And, of course, every time he starts to talk, he usually says something pretty hilarious (causing Kristen and I to have to stifle our laughter).

But the craziest thing that he’s been doing of late is telling us exactly what he wants to eat. No, not asking for tacos or spaghetti or ice cream. He’s been doing that for months.

What he does is ask for specific pieces of food on his plate.

You see, we’ll have a bowl of ravioli sitting in front of him, and after he’s done feeding himself and wants some help, he’ll direct us to feed him that-one-right-there-no-Daddy-the-other-one-yes-Daddy-that-one pasta.

“That one!” he’ll say, pointing to something that’s hidden under cheese and sauce.

“This one?” I’ll ask.

“No, daddy, that one!”

And so on and so on until the bowl is empty. And then he’ll ask for the pasta on my plate, and when that’s all done with, he’ll go after Kristen’s. (We think he’s going through another growth spurt.)

It’s not just pasta. It’s soup, it’s hot dogs, it’s ice cream (do you know how difficult it is to figure out exactly which part of the scoop he’s talking about?).

But at least he’s eating (and eating a lot) and he’s talking. We’ll gladly put up with the specificities.

So, other than Henry directing his every move, what else have we learned this month?

We learned that Henry can count up to twelve. Sure, he really doesn’t understand the concept of the numbers up that high, but it’s cute and wonderful and every time he does it, we all clap and give him hugs and kisses.

We learned that Henry’s hair is getting curlier and curlier. I don’t know where he’s got it from, but his hair is just going wild of late. When it’s humid out — and this summer has been brutally humid — it curls up like he just got out of the salon with a perm. His blond hair we can explain — both Kristen and I were blonds when we were really young — but neither of us had hair like that. Because of these remarkable curls (which at first were just in the back but now are at top of his head), Kristen has not allowed for scissors to come near his head. It will happen soon — maybe before he turns two — but for now, he’s still wonderfully shaggy.

We learned that Henry likes ice in his water. In fact, he demands it. He’ll grab a cup of water, look inside, and if he doesn’t see an ice cube floating, he’ll toddle over to the freezer and try to open it up. This really isn’t a problem — ice is plentiful around here — but it can get a bit rough when were outside or in the car and there’s no ice to be found.

We learned that sometimes Henry can say things and be cute and charming that would otherwise be a little bit… strange… if an adult said it. For example, he was on the potty and had a poop. It was a little poop, so when he stood up and looked at what was in the potty, he said, “Ladybug.” That was funny for hours.

And we learned that Henry’s idea of a perfect morning is to get on the CTA elevated train with Mommy or Daddy and just ride for about an hour or so. He loves everything about the train — the tracks, the stations, the people coming in and going out of the cars — and it’s inevitable that as we’re heading home, 10 minutes or so from our stop, Henry will put his arm around one of our necks, lay his head on our shoulders, and fall asleep. That’s when Kristen and I like the train.

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.

And the few that aren’t terrible, are often not really books for kids at all. I mean, I love J. Otto Seibold’s books (Mr. Lunch Borrows a Canoe is great, as is Quincy, the Hobby Photographer), but try and get a kid to sit there and look at the strange pictures with you, and you realize it’s no easy task.

So it’s nice when you find books that are for kids — young kids, like Henry — and that they’re well written and drawn –for someone like Henry — and that they tell a nice, quick story. One that if you’re asked to read again and again (4, 5, 6 times), it doesn’t take too long.

So when we discovered Byron Barton, we were really happy. His books don’t seem like much. The art is pretty simple. There may be no more than 75 words in an entire book. And it all is pretty straight forward (no subtleties for Mr. Barton). But for a boy Henry’s age, there may be nothing better.

When Henry’s love of moving things morphed from cars and trains to airplanes over the past month, we knew where to turn. So we bought two books — Airport and Planes – and they’ve quickly become regulars.

Why am I writing about Byron Barton and these two books? Well, in the Planes board book, there is a page that illustrates a skywriting plane and its message: drink milk. (Henry does so with much vigor.)

But for some reason, every time you say “drink milk” to him, he starts cracking up. At times, he’ll laugh so much, he’ll roll on the floor. I didn’t think people did that except in the movies.

