Barnabas Monkeypants

Although I’ve never written one, I assume that writing (and drawing) children’s books are not easy. I make that assumption because so many that I’ve read are really, really terrible.

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.

We’d like to think that Henry is advanced in everything that he does. (He is my son, you know.) But it’s not true. He’s definitely nap delayed.

What’s that, you ask? Well, when most babies his age were at three naps, he was at four (or sometimes five). When he finally dropped to three naps, other kids were at two. And it wasn’t until Saturday — yes, this past Saturday, when he’s nearly 21 months — that he dropped that second nap.

We have friends with kids Henry’s age who so.me days don’t nap at all. At all.

That’s incredible.

So when we decided that it was time for him to get rid of the morning nap, we were a bit worried. You see, Henry loves to sleep. Loves it. We put him in his crib and he’ll roll over and fall asleep right away.

But his sleep during the day was cutting into his night-time sleep, to the point that he was starting to wake up at 5 in the morning. While this was okay for Henry (what’s 5 to him?), it was brutal for Kristen and I. The remedy we thought was cutting out a nap.

On Saturday morning at 8, instead of putting him down for his first nap of the day, we all stayed up. We went to his swim class at 10, had some lunch after, and had him in bed by a little after noon. By the time he finally fell asleep, it was obvious that he was really tired. But there were no tears. No tantrums. No throwing of toys. He happily fell asleep and ended up taking a three-hour nap.

Sunday was the same. We kept him busy all morning (so he didn’t even have the chance to even think about a nap), and when he finished lunch, he slept the sleep of a contented youngster.

On Monday and today, Super-nanny Silvia did the same as we had over the weekend, and Henry was perfectly fine.

And best of all, he’s been waking up a little later in the morning. Today, in fact, he slept until nearly 6:45. SIX-FORTY-FIVE! Halleluja!

Of course, we’re all giddy now, but we’re dreading that day when he goes completely napless. That could mean the end of all the goodness in the world. Hopefully, we have a few more years until that happens.

Moments later Henry was shouting “MY TURN! MY TURN!” and trying to wedge himself in CC’s little house.

Lately, when Henry wants something, he says it over and over and over again. Just in case we didn’t hear it the first 36 times, I suppose. The funny thing is, he’ll say “Cup? Cup! CUPPY!” or “Zip? Zip! ZIPPY!” or “Try? Try! TRY-EEE!” or “Mama? Mama! MAMA-EEE!” Whatever works, right?

***

Henry had several mouthfuls of some very spicy Indian chutney a couple of days ago because he believed it was avocado. I didn’t want to give it to him, but once he saw the creamy green sauce, he was very insistent that he have some. He’s never had guacamole as spicy as this chutney was, and to his credit, he kept eating it, tears streaming down his beet-red face as he repeated “hot” with each bite. (This was some serious chutney, people. And it was so very good. I’d be proud of Henry’s fearless eating, but I think he was genuinely confused by what he was ingesting. Like he couldn’t process how something that looked so much like avocado wasn’t.)

***

Saturday after swim class, we took Henry to Wolfy’s for lunch. As we all sat munching hot dogs and (in Raphe’s case) hamburgers, Henry proceeded to charm all the other diners by smiling at them and shyly hiding his face when they smiled back. As an older Pakistani gentleman and his family left the restaurant, he kissed the top of Henry’s head and said, “This boy is an angel.”

***

When I came home tonight, Henry raced toward me, exclaiming “Need hug! Need hug!” Well, if you’re going to twist my arm, Henry, I guess I’ll hug you.

Henry’s gotten pretty good at telling us when he has to poop.

“I fart,” he says, and we shuffle him over to the potty.

While on the potty, Henry, like most males of our species, enjoys a book or magazine. (My mother got him a subscription to a kids’ animal magazine, and he likes looking at that. I’m trying to teach him how to tuck it under his arm on the walk over.)

Well, on Wednesday, as I was getting ready to put him to bed (Kristen was taking a well-deserved night off and was having dinner with friends), Henry said, “I fart.”

