Barnabas Monkeypants

Henry has a sunny disposition. We all know this. His smile is proof.

The only time that he ever complains or gets a bit ornery is when a) he hungry (and can you blame him?) and b) when he’s tired. Those few minutes after his bath can get a bit difficult, with the diapering and the clothing and the get-me-off-this-changing-table-I-want-to-play thing, but for the most part, he’s very amenable to whatever we have planned.

Well, that has changed a bit.

Henry was never a huge fan of the car seat, but lately, he hates it. As soon as any part of his body touches the Britax Marathon, he becomes completely rigid. We have to do a little pushing, a little cajoling, a little distraction with whatever toy we have handy.

As soon as we get him to move his waist enough to strap him in, he starts to whine… whiiiiiiiiiiiiine. And he continues to whine until the car starts and we drive off.

The same goes for getting him into his stroller. I’ve explained to him that he has to get in the darn thing, that he’s just too heavy to carry everywhere, and that would you please just help your father out, but he won’t listen. I never realized how strong he is until he started this strap-down refusal.

I guess this is all part of him getting a personality and telling us what he wants. Before, it was crying (“Waaaah! I want a bottle-toy-sleep!”). Now it’s a stern look and all of his joints locking up.

The thing is, I thought this sort of defiance didn’t happen until the “terrible twos”, and if that’s when it happens with most other kids, why are we having to deal with it now, seeing as how he just turned one?!?

This (and many other things) is what keeps me up at night.

So other than Henry learning what stubborn means, what else have we learned this week?

We learned that Henry’s love affair with hummus continues. He first tried some of the mashed chick-pea goodness when Kristen got a tub for his first birthday, and has eaten it nearly every day since. It’s a good food — high in protein and iron (which at one point he was low in), plenty of fiber to keep him regular — but it’s also a bit of a mature food. By that, I mean it has a taste to it other than sweet (which so many baby foods have) or, well, no taste at all (which every other baby food has). He loves it so much that, if we don’t feed it to him fast enough, he’ll scream for it. (Not a bad scream; more of a happy, hungry scream.) I think we’re going to get some pita bread next week.

We learned that (more food stuff) Henry will pretty much eat anything if he sees us eat it first. Kristen made this mixture of rice, peas, green beans, carrots, and corn, and at first he turned his nose up to it. But after she and I both had a couple of spoonfuls, he wanted to try it too. Pretty soon, we couldn’t shove it in his mouth fast enough. The same goes for peaches (he grabbed it out of my hand today and took a big, juicy bite) and ground turkey and pretty much anything else we put in front of him. Except for a couple of prune packages we have stashed away (just in case), I think the days of baby food are over for Henry.

We learned that Henry will happily sit still to read a book with us (he’s taken to pulling one or two or three off the shelves and handing them to Kristen or me for us to read to him) or to play with one of his many new toys (thank you cards are coming, people; be patient), but as soon as he gets in the bathtub, he just can’t stop moving. He’ll get up. Then sit down. Then try and crawl out of the tub. Then grab at Cecil (who invariably is right next to him). Anything, really, except for sitting there and letting us soap him up and wash all the various stains and food and dirt off his body. The good thing is that he likes taking a bath. The bad thing is that I end up getting more water and soap on me than he does by the time it’s all over.

And we learned that Henry’s vocabulary has expanded by leaps and bounds (meaning that he now says about 6 words). Mamamamamama (yes, that many mama’s) is his favorite, but he’ll also say “okay” and “whoah” and “bless you” when someone sneezes (although it sounds more like “bee-uuu”), and thankfully, he’s forgotten about “poop” (because we’d rather he not scream that while we’re out grocery shopping, thank you very much). And when he’s not saying real words, he’s babbling and yodeling and making all sorts of fun noises. I think it’s only a matter of days until he signs that record deal to become the next Bobby McFerrin. God help us all.

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 10th, 2009 at 9:09 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.