All smiles after dinner

Under the Table Boys' Club

For no explainable reason lately, Henry has liked to climb under our dining room table. For yet again no obvious reason, he then took to dragging me somewhat insistently under the table with him. Most of the time, we just sit in silence (him with a goofy smile on his face) until we ask Val to find us. Val will ask out loud, "Where are Henry and Dada?" He'll sort of get excited, but I tell him to be quiet or it'll give us away. When Val finally looks under the table, he thinks it's really exciting and scary all at once. It also works to do it when Val is sitting right there, but she reaches under the table and touches Henry's face, whereby he explodes in giggles.

Today was a slight departure from those routines and he brought me "If you give a Moose a muffin." By the way, don't do it, that Moose will never leave your house! Addie joined us, since it was 4 minutes past her dinnertime and she wanted to convey that she was about to die of hunger.


We went to a birthday party this past weekend for the daughter of one of my co-workers. It was pure chaos, but in a fun way, and it reminded us of his birthday 3 1/2 months ago. Even more so, there were kids of all ages there, including a 6-week old, and it's really hard to imagine him being that sleepy, small and still. He's changing fast these days and it's fun to be able to interact in new ways now that he's communicating more and more every day. The weather is breaking even here in cold, gray Pittsburgh and I'm looking forward to putting his bike seat on my bike for some rides.

I'll end the post with a picture of Henry wanting to show his birthday party friends how climbing under the table is properly done.


-Dad

More "Say What?"

Sorry for the strange vertical format, but I was more concerned with the road at the moment.

"He's tremendous"

That's what Henry's pediatrician had to say about him at his fifteen-month visit. And really, who could argue?

At 15 months, Henry is 32.5 inches tall and weighs 28 pounds. At long last, he's solidly in the eightieth percentiles for both - 84th for height, 87th for weight (though his big head is still hanging around in the nineties). We got a print out of his record, and it's amazing to look at his growth - especially around seventh months, when he was recorded in the 101st percentile.

The doctor was also able to get a good look in his mouth, and pointed out that he's cutting approximately four new teeth, in addition to his molars. That kid does not play around when it comes to teeth.

Adam and I tend to think of ourselves as pretty laid-back, but we're certainly not immune to the paranoia and uncertainty that plague first-time parents. Our pediatrician does a great job of addressing our concerns and reassuring us that everything is as it should be, and we always leave Henry's appointments thinking - huh, maybe we're figuring this out after all. And we have one tremendous boy to show for it.