I’ve tried to say other tw0-word combinations to him in hopes that they, too, will be gut jiggling, but to no avail.

Instead, we’ll just have to show you video proof (of the book, the laughter, the potty, and Cecil trying to get everyone’s attention.)

So other than videotaping Henry on the pot, what else have we learned this month?

We learned that while Henry loves to be in the pool, he really doesn’t like to do anything in the pool. Each Saturday morning, Henry and I (and sometimes Kristen) head over to a local high school for swimming class. And each Saturday, Henry screeches in delight as we get in the water. And each Saturday, Henry doesn’t want to do any of the games. No blowing bubbles. No floating on his back (with my help, of course). No arm strokes. Nothing. He just wants to be in the water splashing. This is okay — he’s still really young and we’ll probably end up signing him up for another class in the fall to see if he gets any more interested in swim-type activites. Anyway, the pool water always makes his curls go nuts, which is really cute.

We also learned that Henry has a very narrow range of temperature happiness. By this, I mean, he gets cold easily (like his mother) and sweats like a beast when it gets too hot (like his father). At swim class, he rarely makes it for the full hour because his teeth are chattering away and his lips are turning purple. And today, when the temperature reached 85 for the first time this year, he was sweating buckets when we went to the park. (Don’t even ask what I was doing.) I think for the cold part, he just has to get some meat on his bones. (He’s really skinny, and no matter how many pounds of food he devours daily, he’s not getting chubby at all. He’s skinny as can be.)

We learned that Henry going down to one nap a day lasted all of 4 days and then he was back to two. He’s pretty much off and on, two one day, one the next. We gauge how tired he looks and if he looks like he’s going to zonk out any minute, he’ll be rushed off to his crib. It’s also pretty easy to decide when he stops playing, crawls up on top of the couch and says, quietly, “nap.”

We learned that when we go out for a walk or are in the car, we never have to worry about missing a dog or a car or a truck or a bike or a plane or a bird or a flower. (And so on.) Because Henry keeps a running commentary at all times. Often, when there isn’t anything that exciting happen, he’ll say “shovel” or “digger”, probably hoping that if he says it often enough, a large machine will magically appear out of nowhere.

We learned that Henry really likes taco night. Once a week, it seems, Kristen and I make tacos for dinner. They’re easy to make and tasty and they’re fun. I mean, you make your dinner… and then you get to make your dinner again! Cheese? Check. Tomatoes? You bet. Sour cream? No way. Anyway, we always give Henry a large plate of ground meat (with spices), beans, cheese, and a pile of guacamole that you’ve never seen in your life. That kid loves avocado! We’ve gotten to the point that he eats about 70% of what we’re eating for dinner, which is a great thing. It’s easier on everyone and it introduces him to new flavors. Now if he only learns how to wash the dishes.

And we learned that Henry is back to giving quality hugs and kisses. Nothing better than a nice smooch right before bedtime.

It’s certainly easier, I guess, to just sit there and have them rattle off dog, cat, and moose while looking at flashcards then to actually walk around and point out things to them in real life (“Look at that dog, Henry” or “What a pretty yellow flower” or “Run! Run! It’s a rabid moose!”).

And it’s not as fun as when your child suddenly starts talking to you about these things seemingly out of the blue. A couple of weeks ago, when I was reading Dear Zoo (a Christmas gift from Henry’s aunt Rachel, I believe) to Henry, he started telling me what the animals were that the zoo was sending before I had the chance to tell him. (The premise of the book is that the narrator writes to the zoo to send them a pet, and the zoo, obviously trying as hard as they can to get sued, starts sending lions and camels and monkeys. Real smart, zoo.) Before, he would just make the noise when the animal appeared (ROWR! for the lion or EEE EEE! for the monkey), but now, he said  lion and monkey and camel and snake and doggy.

(An aside: Henry tends to want to add syllables to words that don’t need them. So when he says skunk, it sounds like “ska-uuun-kuk” and applesauce sounds like “applesauce-auce” and monkey is “moon-un-key”. It’s quite endearing.)

