Three-year-olds, I tell you

Henry was out of sorts from the moment he woke up this morning, announcing that he didn't like this day, that he didn't want to go to camp, that he wanted to "break the whole camp," and noooooOOO he did NOT want to go after lunch to Touch-a-Truck, the event of the season for Bloomington preschoolers. I told him to go get dressed while I changed James's diaper. Instead, he went and hid under the quilt on my bed, a favorite game inspired by a favorite literary work, Owl at Home. It's quite straightforward. It's called Strange Bumps.
"What's that strange bump?" I asked. (That's the game.)
He began giggling. I hauled him out, turned him upside down and pulled his pants off. He guffawed.
"Wait, what's that?" I asked. "On your butt?"*
"What?"
"You have a tail!" I said, pulling a four-inch long piece of string from between his buttocks.
He did a dance of delight, whooping.
"I changed my mind," he said when he settled down. "I do love this day. This is a GREAT day!"
"Yes, a day can always get better," I said, moralistically.

*I can't help noting that even now, at 40, I feel dreadfully transgressive when I use the word butt, thanks to my mother's indoctrination. "Fuck" was OK in a pinch, but "butt" and "armpit" were never to be uttered.

Hello, I must be going

In brief, while I've been gone:

James turned 18 months old. The doctor continues to use the same old line ("the only thing he's slow at is getting teeth") about the same four chompers he's had for months now. His height remains average, while his weight is now hovering around the third percentile, and his head falls between the 50th and 75th percentile. He says 'nana (banana), mama & dada, nose (nuh), milk (muh), eye, ear, hair, tickle (tka), digger (dih) woof woof, meow, and vroom vroom. 

I turned my back on him for 30 seconds and found him at the counter, sneaking chicken livers.

Not quite getting the hang of finger-painting.

Although he looks blase here, James is quite the lover, always ready for a kiss and a tickle.

Peter's been schooling Henry at home. 

Henry started a 3-week Montessori summer camp yesterday. Drop-off yesterday was the first time he's ever been left without either me, Peter, Virginia, or my mom, and boy, did he ever not like it. After I unpeeled him from my legs and left, near tears myself, I heard him hurling himself against the door. Later, I learned from both the teachers and from himself, he hid under the furniture and "peed all over the building" (Henry's words). Once that was over, however, he settled down all right, and today our parting was perfectly undramatic. On the one hand, it's lovely to have a tete-a-tete with James in the morning, but on the other hand, three weeks seems like a long time to have Henry gone for four hours every day. I miss him. 

After camp today, a two-hour nap.

Both boys have thoroughly enjoyed our mulberry tree this spring.

More words

It's hard to convey the effect of richocheting through a day from Precious Moment to incandescent rage (never mind whose) and back again, perhaps ten times or more before lunch. I only mention it because when I tell stories about dear things James & Henry do--by far the easiest sort of vignette to write down quickly during a rare moment of quiet--I am leaving out SO MUCH--good, bad, and ugly. (This is very good on the subject.)

So, for example, in between this morning's two blog posts, Henry spent 20 minutes first shrieking, then subsiding into a long, slow whine because I used his spoon to stir James's yogurt. He also tugged so hard on a curtain that he bent the rod irretrievably in two places, and he is currently lobbing wooden blocks from the front of the house against the back door, which I am (obviously) ignoring. I haven't yet had the stomach for suggesting he get dressed, which inevitably leads to tears and raised voices. But five minutes ago, when I went to check on them, the boys were sitting on the floor, heads together, lining up all the train cars and giggling.

So anyway, that happened. And then this happened:

Henry helped me make Super Jello for breakfast this morning. Afterwards, I found him curled up on a sofa cushion, pretending to be asleep.
"Tired, sweetie?" I asked.
"The applesauce was soporific," he said.
I laughed so much he didn't stop saying soporific for the next 10 minutes. Thanks again for the laffs, Beatrix Potter.

Inclusive language

Henry: I'm making a little nest for Jamie & I.
Me (scandalized--where does he pick up this language??): You mean "for Jamie & me"!
Henry: OK, mama, you can be in the nest too.

What does that make you?

Another bedtime chat with Henry last night:

H: What are these things in the corners of your mouth?
Me: Umm, I don't know. What are they like?
H: They're... (enlightenment strikes) hairs!!
Me: Oh. Yep. Hairs.
H: They're your moustaches!
Me: Hahahaha
H: Mommy, you look like a goat!

Poised for action, with a fistful of seaweed.

I'm calling it

As of two days ago, James's first word is [Ba]nana.
Although, as soon as I said that was his first word, officially, I realized he's been saying "up" (minus the p, but still) for months. He also says "Na na na na," irately, for no, and he barks and meows like a champ
Nevertheless, I stand by banana. Like many, many of my experiences of motherhood, things that seemed perfectly straightforward before I had children  reveal themselves to be a little murkier in their outlines than I could have conceived: How exactly do you define "word," and what, pray tell, do you mean by first? First said by chance, one off? Or what?
In any case, he has already added to his repertoire, with dog (minus the g) and ball (minus the ls).
I can't wait to find out what is next.

loving and learning

Last night, Henry says to me: "Mama, don't wash your feet tonight." (Washing was, on the face of it, strongly indicated.)
"Why not?"
"Because I love you the way you are, and I love dirt."

***

This morning, my sweet naked Henry, with his knees wrapped thickly in surgical gauze, after he skinned them yesterday afternoon while gamboling at the cemetery with Peter) caught my eye in the bathroom mirror and said, "I'm trying to not make you put me in the green room, Mama." (Yesterday morning I popped him in the green room for what I suppose is in fact a time out, although I reprobate the term. While there, he found Peter's phone and called Susan in San Francisco.)
Experiencing indefinable pangs of something--motheguilt-- I said, "That sounds good."
"Because," he went on, "You really need to learn not to do that. It makes people cry."

Comforting the wounded with Sesame Street.