my talk. And by "talk", I mean my phlegmy croak. I don't know why people stayed. Perhaps because it was the first talk of the first session and there was free coffee, people felt obligated to attend at least one session instead of meandering the hallways and checking their email (which I did during the 2nd half of the conference). After a few introductory statements, I came to the first slide that contained actual data, a data table, in fact. I turned and gestured toward the screen to explain, when lo and behold, the screen was completely blank. Empty. ALL of my figures were missing. In some sort of Mac to PC transitional error, the conference room did not display ANY of my figures. Normally, this would be one of my worst nightmares. In a way, I had been bracing myself for this moment since high school when I had to give my first talk. I am terrified of public speaking, but somehow I have survived many talks without fainting, vomiting, crying, (the big 3) and now I was faced with a legitimate reason to do all three. However, and this is the most unbelievable part, at that very moment, I had never felt more calm and comfortable in front of a crowd. In fact, at that very moment, standing in front of 200 people with no voice, leaky eyes, and now, no real information to present, my life suddenly made sense. It was as if my life to that point had been practice for this moment of awkwardness and humiliation. I smiled and laughed. And the audience did too. And I continued with my talk. I explained what the audience should have been seeing and somehow, thankfully, my 15 minutes of fame ended, and my talk was over.

* We didn't crumble entirely. We had help - thanks to Erin and Amy for their visits during what was a very difficult time!

**As an aside, presenting the first talk of the first session at a conference, even a small conference, even when I had no voice, limited eyesight, and uh, no real data to present, is a minor triumph for me. One time, I had to give the very last talk of the very last session of the very last day of a conference. The only people in the audience were my bitter co-presenters, and they all had their luggage with them and were constantly checking their watches so they could get to the airport in time to get on the standby list. The facilities team was waiting impatiently in the back of the room so that they could pack up the chairs and vacuum the floors. At least they were kind enough not to turn the vacuum cleaner on while I was talking.

Happy Halloween!

I realize that it has been a very long time since I have posted. I apologize, and I do have lots to report. For now, though, I am just going to throw up some pictures of Henry on his 3rd Halloween! This year, my mom and I made his costume - a little wizard. And when I say "my mom and I" made the costume, I mean that she let me hold the scissors when she wasn't using them. Henry attended a Halloween festival on Saturday at his school. He went on a scary wagon ride, decorated his own cookie and danced to some live music. On Sunday, we went Trick or Treating in the neighborhood. He was a little hesitant at first, but soon, out of nowhere, we ran into a giant mob of costumed kids and their parents. It was like Brigadoon - The Halloween Special. Kids of all ages appeared - we had never seen that many people outside in our neighborhood at one time. Henry barely recognized 1 or 2 of the kids, but that didn't stop him. He immediately and happily joined the gang and started running up to houses and following their lead. He was laughing and having a wonderful time. Now, every time we are outside in our neighborhood, he looks around forlornly and says, "Where did all the people go?"

I like cheese.

It was simple, succinct, and sincere. "I like cheese" was Henry's first sentence. This statement was followed quickly with two supporting comments: "Dada like cheese. Mama like cheese." He led a coherent discussion about our family's enthusiasm for cheese. Until a week ago, Henry was using one word at a time. I noticed on Saturday that he started stringing two words together, mostly nouns and modifiers, such as "Dada truck. Bye-bye Dada. My Dada." All of his two-word phrases mostly had to do with his father. I think I got a vehement "Mama NO!" when I suggested a diaper change.

It was surprising when he announced that he liked cheese because it was the first time he had strung three words together, used the pronoun "I", and used the verb "like." In fact, it may have been the first time he used a verb ever. Although we are bursting with pride that our kid can speak in sentences (remember, he is our first - we unabashedly burst with pride and marvel at his every accomplishment), Mike was hesitant about my publishing that Henry's first sentence was about liking cheese. "And why not?!" I exclaimed. I love that his first sentence was about cheese. Cheese is very important to me and, apparently, to Henry.