Barnabas Monkeypants

(I’m finishing this post from the wonderful city of Orlando. That’s sarcasm. There’s nothing wonderful about this place. Sorry for the delay — we’ve all been sick.)

Last week, Henry said his longest sentence yet: “I want a taco, Mama.”

Since we all love tacos (and, luck have it, we were making them for dinner), he got his request.

For the most part, Henry’s vocabulary has grown by leaps and bounds, to the point where we can’t even keep track of all the new ones, but we couldn’t be happier. His many, many words mean that he’s able to ask for things (toys and/or tacos), can tell us what hurts (tummy, toes), and tell us when he’s unhappy about a certain situation (a request for more toys and/or tacos).

He’s pretty good with his pronunciation, which is something that can always be an issue. When he says something, you know what’s going on. He’s also good at enunciating. So “again” sounds like “again” and “I want it” sounds like “I want it.” One of the few phrases that doesn’t come out perfectly enunciated is when here says, “here you go.” Now, I realize that “here you go” isn’t the most proper of phrases, but it gets the point across.

Of course, instead of sounding out each word, we get “higgum.”

“Higgum, mama,” and he’ll hand her a truck.

“Higgum, daddy,” and he’ll hand me a piece of cheese.

I actually like the “word,” and I’ve started using it myself when giving things to people at work. “Higgum the executive summary, boss.” (I’ll get a strange look, but then, I get those most of the times anyway.)

We don’t correct him when he says it, because he’s good enough at saying everything else, that why take away one of the cutest things to ever come out of his mouth?

So, other than us preparing to submit “higgum” to the Oxford English Dictionary for placing it in their next edition, what else have we learned this month?

We learned that Henry loves to describe the goings on outside when driving in our car. I may have mentioned it before, but we get a running commentary of what cars, trucks, buses, bicycles, motorcycles, and trains are around at all time. He loves them and gets really excited, and we’ve begun to use that to our advantage. Several times during the past month, we’ve been driving home just in time to get Henry to sleep for the night or down for his nap, and he’ll begin to fall asleep in the backseat in his car seat. As we’d rather he’d stay awake (it makes it much easier for him to fall asleep in his crib if he hasn’t just been woken up), we’ll often say, “Look, a plane!” or “Look, Henry, firetruck!” or “Wow! Look at that train!” when no plane, truck, or train is in eyesight. But it gets him alert for another minute or so, long enough to get us home again. Yes, we’re lying to our son already. We’re just preparing ourselves for Santa, I guess.

We learned that Henry has started giving us kisses again. It’s a month-on, month-off sort of thing, but for the past few weeks he’ll give us a peck on a cheek and a hug every so often. Toddler kisses are pretty nice.

We learned that Henry wants a dog. That’s a good thing, because I want a dog, too. The problem is, there is no possible way to fit another breathing creature into our place without one of us sleeping on the couch. (Me.)

We learned that when both mommy and daddy are sick, taking care of a kid is a challenge. Last week, Kristen had terrible food poisoning, so bad that she ended up in the hospital to get fluid, and I had a horrible, lingering flu/cold that knocked me out for several days. We would trade off in 15 minute shifts for looking after Henry or making him dinner or giving him a bath while the other parent was huddled in a mass on the floor, moaning.

We learned that Henry likes thunder (“noise! loud noise!”) but isn’t so fond of lighting (“scared!”).

And we learned that Henry still has all of his hair. We’ve yet to get it cut, and that’s mostly because of the humidity that usually sits over the city of Chicago for the summer months. During June, July, and August, the dense air can be stifling (especially to someone like me who hates the heat with a passion), and I like to sit inside in the air conditioning as much as possible. Henry, however, has no such qualms, and in fact, the humidity makes him hair curl up like nobody’s business. I have no clue where these curls came from. Both my hair and Kristen’s are perfectly straight, and neither of us had much wave when we were kids (Kristen more than me), but Henry’s locks are ridiculous! When it’s wet, his hairstyle is all mullet, but when it’s dry and there’s moisture in the air, it’s the most perfect mix of waves and Shirley-Temple locks. I’m afraid that Kristen will never let him get it cut, and he’ll look like a blonde Tarzan, with hair down his back, when he goes off to kindergarten.

Now that’s a look.

This entry was posted on Friday, June 25th, 2010 at 10:00 am 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.