It’s really encouraging to see him learn things without the aid of flash cards or those horrid Baby Einstein videos.

So, other than the fact that Henry is having a good time talking, what else have we learned this month?

We learned that to Henry, every bird is a duck. A couple of years ago, our friend and her then 20-month-0ld daughter came over to our house and the young girl saw our plastic pink flamingo sitting in our kitchen’s bay window. “Goose! Goose!” she yelled, pointing to it. It seemed that all birds were geese to her. Robins, ducks, pigeons. All of them were geese. Cute, right? Well, Henry’s doing the same thing, but instead of goose, it’s duck. Duck this, duck that. I’m sure, just like our friend’s daughter, he’ll soon get a little more specific. Probably a good idea, considering the neighborhood sparrows are quite the snobs.

We learned that Henry can now tell us what he wants. He’s always been pretty good about saying more and all done (“more cheese” and “all done oatmeal”), but now he’s added “self” (meaning he wants to do it himself) and “help” (nice, because it cuts off frustration pretty quickly). He’s also started saying “down” (before, “up” was the catch-all for up and down, Henry’s aloha). His latest use of “more” is more abstract: “more airplane,” he’ll say, or “more firetruck,” which we suppose means he wants to get on another plane soon or wants to see more firetrucks (oh, how he loves them). Henry’s also started to say “I got it” when we try and help him (like walking up stairs) when it should be obvious to all of us that he can do it all by himself. He’s also been saying “outside” when he wants to get out of our place, and “comb” when he wants to run a comb through his (and Kristen and my) hair.

We learned that more molars have started to come in. Over the past 6 months or so, Henry’s slept through the night all but a handful of times (usually due to a spicy dinner or illness). Well, that’s not completely true. He wakes up all the time, but usually just grabs the Nuby cup we have in the crib so he can drink some water and then quickly goes back to sleep. This changed a bit this past month, as he’s gotten up in the middle of the night a half-dozen times or so because of obvious teething pain. How is it obvious, you ask? Well, when you walk into his room to try and soothe him and see that he’s ramming both of his hands into his mouth, you know it’s a teething problem. Supposedly, these final molars are the worst, and he’s been putting up with some pain. Poor kid.

We learned that while I’m still Daddy, Kristen is Mama. Not Mommy. Mama. I like this.

And we learned that, after a few months of kissless life, Henry has begun to give kisses once again. This is how it goes. It always happens right before a nap or he goes to bed for the night. I’ll put him in his Sleep Sack, sing the ABCs, and ask for a kiss. Henry will then grab my cheeks, say “Cheeks!”, then start giving me a dozen sloppy kisses, with accompanying mmmmwa’s. Even though I have to immediately wash my face after I put him in the crib, it’s well worth the mess.

Henry does not eat fruit.

No strawberries or bananas or peaches. No apples or oranges or blueberries.

Every time a piece of fruit crosses his lips, he spits it out. He doesn’t even chew it! Just spits it right out.

It’s strange. Henry eats nearly anything and everything. (He calls out for sausage and cheese like they’re the only thing that could possibly satisfy his hunger.) But not fruit.

We’ve tried everything. I’ll take a bite of a strawberry, then Kristen will, and we’ll hand a piece to Henry. He’ll look at it then throw it on the ground. No matter how many “yummy” or “tasty” noises we make, he won’t buy it. We’ll try to hide fruit in oatmeal or in between bites of other things he likes, but he’s too smart for that and sees through our ruse.

We haven’t really pressed the issue. I mean, he eats enough, he’s not that picky otherwise. I suppose there are other ways that we can get him to eat fruit, but for now we’re going to wait it out.

This summer, as we head off to the local farmers markets, buying wonderful fruits (and vegetables), we’re hoping that he’ll change his ways. He needs more roughage.

So other than the fact that Henry is a strict meat and potatoes kind of fellow, what else have we learned this month?

We learned that Henry loves the stairs. While he’s still not an expert at it, he loves walking up the steps, holding on tightly to the banister with one hand and Kristen or my hand with his other. As we live on the top floor of a three-story house, there are a lot of opportunities for step time, and he’s getting much, much better. He’s not as good going down (he really doesn’t feel it necessary to look where he’s going), but he’s improving. The only thing getting in the way of superior stepping is the length (or lack there of) of his legs.

