Barnabas Monkeypants

Henry is a boy.

We all know this. He’s got that fancy Y chromosome. He’s got the boy parts.

But above and beyond the physical stuff, he’s a boy on the inside, too.

He likes cars. He likes mud. He likes smashing things and putting dirty things in his mouth. He likes balls and is ready to start wrestling any day now.

(An aside. I used to be very much of the attitude that boys and girls were the same and it was society that made boys like sports and girls like dolls. Oh, how wrong I was. I mean, look, boys do like dolls — and if Henry seems like he wants one I’ll be more than happy to buy him one  — and girls like trucks, but it’s not hard to see that there’s something hardwired in the heads of little boys that garbage trucks are the coolest things ever. And we can’t fight it. It’s Mother Nature, darn it!)

Anyway, so like I said, Henry’s a boy. And not only does he act like a boy, but he looks like a boy. (At least I think so.) So why is it that in the past 2 weeks, two people have either asked if he’s a boy or a girl or just straight out called him a girl?

We were at a birthday party when a woman came up and asked what sex Henry was. At the time, he was wearing his orange shirt with a very large cobra on it. A cobra! Is that what you’d put your 11-month-old daughter in? Then a week later, when we were out at dinner, with Henry wearing a Star Wars shirt his aunt bought him and playing with one of his favorite toy cars, the waitress commented on how cute our little girl was.  Really?

I don’t know why this is bothering me so much, but it is. I’m ready to buy him one of those male symbol necklaces just so people don’t get the wrong idea. (Did you know that the only piece of jewelry I ever wore before my wedding ring was an R2-D2 cloisonne necklace that I got for Christmas one year? That was quite fashionable in 1981.)

Eventually (and before we know it) he’ll get out of the baby phase altogether (how sad) and nobody will mistake him for a girl.

And then the only angst I’ll have is when people start asking him if he’s a Cubs fan.

So, other than our child looking a little too feminine, what else have we learned this week?

We learned that Henry has now begun to put up a fight — a long, horrible fight — every night before he goes to bed. During the day, he’s fine and happily and without a fuss goes down for his nap, but in the evening it’s another story. Now when it’s time to put him in his crib, it begins an hour (or more) long battle. The thing is, he’ll fall asleep in Kristen’s lap or on my shoulder, but as soon as one of us tries to place him in his crib he immediately wakes up and starts crying. And these aren’t little whimpers either. It’s full-blown screams until one of us picks him up and starts to hold him or rock him again. I’ve gotten him to fall asleep a couple times of late by just rocking him for about 20 minutes, and Kristen has success if she lays down with him in our bed, but neither are what we want to do (although they’re both wonderfully nice — hugging him and rocking him is very soothing — it’s just not very productive). It wasn’t great during vacation, although it’s gotten worse since we’ve been home. We even tried letting him cry it out one night, but after nearly 45 minutes of on-and-off wails, we had to give that up. Let’s hope this is just a very short phase.

We learned that Henry now pulls himself up with ease but, like everything else, he’d much rather have us pull him up for him. If we’re looking at him, he won’t do it himself; that’s mommy and daddy’s job. But if we’re not looking, we’ll turn around and see him propped up against the couch or a chair or (in one situation that Kristen won’t be happy I’m writing about on the Internet) the toilet. I’m afraid he’s only going to take his first steps when we’re both completely out of the room.

We learned that Henry has nearly grown out of all of his 12-month-old clothes and even some of his 18-month-old clothes aren’t fitting very well. He’s just so darn long.

We learned that one of my favorite things to do with Henry is one of the things that Kristen hates the most. Sometimes I’ll do a quick inhale — uhhhhhhh! — and hold my breath. This cracks Henry up. So much so, he’ll do it, too. Unfortunately, it sounds like he’s gasping for air, not a fun sound coming from your baby. But it makes him so happy! I’m trying to do it less, but I gotta say, you don’t hear me complaining when Kristen burps to make him laugh.

And we learned that OH MY GOD HENRY’S GOING TO BE A YEAR OLD IN TWO WEEKS! Too fast. Too fast.

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 6th, 2009 at 9:22 pm and is filed under What We've Learned. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.