A little late

Henry & James shared a 3-year/1-year appointment at the pediatrician's a couple of weeks ago.

In fact, we've had a lot of doctor, for us, this month. A week or two before his scheduled visit, Henry was struck with a mystery wintertime virus that sent his temperature spiking up to nearly 105, causing a febrile seizure that we were told was in fact quite mild. I believe it now, but at 11:30 at night, when your kid's eyes that he has barely opened all day are wide with terror because his body is jerking uncontrollably, the word mild does. not. register.It's just not in the lexicon at all. We called 911.

In spite of his obvious misery, Henry was excited by the ambulance pulling up in front of the house--a reassuring sign. On the ambulance driver's advice, we drove him ourselves to the ER--after first waking James from an unusually sound sleep, naturally--where we watched the nurse give him liquid tylenol, he got tested for flu, strep, and pneumonia, and we then waited an hour or two for the doctor to tell us he had a mystery wintertime virus that would probably run its course by the end of the weekend (i.e., by the time the pediatrician's office was open again), as indeed it did.

And then, at the regular checkup, James's lead levels were found to be high, so we had to go back again for another blood draw. We're still waiting for the results of that.

In the meantime, sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. Here's the good stuff:

JAMES at 1 year
Weight: 20 lbs. (10th percentile)
Height: 29 inches (25th percentile)
Head: 46.5 cm. (50th percentile)

HENRY at 3 years
Weight:: 31.5 lbs (50th percentile)
Height: 36.75 inches (25th percentile)
BMI: 16.4 (50th percentile)

You talking to me?

It's a delight to see Henry developing new linguistic & cognitive tricks: Just lately, we are awash in metaphors. The snow was a blanket on a heap of dried grass this morning (a tired cliche from me, but from Henry, fresh and apt); when it fell yesterday afternoon, it looked like spider webs. With each bite of a corn chip today, he held it up afresh to decide what it looked like: a moon! a shoe! an angel! a ghost! a boat!

I particularly enjoyed his employment this morning of a different poetic device: personification.

He rushed into the bathroom, proclaiming he needed help unzipping his pajamas so he could poop. He then asked me to leave him alone, as he usually does. But just a minute or two later, he popped back into the kitchen.

"Are you done?" I asked, surprised.

"I thought I needed to poop," he said, "But my butt said, 'no thank you.'"

Economics 101

Monday mornings are hard for Henry. After two whole days of Daddy, he hates waking up to realize that Peter has gone to work. Almost every week we have some version of this conversation:

HENRY: I want Daddy to BE here!
ME: Daddy is at work.
HENRY: I don't WANT Daddy to go to work.
ME: I know. But Daddy has to go to work.
HENRY: Whyyyy?
ME: To get money. Daddy makes money for us to buy our food and pay for our house and heat our house and drive our car.
HENRY (happy now): And for me to throw in fountains! (Thinks for a bit.) And for James when he gets bigger to throw in fountains!

Better keep your nose to the grindstone, Peter.

That was the month that was

October, obviously, was a lost month as far as the blog is concerned. In brief, I turned 40, the Law School held its memorial for Dad, and our next-door neighbor got shot. In an ordinary year, I love October, and even this rather rotten iteration of it had its charms. But even those are mostly undocumented, because also this October, our computer was infected on two separate occasions with a virus that is even now keeping me from getting to the photos I'd like to post.
That being so, I will, for now, simply report that the month got off to a grand start when Henry received two pieces of personal mail--his first-ever letters--on the same day. Complete text follows.

From Henry & James's dog-cousin in San Diego, in reply to a letter Henry sent:
Henry!
I am under the table, waiting for dinner. What do you eat for dinner? I eat hard pellets. They taste like fish.
I went to the beach today. I ran and ran and barked and ran and ran and jumped and ran and ran and swam! Then I had a bath.
I hate baths! Do you like baths?
Love, Abby (the dog)
P.S. I know you can't read, so here's a picture: [you'll just have to use your imaginations here] <--- I rescued the ball from a giant wave! There were also birds.

From Ballantine Road, in response to momentous events:
Darling Henry,
Hello Sweetie. Congratulations on going poopoo in the potty. Wonderful and great job. We all love you. Love Auntie Virginia
Congratulations! Love, Eleanor
Will
Grandmama

Hope is the thing with feathers

Just a quick note this morning: James slept like a normal person for this first time, really, ever. He fell asleep in his crib (and I wasn't in it with him, as I've resorted to a few times recently.) He woke up just three or four times, fussing in an ordinary way, not shrieking. This morning he is cheerful, seems rested. What does it mean? Will it happen again?
It is a chilly morning, and Henry ate his breakfast sitting on the porch swing, swathed in blankets like the lava plug in a volcano. When I came out to check on him, he was looking east into peach & lavender clouds and told me excitedly that he'd just just seen a "whole bunch of little birds" fly away together. It's hard to convey how delightful it is to see him quietly contemplating his world and finding it good.
Moments later, with even greater excitement, he pointed to a hummingbird that was buzzing inquisitively around our porch, just at the level where a hummingbird feeder might hang. "Look!" he cried. "It's a little baby bird, looking for its Mama!"

Pow, right in the kisser

Peter reported this pre-bedtime conversation with Henry last night:

Henry: Mama kisses me all the time.
Peter: Do you like it?
Henry: Yes. You don't kiss me.
Peter: Would you like me to kiss you?
Henry. No. You're not a kisser.

I was quite startled by this exchange. He has thoughts about my kissing him? He recognizes that I am a kisser and Peter isn't? It's so easy for us to think that we know everything about Henry, having known him from the moment he took his first breath, while he doesn't know much about anything. But suddenly I am forced to recognize that in fact there are important ways in which the opposite is true. He already evinces the intense privacy of a child about his inmost thoughts, and who he will be is a mystery to us. Meanwhile, he is busily watching us and drawing his own conclusions, with a completely innocent ruthlessness: He will soften nothing, excuse nothing, judge nothing. He just sees what he sees. Very scary.

Photo by Henry

What I see...

What they see...