We learned that Henry loves hot dogs. Just days after the American Academy of Pediatrics issued a stern warning, Henry ate his first foot-long. (He ate the whole thing.) Always one to do the opposite of what the experts say, we still carefully cut up the hot dog into easily chewable pieces, gave him some macaroni and cheese for a bit of taste, and let him at it. For the next week, at every meal (breakfast included), he asked for a hot dog. This is a good sign that Henry will also enjoy apple pie and baseball.

We learned that Henry’s speech has really improved by leaps and bounds. He repeats words easily and has even started to string words together (“more hot dog” and “more hugs” and “again jump”). One of the things that kids Henry’s age get frustrated about is the inability to communicate — they know what they want, but just can’t get the words out. It’s happened a few times with Henry (when it does, he just runs through about 10 or 15 words, figuring one of them is the right one), but for the most part, he’s able to get the right word or two out. It’s really limited the number of temper tantrums he’s had.

We learned that the horrible 18-month-sleep-regression that Kristen and I were dreading has yet to show up. Henry has (well, except for last night) slept through the night consistently for more than 6 months, is still taking two 2-hour naps a day (how does he do that), and happily goes to sleep at 7 every evening. Most nights, in fact, after we give him hugs and sing some songs and talk about our day, when Kristen or I walk him over to his crib, he actually lunges for the thing. It’s like he can’t get his Elmo and stuffed animals into his arms fast enough so he can catch some z’s. Lucky us.

And we learned that Henry really loves music. Finding good kid’s music is not easy. A lot of it makes you want to put sticks into your ears (dirty, jagged sticks), and we’ve really searched to find things that not only he likes, but Kristen and I can tolerate. One of his favorites is Salsa for Kittens & Puppies and its terrifyingly catchy song “Meow, Hou-hou.” (Hou-hou is, I suppose, the Latin American way of saying “woof-woof”, because, according to the CD, that’s what all the little doggies say.) Henry will run around the house saying, “hou-how, meow,” until we turn it on for him. Another good CD is Animal Crackers by Wee Hairy Beasties. (My personal favorite is “Cyril the Karaoke Squirrel.”) He’s not much of a dancer (yet), but he’s a terrific listener.

And we learned that Henry really likes hugging. Still not a fan of smoochin’, Henry will now come running toward you, his arms held up high, a huge smile on his face, yelling “Hug! Hug!” and get a good grip around your neck or legs or whatever he can grab. It’s a really nice thing.

“Okay, Henry. One more book, but then you have to go to bed.”

“Brown Bear! Brown Bear!”

What? That was new.

When did he learn that? When did he learn those words? When did he start putting nouns and adjectives together?

That happened this evening right before he went to sleep, but it’s not so unusual. Kristen wrote about Henry’s vocabulary last week, and as she said, he’s seemingly adding a word or two every day. (Yesterday, it was “shake” and “tushy”. Don’t ask.)

One of the common issues with kids Henry’s age is their frustration when they’re unable to communicate what toy they want, what is bothering them, or what they want to eat. For the most part, we’ve avoided this problem because when he wants oatmeal, he says “oatmeal.” When he wants to take a bath, he says “bass.” And when he wants his skunk puppet, he says “skunk”.

What all this talking has done is make Henry a real person. He’s no longer a baby and not really a toddler. He’s a little boy. And I like it.

So other than Henry being quite the little blabbermouth, what else have we learned this past month.

We learned that Henry can now climb up onto the sofa. This is only slightly frightening, because once he gets up there, it’s pretty easy for him to fall off it. He hasn’t yet, but we’re waiting for that thump and howl.

We learned that Henry is getting a little stir crazy. Although Chicago hasn’t had the huge blizzards that the northeast has, we’ve had our fair share of snow. Because of the snow covering all the parks and anything even remotely green and the miserable cold, Henry’s been stuck inside most of the time. Sure, he can run up and down the hallway (annoying our downstairs neighbors, I’m sure), Super-Nanny Silvia takes him to the local park district field house a couple times a week, and on weekends, we’ll head off to some mall to get him room for him to run. But it’s not enough. We need a park, damnit! One that is not frozen or full of mud. Spring can’t come soon enough.

