Barnabas Monkeypants

First off, my apologies for the lateness of this post. Henry’s birthday was last Saturday (more on that later), but in the week previous and the days following, Kristen’s grandmother and Henry’s great-grandmother (Oma) became very ill. Kristen’s father was to come up for the party, but he had to cancel, as Oma was admitted to the hospital with pneumonia (among other things).

Oma passed away on Tuesday evening.

Henry (along with Kristen and I) visited Florida three times during his first two years and he was able to meet  Oma and charm her (as he charms everyone), and that was something very important to all of us.

Kristen and Henry are down there right now and will be returning on Sunday. (Tickets were astronomical, so I am staying home.) And I miss them dearly as much as I know Kristen misses her grandmother.

Now on to something less somber. Henry’s birthday party.

Last year, when Henry turned one, the highlight (for me and I suspect Henry) was when our chubby cheeked boy devoured an extra-large cupcake to the amazement of all. (The boy can pack it in.) He could crawl at the time and stand up, but he wasn’t particularly mobile. He also pretty much just laughed and made silly baby noises.

A lot has changed since then.

No longer chubby (more on that later) and very mobile and talkative, this was a much different party.

An aside: another difference this year was the weather. For those of you (all 3 of my readers) who attended Henry’s birthday bash last year, you might remember that we had the party indoors. Not because of rain, but because it was freezing outside. On August 22nd last year (when we had his party) the high was in the low 60s, and even colder by the lake. (Naturally, we live very close to the lake.) This summer has been brutally hot and humid, and I feared that it would be so bad outside, we’d be forced to have it inside, with the air conditioners cranking. Luckily, it was perfect weather, mid-80s, low humidity. Thank goodness.

So the kids at the party today could all (except for two newborns) run around and talk and grab and be silly, and everyone had a good time. In the days leading up to the party, we would tell Henry that his “birthday was coming” and that he had every reason to be happy.

“My birthday coming?” he’d ask.

“Yes, on Saturday your birthday will be here,” we’d answer.

Over and over.

Then, on Saturday, with everyone having fun and sidewalk chalk all over the ground and bubbles in the air and hot dogs in the tummy, Henry came up to me and asked, “My birthday coming?”

“It’s here, Henry! This is your birthday,” I said.

“Birthday! Birthday! Birthday!” he yelled and ran around like a crazed monkey.

We had some great cake with an airplane icing on top and everyone got to take home some race car rubber duckies and as the party came to a close, Henry opened about 1/3 of his presents (with the help of a few young ladies who were more excited about it than he was), until it became obvious that he’d rather play with the airplane he unwrapped early on than get to any more packages, so we slowly wound down things and everyone went home. (Except for Henry, Kristen and I who were already home and our friends Meghan and Christine who demanded they stay and help clean up.)

Overall, it was a great party, and we thank everyone who came and celebrated with us.

So, other than having a shindig to rival all other shindigs, what have we learned this past month?

We learned that Henry is still very tall and very skinny. At his 2-year appointment on Monday, Henry was measured at 36 inches tall (that’s 3 feet for those who aren’t so good at math) and 26 pounds (which is just under 2 stone, if you live in the UK). When you put that in the handy-dandy chart, he’s 90th percentile for height and 15th percentile for weight. He is a spaghetti. (A wonderful, adorable, happy spaghetti.) So by the time he’s 20, it looks like he’ll be (doing the math, dividing by pi) 7 1/2 feet tall and a little under 65 pounds. Manute Bol.

We also learned from the pediatrician what we’ve already suspected. As Henry wailed way (he was not happy to go to the doc’s), he was talking up a storm. (We like it when he talks when he’s unhappy, as I’ve mentioned before. It’s much easier to help him out and make things better and explain to him what’s going on.) Anyway, Dr. Weismann asked how coordinated Henry was. The answer is so-so. He runs like a mad man, his arms and legs flailing about. He wants to jump and talks about jumping, but he hasn’t ever actually jumped. The doctor explained that there’s a spike in development in either the physical or the vocal, and one flies past the other. By the time 3 rolls around, they’re usually at the same spot. I don’t care if he can’t jump at 2 or 3 or 4. All I care is that when he’s 17, he’s ready to be drafted and play center for the Toronto Maple Leafs.

We learned that Henry has become complete and utterly terrified of bugs. Now Kristen’s not a bug person (especially moths), but she has been very good at hiding her buggy fears in front of Henry. Yet somehow, spiders and bugs and flies (especially the dreaded dragonflies) have become the most frightening thing on the planet. From a distance (and in books), he’s fine, but get one within 5 feet and he’s holding onto you for dear life saying, “I’m scared of bugs, daddy.” We’ve been trying to help him out a bit — let him know that they’re not going to hurt him, that they’re not really scary — but so far, no luck. Will he eventually grow out of this fear or will it drive him to a career as a Terminex man? Time will only tell.

And we learned that any day now — any day — we’re going to have to take Henry in for his first haircut. As the summer comes to a close and as the humid weather of summer will move into the dry cold of winter, those curls in the back are going to become flat and lifeless. And when Henry’s hair is flat and lifeless, it looks like a gigantic blond mullet. (When it’s really wet, it’s down past his shoulders.) Every time we say it’s time for the barber’s chair, he’ll turn around and show us the curls on the back of his head, and we’ll put it off for another week. But I think that pretty soon it will be time. The only question now is, how much of the hair will we save? All of it? Just the best 4 or 5 curls? It’s just so sad to think about…

This entry was posted on Friday, August 27th, 2010 at 9:57 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.