Now he usually isn’t a late-evening pooper. He’ll go in the morning and sometimes in the afternoon (right after his second nap — did you know he still takes two naps? ugh), but rarely at night. But he said he had to go, so I took off his pajama bottoms, took off his diaper, and he plopped down on the potty.

“Book!” he yelled. “Shovel!” (Which is what he says when he wants to read Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel.) So I get it for him and we start to read it. We go through the whole book (it’s not short), and I’ve noticed that he a) hasn’t urinated, b) hasn’t passed gas, or c) hasn’t pooped.

I was duped! I was poop duped!

Henry didn’t have to go to the bathroom! He just wanted to read! So I picked him up and put his diaper and pajamas back on (oh, he was not happy about any of it), and I rocked him and sang to him and put him to bed.

At first, I was a little annoyed. How dare he use his pooping to stay up and read! But then I realized that it was sort of ingenious of him — he’s learning to get his way. And thankfully, he’s not doing it with temper tantrums. I’d much rather be tricked into reading him another book that way than by having him on the ground kicking and screaming. Although I suspect that’s coming up soon, too.

I spent the past weekend in the beautiful city of Seattle. It actually is pretty nice — weather notwithstanding. It’s walkable, there plenty of outdoorsy-type things to do nearby, it has a nifty market near the water, and spawned some good bands 20 years ago.

That’s right, mindless kids flocking to Seattle! Grunge is over! It’s been over! Cobain’s been dead for 16 years! Get over it!

Sorry… that may have been a little harsh. But true. There were just too many 18-to-25-year-old kids walking about in flannel shirts and a look of pain on their faces.

Anyway, because it was a trip to the coast, and I couldn’t get a flight on Saturday, I had to wait until Sunday morning to fly home, which meant that I didn’t actually walk through the door until 3 in the afternoon.

And while I missed Kristen and Henry horribly, it really didn’t matter for the little monkey because of late, I’ve been second class. Kristen may disagree, but for the past two months, Daddy has come in fifth place in the asking-for-someone-when-he-wakes-up run down.

“Mama”, of course, is first. After that is any combination of “Odin”, “Nisha”, “Zoe-bear”, “Sava”, and “CC”. Who are these people? Well, since the beginning of the year, we’ve added a new little girl to the nanny-share roster (as Vivienne is only with the clan for about 18 hours a week). The new girl (a lovely young lady, just turned 1, and running circles around everyone in sight) is Anisha (or Nisha when Henry says it). Her family has two dogs (Odin and Zoe-Bear) and a turtle (who I’m surprised Henry hasn’t started asking for yet), all of whom Henry adores (and is adored back). When Odin, a yellow lab-mix, sees Henry in the morning, he shakes his tail so vigorously, his entire body swings back and forth.

Anyway, back to my whining. Sava is Silvia, and CC is our cats. Both of our cats, as Henry can’t seem to figure our which is which.

Where’s Daddy in all this? Nowhere to be found.

And it gets worse. If ever Henry is upset or bonks his knee or is just plain crabby, it’s Mama that he calls out, the tears streaming down his face. Henry! I’m right here! I’m hugging you! A Daddy would be nice on occasion!

If he and I are playing, and, for whatever reason, he notices that Kristen isn’t there, he’ll stand up and start calling for her.

That’s cold, Henry. Cold.

Now Kristen said that while I was gone, he asked for Daddy all the time, but I just don’t believe her. I mean, there is no video proof! Nothing! Even when I got home on Sunday, it was great to see him run toward the front door, but instead of a big hug, he veered off so he could chase one of the cats. He left me hanging like a dope.

Everything I read says that he’ll turn to me soon (and back to Kristen and then back to me, ad nauseum), but I can’t wait. I need it now.

Doesn’t he realize that this whole parent-child thing isn’t about him? It’s all about me!

We’ve been trying to “teach” Henry the ABCs and the 123s. The teach is in quotes because there are no flash cards involved and the learnin’ is all about fun. Fun, in this case, is singing various versions of the alphabet song and by counting things like the number of burps Kristen is spewing out (she can belch on command).

As far as the alphabet goes, he’s good with the first three letters. He gets lost a little around the G to J area, but comes back with a vengeance in the L-M-N-O-P section. (It sounds something like Elmo-eee.) From Q to the end, it’s usually just laughter. He’ll be an expert by the end of the summer.

