Barnabas Monkeypants

Henry was up this early morning at close to his birth hour (which some of you may recall was 2-something in the morning), hysterically screaming that his tushy hurt. Apparently, he was awoken by a wicked diaper rash. He carried on long enough that I actually contemplated taking him to the emergency room. It was [...]

We found out today that Number Two is a girl, and we are very, very excited. Raphe is over the moon because, as I’m sure you’ve heard him say, he’s counting on the fact that a little girl will want to hold his hand longer (i.e., until she’s older) than a little boy would. We’re [...]

Sometimes, not very often, but sometimes, it’s actually sunny here. And Henry stops to smell the peonies. (The rain destroyed them the day after they all bloomed. Damn you, rain!) Here he is in the big boy bed. As you can see, it’s just his crib with one of the sides replaced with a short [...]

Now, as you all know, I love Henry. I adore him. I can’t wait to get him out of his crib in the morning (yes, we’re still in the crib…), and I love playing with him and eating with him and reading to him. He has made my life better than I could have ever [...]

Before Henry was born, Raphe began collecting classic cartoons so the two of them could watch them together. Henry watches his little DVD player in the morning while eating his breakfast, and we have an extensive library of stuff for him to watch. When he got tired of Thomas the Tank Engine and Yo Gabba [...]

I’m going to skip the “Boo-hoo, I planned to write, but then I didn’t, blah blah blah, boo-hoo,” routine and just say, Folks, we was busy. Now I’mma gonna tell you what we’ve been up to since Christmas, so y’all will get off my damn back. And I’m going to do it in photo essay [...]

Since we haven’t been posting as regularly as we ought, you don’t yet know how much I love the Holiday Lite. I mean, the holiday lights. (93.9, the “Holiday Lite”, is our local easy-listening radio station, which plays nothing but Christmas music from mid-November through January 1. We’ve been listening to it pretty much non-stop [...]

The day began with a family snuggle in our big bed. As he wiggled in close, Henry said, “Mommy, I love to see you.” We could hear the wind and snow scratching at our bedroom windows. By mid-morning, we were all outside playing in the snow. We helped Henry build a small and somewhat pathetic [...]

Lately, Henry sings along when I sing to him at night. So while he asks for “Happy Birthday” to be sung to 36 different people, he’ll join in each time. But wait, it gets better. The past few times I’ve sung “You Are My Sunshine” to him, he’s hugged me tight and exclaimed “I HAPPY!” [...]

Things Henry is scared of (he actually starts conversations with declarations like “I scared of…”), from least to most scary: Having to share with other boys and girls when playing with the Thomas the Tank Engine train table at Barnes & Noble. Skeletons Spiders CC barreling down the hallway at full gallop Big Pumpkin (???) [...]