We learned that Henry likes it when Kristen and I sing to him. “Seeng! Seeng! Song! Song!” he’ll say. There are three songs that he requests most often: “en-em-oh”, which is the alphabet song (he’s trying to say “l-m-n-o-p”); “low low”, which is “Row, Row, Row Your Boat”); and “ee-i-oh”, which is “Old MacDonald” (“ee-i-ee-i-oh”). We also bought a pig speaker (yes, a pig speaker) to hook up to Kristen’s iPod so he can listen to music while he eats. (He likes the Jackson 5 quite a bit.) Michael certainly sings better than Kristen and me.

We learned that Henry really likes scrambled eggs, beans, sausage, and cookies. My god, does that boy like cookies.

We learned that Henry’s newest favorite thing to do when we’re holding him (which is getting harder to do now that he weighs about 432 pounds) is to stick his hand down the front of your shirt and start poking you in the armpit. This is very ticklish (as one could imagine) and as I’m there trying to suppress my laughter (because, darn it, it’s time to take a nap), Henry is cracking up. It’s really difficult to get him to stop doing something like that when you’re laughing. I keep on trying to tell him that putting your hand under someone’s shirt is something he’s not allowed to do until he’s 25, but it doesn’t seem to be sinking in. Go figure.

And we learned that Henry is still taking two, 2-hour naps a day. And is sleeping 11 1/2 hours at night! Now I love to nap (I’m a big fan), but Henry has taken this to the next level. (Of course, on the weekend, when he wants to spend some extra time with mommy and daddy, he has been taking either a very short second nap or none at all.) Since your bones grow only when you’re asleep (did you know that? I sure didn’t), I reckon he’ll be about 6 feet by the time of his third birthday.

Now a significant part of my job is traveling, and each year I have to go on around 12 business trips. The bad thing about these trips is that it takes me away from Kristen and Henry. The good things are that the trips are short (no more than 2 days) and I’ve been accumulating a lot of airline miles so I can get a couple of free flights this summer if we decide we can (afford to) go on vacation.

This trip was no different. Off I went Wednesday afternoon, and I walked through the door this morning at around 10:30. And as I’ve done this many, many times, Kristen has gotten to be quite an expert at doing solo parenting in getting Henry up and dressed in the morning and feeds, bathes, and gets him ready for bed in the evening. He’s a pretty easy going kid, and even when there’s just one of us around, it’s not too difficult.

Well, according to Kristen, that’s changed a bit now that Henry is not only mobile, but super mobile.

We used to be able to sit him down with a toy (or toys) and walk away for a minute (with an eye on him, of course) and get dressed, make lunch, brush teeth, etc. But no sitting any more for our Henry. He’s running around like a mini-madman just as he needs to get his shoes on or his coat or hat.

We’ve been thinking about attaching a tether to his pants so he can’t get very far or, if he does start wandering, it’s just in a circle, like some May pole in his bedroom.

I don’t have to travel again until consecutive weekends in March, so who know where he’ll be by then. Likely plotting the overthrow of the household as Kristen is making his oatmeal.

So, other than Henry getting to be a handful, what else have we learned this month?

Well, we learned that Henry’s learned how to throw a tantrum. Not terrible ones, yet, but when Kristen went to pick him up from our nanny-share’s house on Wednesday, he just didn’t want to leave. There was just too much fun to be had, you see. So Henry dropped to the floor, going limp as a noodle, and he screamed bloody murder. Kristen and super-nanny Silvia just looked at each other as if asking “what the heck just happened here?” as he writhed on the ground. Kristen picked him up (not without some difficulty), gave him a smooch and a hug, and he got better, but this is surely signs of things to come. Shudder.