For the numbers, it’s a bit different. Like the ABCs, Henry is good at the first three numbers, mostly because we like to preclude exciting things with a rousing 1-2-3-GO! So, before a trip down the slide at the park or we slip into the swimming pool or when Mama is going to gallop down the street, we get him ready. Sometimes, he’ll count with us, but mostly he just gets this excited look on his face, as he knows that something good is coming.

Here’s the funny thing. Sometimes, one of us will be holding Henry and he’ll get this look on his face like he wants something fun to happen, and he’ll say… get this… “2-5-6-GO!”

Where’s the 1, Henry? Why you gotta hate the 3? And when did you learn 5 and 6?

He did this for the first time down in Florida, and since then, he’s kept on doing it. Occasionally we’ll get a 1-2-3 out of him, and once there was a 2-3-4 (which is nice, because he finally gave 4 its due), but 2-5-6 is definitely his favorite. Go crazy counting!

When he conquers the complete alphabet and can count to ten, I’ll be sure to tell.

Last week I saw a commercial on TV where they were hawking some sort of toddler flashcards so your kids can become some super genius. This made me really, really mad and also quite sad. I have no idea why any parent would want their very young child to learn like that, when it seems to me the single best way for a child to absorb new words and concepts is to just talk and read and play with them. No?

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.

Ten days ago, Kristen, Henry, and I flew down to Tampa to visit Henry’s grandfather and great-grandmother. Fun was had by all. Let me elucidate.

Things that were great:

The weather. Sure, it was only in the upper 70s and the water temperature was chilly, but after months of cold and dreariness here in Chicago, it was a great change of pace. It was great to feel the warm sun on your face and be able to get up in the morning and, instead of bundling up, walking outside. Outside!

Vocabulary. Out of nowhere, Henry added about 4 or 5 words every day. He’d point at something (say, a clock) and I’d say, “That’s a clock, Henry.” “Clock,” he’d answer. That’s all well and good, but then, a couple of hours later, after passing said clock again, he’d point and say, “Clock.” And this happened over and over again, to the point where I’d look at Kristen after he said something that I’d never heard before (like bicycle) and ask her if she’d heard that before. “Nope, that’s a new one.” Again and again. Maybe it was just the warm weather helping cook more cells in his brain or something.

Sleep. Unlike the last several overnight trips where new situations and new sleeping arrangements wreaked havoc on Henry. Up three times a night, awake at 5 in the morning, naps all askew. But this time, he slept great. We’d put him down at the normal time and he slept straight through until a reasonable hour in the morning. His naps were great, too. Good times.

Water. While “no” is the word Henry says the most (followed closely by “sausage”), water is certainly in the top 5. He loves it — the pool, the bathtub, the lake — so it’s no surprise that he had a great time at the Clearwater Beach and Howard Beach in Tarpon Springs. Give that kid a bucket, a shovel, a hat, and a bathing suit, and he’s set for about 3 hours.

The Lowry Park Zoo. Tampa has a terrific zoo, and while we were a bit short on time, we enjoyed it the best we could. This meant that Henry looked at rhinos and monkeys and exotic birds and ran around squealing. And just when he looked at more animals than any toddler could ever want, we wandered into the kids’ area where there was a petting zoo (goats! which ate kibble out of his hand!) and several water spouts that Henry ran around in (wearing only a t-shirt and a diaper — quite trashy). When we left as the zoo closed (too early, if you ask me), Henry cried. (“More! More! All done buckle!” as we strapped him into the car seat.)

Family. Kristen’s brother and his special lady arrived the day after we flew down, and although they had some interesting hotel adventures (abandoning one and then moving rooms in the next), they had a good time as well. Jay and Andrea are good people, and Henry likes them quite a bit.

`Things that were not so great:

Sunburn. As a member of the pale club for men, it is necessary for me to wear sunscreen when going outside. It’s even more imperative when I’m not wearing a shirt (not a pretty sight, I’ll tell you what). So when we went to this community swimming pool (which had a nice area for kids just Henry’s size), I jumped into the water with him. What I neglected to do was lather myself up with SPF 153. So that night, my back was lobster red and painful. It was kicking off heat so much, I think I could’ve stir-fried dinner. Instead, I whimpered. It’s been a week now, and I’m peeling like nobody’s business. So terrible.

