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…

FYI, we managed to make it home without the $8 butterfly balloon, but just barely.

It was a pretty big owie (as we’re wont to call them), and there was a little blood and a lot of tears. The tears stopped after a minute or two, but the owie stayed around, scabbing over and generally looking like your standard skinned knee.

For the first couple of days after, you could tell that it still hurt a little, and Henry would often touch his knee or point at it and say, “My knee hurts”, and we’d remedy it with a hug and a kiss (on both a cheek and the knee). But after a week or so, the scab all fell off and everything was back to normal.

Or so we thought.

You see, Henry realized that he was getting a little bit extra attention when he complained, he got extra smooches and hugs (as if he could ever get more of those). So for the last few days, he’ll walk up to us and say, “Knee hurts”, make a little pouty face and whine a little until he gets the kisses and attention his joint so justifiably deserves.

Now the worry-wort in my heart at first thought that maybe his knee is irreparably damaged, that he will limp for the rest of his life, his (my) dreams of him winning Wimbledon shot before he even turns two.

But then after his knee kiss was over, he’d be off running and jumping and being silly, with nary a limp or any sign of injury.

I suppose this is all part of growing up, right? Little lies that make people fawn over you a little more. (It’s almost as if Henry’s a character in a Victorian novel who faints in the heat of summer so they can be rescued and swept off their feet by the handsome stranger with the large estate.)

I just don’t want it to get any worse. I don’t want him to lie about things — lie about a real injury or whatever — and yet I’m a bit worried that we’re allowing him to go on about a white lie.

Either way, he’ll never lack from hugs and kisses from Kristen and me.

He crawled around the back steps for a while, not 10 feet from our table, and scurried up and down the back gate as we ate… glaring his beady little eyes.

After we finished eating, Henry, Francesca (the lovely 3-year-old who lives next door), and I were running around (well, they were running, I was trying to catch up) when, out of the blue, the squirrel attacked!

Okay, it didn’t attack, but what it did was run underneath the table, scratching Craig (Francesca’s father) on the ankle.

Kristen saw this brazen behavior and screamed. Lillian, our downstairs neighbor who also was eating with us, saw nothing, but screamed louder. Craig, being a man’s man, grunted.

Well, all this screaming (and Lillian was really wailing) scared the bejeezus out of Henry, and he stared to scream and cry.

(Francesca and I had no clue what was happening. Neither of us shed tears.)

I guess we’re going to have to call the city and have them bring out a trap. Either that, or we’re calling Billy the Exterminator.

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.

In Bethlehem, the fauna included a bunch of rabbits (including several babies that my sister, Rachel, decided to bring into the house one summer evening), birds, spiders, bats, and, especially, squirrels.

There was one very friendly squirrel that lived around our house that my sister named “Peanut”. Peanut was a gentle soul, who would often come up on our porch and munch on granola and other goodies that we left out for him (or her… we never did get a good look at the animal’s private area).

Peanut hung around for years, and when my sister headed off to West Chester University, the squirrel hitched a ride down Route 309 and lived in her dorm room. True story.

I never had the same type of relationship with wild creatures that my sister did. That is evidenced by the squirrel that has taken up residence in the area near our building who we have affectionately dubbed “Brazen Squirrel”.

(Brazen is a great word, one that is usually only uttered by 80-year-olds from a rocking chair on their porch. “You brazen kids, get off my lawn!”)

But brazen is a great descriptor of this squirrel. He eats out of the trash cans. He sits on the back fence, and stares at you, daring to walk through the gate. He runs around you and even between your legs as you sit down in one of the patio chairs. He jumps off the side of the building as you’re walking up the stairs, mocking you. Mocking you! With his beady little eyes!

He has yet to attack any of us, but we’re waiting. One day, he will come up to us, snarl his evil snarl, and then take my wallet. I will get mugged by a squirrel.

At first, I was worried he was rabid, but he’s been around for a few years now, and rabid animals don’t live that long. No, he’s just a meany.

Henry seems uninterested in the nasty creature. If the squirrel comes skulking around him, he ignores him or yells at him (“No!”), the same as he does to the cats when he feels that they’re doing something wrong.

I’ve realized there is only one way to make this squirrel walk the straight and narrow: I’m getting my sister to come out here and do her Dr. Dolittle impersonation and turn this rodent zero into a hero.

Look, I feel bad that Henry has been rejecting Raphe so much lately. I mean, I’m flattered that I’m the coolest person in his somewhat limited universe, but it’s painful to see the look on Raphe’s face when Henry rather pointedly states, “No want Daddy.”

It’s worst at bedtime, when Henry, with some prompting, says, “Night-night, Daddy” and “I love you, Daddy” (this actually comes out as “I uff oo, Addy”, which is stupendously cute), and then follows up with, “PUSH, Daddy,”(which totally mitigates the aforementioned cute) as he shoves Raphe toward the door.

As much as I’m sensitive to how Henry’s giving in to his Oedipal tendencies is killing Raphe, I have to tell you that the 15 minutes I traditionally spend with Henry in his rocking chair just before going to bed have gotten even better.

Henry talks now! A lot! And sometimes in sentences! It’s exciting and fun. While we’re sitting in his rocking chair, he now shouts out requests when I’m singing him bedtime songs. “NO! Row row!” he shouts when he wants me to sing “Row, Row, Row Your Boat.” When he’s sick of my out-of-tune warbling, he commands “Talk, Mommy.”

I admit, I like “Talk, Mommy” best of all. I tell him about his day and then I tell him about my day. I highlight all the stuff that was good about the day. Sometimes I give him backrubs while I’m talking (he will remind me if I forget). And when I’m done talking, I tell him it’s his turn to talk and ask him to talk to me. He usually babbles a lot of incoherent stuff, catalogs his body parts, and smiles. Then I whisper, “I love you, baby boy,” in his ear, just as I’ve done since the day he was born, and I put him down in his crib.

Good stuff. We all sleep soundly around here, even Daddy.