We learned that Henry’s vocabulary has continued to expand, and each day it’s a new word or two. (Today, we taught him “pocket” and “potato”.) The funny thing is, he still babbles incoherently, but it’s mixed up with real words. So he might say, “open up jee joo rah lah lee apple button.” Henry, what does “jee joo rah lah lee” mean, exactly? He’s also stringing words together. So it’s not just “more”, it’s “more hummus.” It’s not just “bath”, it’s “go bath”. Soon he’ll be composing poetry. We’re certainly bad parents in that we haven’t been writing down all his words, but I guess it’d be around 40 or so. Fun stuff.

We learned that Henry has become an expert at flicking light switches. Now he’s been turning lights on and off for a while now — it’s nothing new — but now when we hold him up to the switch, he’ll flick it up and say “on” and flick it down and say “off”. (Actually, he says “oss”, but we know what he means.) I don’t know why this makes me so happy.

We learned that Henry still has all his hair and is still in his crib.

And we learned that there is nothing more fun than having Henry go over to the bookshelf in his room, bring one of his favorites to you, back up into your lap and sit down, and follow along with the story. His body is always warm as he rests against your chest, his hair smells fantastic, and when he holds onto your hand in between page turns, it melts your heart. It’s wonderful when he repeats words from the book (dog! horse! feet!), and it’s wonderful when he mimics what’s on the page (play the drums, blow the dandelions, pick a booger [yes, because from Yummy, Yucky, “burgers are yummy but boogers are yucky”). As much as I love playing with him and feeding him and giving him a bath, there’s nothing better than reading him books.

Up is, of course, the signal for one of us to pick him up. But it also means put me down. Or carry me over there. Or let me run into the living room. It’s pretty much the catch-all for him moving (or being carried) somewhere.

Now open can mean opening up a box or opening up a jar or opening up a door. But it also means doing something, just about anything, to an object. Just as “up” is to Henry, “open” is to everything else.

And apple is food. Any kind of food. And not really apples (which he likes okay, but isn’t that big of a fan). When hungry, Henry will walk around saying “eat, eat, apple.” This means that it’s time for a snack or a meal.

I love Henry’s voice. It’s high and clear and without a lisp. (Kids tend to have a lot of those, don’t they?) He has a little issue with words that start with “s” (for instance, “sit” comes out as “shit”), but other than that, he’s golden.

He still talks baby talk (gobbledygook that makes no sense), but he’s starting to string a couple of words together into proto-sentences. And he tends to enjoy repeating sounds over and over instead of words, so he’ll say “woof woof” instead of “dog” or “ooh ooh” instead of “monkey” and he repeats “ee ai ee ai oh” over and over and over (although sometimes it comes out as “oh dee oh dee oh”).

I can’t wait for him to really start talking, long rambling sentences that make no sense but mean everything to him. Won’t that be wonderful?

So other than Henry talkin’ up a storm, what else have we learned this month?

We learned that Henry loves hummus like his daddy loves comic books, and he’s begun to ask for it by name. Sometimes it comes out “hummy” and sometimes “hummees”. At every meal, it seems that if whatever we put in front of him is not to his liking, we’ll take a tablespoon or two of hummus, plop it into a bowl, and let Henry at it. Letting him at it often means scooping it up deftly with a spoon (he’s become quite handy with utensils), but just as often he goes at it with his hands, mashing his fingers in and then licking them clean. He loves hummus so much that we go through a tub (a Costco-sized tub, mind you) every other week. If only the smell of hummus didn’t make me want to retch. (Why couldn’t he be so enthralled with chocolate sauce?)

We learned that Henry likes the Christmas tree, but he’s still a bit hesitant around it. He’ll waddle up, touch a branch, then quickly step away. He’ll say “hello” to the tree, but he’s yet to really get into it. Maybe the wonderful pine smell is just a bit too much for him right now. I’m sure he’ll come around to it some more when he wakes up Friday morning and sees toys sitting underneath.

We learned that Henry likes cars (“beep beep” he’ll say playing with them), trucks (“vroom”), and trains (“choo choo”) more than just about anything. I think that anything that has a wheel is like magic to him. This will make it very easy to buy him presents for the next four or five years.

We learned that even though he’s not even a year and a half old, he’s already learned how to embarrass his parents. We were out at the grocery store a couple of weeks ago when he saw a woman wearing a large, bright red coat. Every time we passed her in the aisle, he yelled out “Elmo! Elmo!” Oh, joy.