The food. Florida (if you didn’t know) is surrounded by water and living inside said water is a myriad of swimming creatures (fish, octopi, fishy-octopi), and there are plenty of boats out there catching them for us land dwellers to consume. So you’d assume with all that fresh seafood, when you get it on your plate at one of countless seafood restaurants, it’d be tasty. Think again. We ate out a lot, and I can say that there were only two really good meals. One was at a dive-y place where I ate grouper on a stick (and really, what doesn’t taste better on a stick) and the other was a Greek restaurant in Tarpon Springs (the sponge capital of the world) where I had a great gyro and Henry ate grilled squid and a huge plate of pastichio. Other than that, though… blegh.

Those two unpleasantnesses aside, it was a great trip for everyone. (And the goats seemed to enjoy our visit, too.)

Kristen’s still working on getting all the Florida pictures together (we got home on Tuesday), but I promised you all something on Henry’s first swimming class. So here it is.

I wrote earlier about my experience signing up Henry for this class, and two Saturdays ago (the day before Easter), he had his first lesson. We packed up his and my swimming stuff (trunks and towels for both of us, swim diapers for him, a camera for Kristen) and headed off to the indoor pool.

It’s located in a nearby high school, so we changed in the school’s locker room (just like old times) and walked to the pool. It was, to say the least, one of the greatest moments of Henry’s life (all 19 months of it). The pool that lay before him was the largest bathtub he had ever seen, and he broke free of my hand and started running toward it, yelling, “Bath! Bath! Water! Water!” I had to corral him so he wouldn’t go jumping into the deep end.

All the parents and kids (ranging from 18 to 36 months) then got a little safety lesson and an explanation of what would happen in the class. Henry could not have cared less. He was just trying to get into the pool, tugging on my arm, practically begging to swim. “Hold on, kiddo,” I said. “Soon, soon.” Soon to Henry is like 5 years, I think.

The waiting was over and it was time to get into the pool. So all the dads took off their shirts and prepared to enter the 83-degree water. (You’re probably saying to yourself, “That’s pretty warm.” Well, you’re wrong.)

Now, as I’m sure you’ve noticed from some of the photos on the site, I’m not in the best shape of my life (unless the shape we’re looking for is “lumpy”.) It’s also the beginning of April, so I’m ridiculously pale. Luckily, I wasn’t the only one. In fact, all the men were pale and out of shape, so I was in good company. (Great company, eh?)

So we headed into the pool. They told us that the parents should go in first and have the kid hold onto the bars of the ladder, facing the parent. Henry wanted none of this and wanted to jump in after me. He restrained himself a bit, and waited until I got in first. (Brrr!) So in I went, then I pulled him to my chest and pushed off from the side of the pool.

“Aaaaaaahhhhhh!” he screamed. I panicked! He hates it! He is scared! The water is eating him!

So I pick him up out of the water, flip him around to face me (he had wiggled so that I couldn’t see his face), and see that his screams were that of the happy kind (the best kind, naturally). Whew.

There were a couple of kids who didn’t make it through the whole class, though. One was crying nearly the whole time and his mom took him out of the water after only a couple of minutes. Another kid got bored really quickly and tried to run and play with buckets of chlorine.

The rest of the “class” (which was really just moving around in the water, kicking, blowing bubbles, jumping up and down) was full of equal happiness. As much as I’d like to say that he’s the next Michael Phelps, he wasn’t the best kid in the class as far as the kicking and strokes go. He being the youngest there probably didn’t help. But he was, by far, the one with the biggest smiles.

Even as it got a little cold and Henry was actually shivering, his teeth chattering, he did was smiling. In fact, when it was time to get out of the water, he was really, really sad (even though his lips were blue).

This all bodes well for future classes (the next of which is tomorrow) and it made our trip to Florida (read about that later) full of oceans and swimming pools. All I have to do is get a little color on my skin and get rid of some of my gut, we’ll be perfect.