We learned that while Henry has yet to come around to kissing ol’ mama and dada, he’s okay with dogs. Starting this month, we have a new addition to our nanny share. Now, three days a week, we take Henry over to Anisha’s house, a lovely, nine month old girl who already has more hair on her head than Henry will have his entire life. While Henry is indifferent to Anisha (she is taking Silvia time away from him), he absolutely adore Odin, one of the two dogs that live at the house. Odin is a three-year-old lab mix with wonderful ears and a ton of energy who is more than happy to have someone to play with. This means that Henry chases him around the house and then Odin chases Henry. And every day that we drop him off, Odin is waiting for him to arrive so he can get a nice big kiss. I don’t get a kiss, but the dog does. Harumph.

And we learned that when you’re sick and coughing and feeling terrible, a hug from Henry makes everything all better.

For whatever reason — mostly money — I’ve never did make it. Also, in the past decade or so, the convention has shifted more toward promoting the latest Hollywood blockbuster (something that I’m not that into) and less toward comic books (something that I’m crazy about). Well, this past weekend, I headed off to the beautiful (and warm) to San Diego for the first time.

Unfortunately, the comic convention takes place in July…

I was there, of course, for work, where about a dozen times a year, I head off to some meeting in some random city, spend all my time in some hotel, not breathing anything other than recycled air. Stale, dry, recycled air. I wake up at 5 in the morning, don’t go to bed until 1 the next morning, eat terrible hotel food (it’s always the same thing: dry chicken, overcooked beef, tasteless fish), and drink too much wine.

Even worse than the travel, the bad food, and the long working hours, of course, is that I don’t get to see Kristen and Henry for 2 1/2 days. Because the meetings I have to attend always happen on the weekends, it’s even worse because instead of spending Saturdays and Sundays at the park, I have to get fun-time updates from Kristen via text. (That, and me being away from home, has made this What We’ve Learned post be a couple days late.)

This weekend, for example, Kristen bought Henry an early Christmas present — a toy shopping cart. (This was because when I took Henry to Trader Joe’s last month, he had a really fun time with their kid-sized carts.) And I missed all the fun. As he pushed the large, plastic monstrosity (everything large and plastic is, by definition, a monstrosity) up and down the hallway, one of our cats, Cecil, decided that he wanted to go for a little ride. So into the shopping cart he went (Elmo joined him for the ride), and around the apartment he was pushed. This went on for 10 minutes, Kristen tells me, and Henry couldn’t have been happier.

She took some video.

I don’t know if somehow he can translate this talent into a career, but if we find something, he’ll be the best shopper in the country.

So, other than Henry grooving to the grocery store scene, what else have we learned this past month?

We learned that Henry is much more sure on his feet. While not running, he’s walking very fast, swerving all around the house, around the park, around the grocery store. He’s also learned how to walk backwards. Not moonwalk (yet), but a swervey, stumbly walky that gets him back to wherever he started.

We learned that Henry loves reading (and having us read to him). For the longest time, he had a handful of books that he would go to every day, but lately, it’s been a different story. Now, instead of 3 or 4 books, it’s 5 or 6 or 7 a night. And the best thing about reading to Henry now, is that he’ll crawl into your lap, snuggle up, hold your thumb with one hand and turn the pages with the other. The best reading time is, of course, right after a shower, when his hair smells wonderful and he’s nice and sleepy.

We learned that Henry has been peeing in his potty like a madman. A MADMAN! Three, four times a day he goes! He loves it so much, it’s contagious. It’s gotten to the point where Kristen and I want to go to the bathroom on the potty ourselves! (Slight exaggeration.) I don’t really know what the next step is or how long it’s going to take to get there, but we’re all very geared up for #2.

We learned that Henry’s vocabulary has expanded to so many words that I can’t remember them all. (New ones in the past couple of days include “step” and “apple”.) Last week, when Silvia came in the morning (he says “Silvia” now, too), he went, grabbed her shoe that she’d just taken off, walked over to us, handed it to her, and said “shoe.” Then, this morning, he took one of the socks that I had brought into the family room to put on, walked it over to me, and said “sock.” Never have shoes and socks been more exciting.

And we learned that Henry has finally learned how to give kisses with a closed mouth and without him slobbering all over our faces. While baby saliva all over our cheeks was never a terrible thing, I prefer the dryer kind.

This has been a month of illness, of trips, of walking, of talking. It’s been a month of bad nights (those 4 wake-up nights still happen on occasion), of great days, and of cold weather.

But, as every month with Henry, it’s been pretty wonderful.

So, what have we learned about Henry these past 31 days?

We learned that his vocabulary has grown by leaps and bounds. The old stand-bys of “mama” and “dada” have been joined by “all done” and “cheese” and “kitties” and “CeeCee” and “kisses” and “arms up” (for when we take off his shirt) and “yeah” and “uh-oh” (which really isn’t a word, per se, but is awfully cute when he says it) and “car” and more that I can’t remember off the top of my head. He doesn’t always get it right when he’s talking — for example, he’ll say “all done!” as he proudly shoves some more food into his mouth — and he has to work on the enunciation (“cheese” sounds a bit like “cheesh”), but I’m okay with it. Henry’s voice is hard to describe. Of course it’s high, but it’s also pretty forceful. When he wants something or wants to say something (a real word or just gibberish), you can hear it well across the room (or the condo). I’ve been tempted to try and and get him to say something obnoxious so we can tape it and send it to America’s Funniest Home Videos (which, amazingly, is still on and is still wonderful), but so far I’ve held back.

We learned that Henry has yet to turn down any food offered to him. The boy is a Hoover. A HOOVER! Put some beans on a plate, and Henry starts to go at. He’s not a fast eater — he’s deliberate.  He enjoys shoving a large amount of food in his mouth and then chewing for a minute or so. And to signal that he’s done eating, he’ll merely pull all the food that’s still in his mouth out and hand it to you. It’s quite lovely. And disgusting. But mostly lovely.

We  learned that since Henry is now fully mobile (ie, walking) he has started to sneak up on you. He’ll be playing in the family room, engrossed in something with wheels, and you’ll be in the kitchen readying his dinner or a snack or doing dishes, and suddenly, you’ll turn around, and he’ll be just… standing there. Smiling. Holding a car. I like this. I like watching him walk around, squatting down to pick something up, and then walking some more. I like that he can run after the cats or waddle over and grab his cup to have a drink.

We learned that every time Henry goes on a trip, the week after he returns is hell on his sleep schedule. This means, of course, no more nights away from home until he 12.

We learned that Henry knows all his routines. What I mean is, when it’s time for his nap, and we approach with a SleepSack in hand, he holds his arms out. When we come up to him with a jacket or a hoodie, the same thing. When it’s bath time, we’ll tell him “arms up” and he sticks his arms straight in the air for easy shirt removal. So helpful. (Did you click on that SleepSack link? I wish they had those in grown-up sizes. It looks so nice and toasty and comfortable. And Henry loves them.)

We learned that if something has a wheel, Henry loves it. Toy trucks. Toy cars. Real trucks or cars. Doesn’t matter. Loves the wheel.

We learned that all of a sudden, Henry loves books. He’s always liked it when we read to him, but now, he’s started to grab his favorites and walk over to us and sit down in our lap, ready for story time. (That’s wonderful, I must say.) Other times, he’ll just grab books off his bookshelf and plop down and “read” them, turning the pages and yammering away. So what if the books upside down? It’s cute, darn it!

We learned that Henry can take a lickin’ and keep on tickin’. Today at the zoo, while walking in the monkey house, Henry fell flat on his face, biting the inside of his mouth (and drawing blood!) and getting a fat lip. He cried and howled, but only for about 10 seconds and then he saw some monkey doing a silly thing with his tail and completely forgot about his injuries. I suspect most kids are like this, but these things just roll off his back.

And we learned that after 14 months, it’s difficult for me to remember a time without Henry in our lives. I mean, I remember when we went out to dinner and to movies and had this thing called “disposable income”, but Henry has completely overwhelmed us, emotionally, physically, and, yes, monetarily, that I can’t comprehend what life would be without him. And that’s a good thing.