23 months

Henry turned 23 months yesterday. WOW! His second birthday is looming! I would be sad about this if he weren't just so much fun right now! I'm going to try to make this short and sweet, but I know I always end up being long-winded. 

Henry is talking up a storm, and he's saying so many phrases. He is a chatter box really. I don't normally hear them in the halls at school, but one day this month I could hear his little voice coming down the hall. I waited til they passed, and he was chattering all the time. When I poked my head out, I saw he was not the only one getting to go on an little outing, but the other kid was totally quiet. Henry was narrating everything (a running theme), and I could hear him saying, "downstairs, downstairs" as they took the three steps down the stairs....I'm sure the nursery workers are thinking, "Sheesh! Be quiet kid!", but we love it.:) It's just fun to hear him make connections.

 Some things he's been saying this month are: "I pet big doggies!" (after we'd been at the dog park), "see you later!", windy, cold, brrr, "this way!", "lick it" (said this when he saw I was mixing icing with beaters-how did he know this??), "push button!", chicken dance (LOVES this), battery (baa-lu-lee), "we fixed it!", "I wanna hold it", all Winnie the Pooh and Sesame Street character names, "I need bibbett!!" (when I was putting Henry to bed one night I realized that I did not have his night time frog lovie, so I yelled down to Steven to see if he could find it-Henry proceeded to yell down, "Dada! I need bibbett, Dada!!", warm, cozy (when describing his blankie), napkin (he likes to get out napkins from the drawer before we eat and open them up and give everyone one), "no sir", "too much", "so much", "too loud", "like Layna!!" (when he got to sit in the big part of the cart rather than in the front part with strap for the first time), "all done milk", "big kids!" (when he sees the older students as we leave school or when we see kids in the neighborhood riding bikes), "Henry did it!!!!" (so proud when showing us his art after church or school), "Go away, bug. Move." (I heard this coming from the back seat while driving one day...he thinks anything little and black is a bug, so he was saying this to some lint on his pants), "I NEED it!!" or "I NEEDED that!" (this one has gotten frequent and annoying! Especially when we are in public and we are taking something away from him that he's ruining or that will harm him, and he says this, it sounds like we are torturing him!).

 "Rain, rain go away" (I didn't know he actually knew this song, but he broke out into it when it was raining one day and we were running to the car), "moo,  moo here" (etc.), "Henry Hough, Kelly Hough, Steven Hough, mama Hough, dada Hough" (he says these randomly...Steven was trying to teach him his last name, and he caught right on-its weird to hear him say it, but cute, too!), "I take raisins in!" (from the car), "Touchdown!!" (this is hilarious! He goes right in front of the TV when Steven is watching sports, bends down, smacks the ground with his hands, and says, "Touchdown!!"), "Tennessee hat" (tee-see-hat), "toilet paper", "What mama doing?", "Robin baby belly. Big! Mama baby belly", mickey mouse, sit down, come on, Maggie!, Arkey, arkey (for Noah's ark song and book), "MINE!" (oh, dear!), "No, MINE!", "ouch, my bottom hurts" (after getting strapped into his car seat one time), "no...no....here!" (when working puzzels), "dada, sit other sofa" (when Steven walks in and we are already sitting on the sofa, Henry likes to boss him where to go), "like big boys!" (when on his 4 wheeler), "like Layna, like Kaia!" (when drinking from a cup), rainbow, "owe! It hurts me!" (sometimes true, sometimes dramatic), "monkeys jumping on bed", "plug it up!", "dada work, dada working", "meet dada"

He's also been answering lots of questions lately, like, when he was on Facetime the other night with Grandpa, he asked him what he had for dinner, and Henry said, "I ate beans!" (a true statement!). He also asked what mama was doing and Henry said, "Cooking!" Steven asked him what he wanted to do the other day, and he said, "play puzzels". When we ask him what does the fox say, Henry says, "wha, pah, pah, pah, pah, pah pah!" and it's so funny. He's been putting "me" at the end of a lot of statements lately like, "all done me". I guess it's his way of saying, "I'm all done" instead of just "all done".

A few other notes...he's slowed down on the potty, which is fine with me. I took a potty ring to school to see if he'd use it there, but evidently he was kind of anti-using it, so I told them not to worry about it. It is a big, cold, sterile room where he would go, so I can kind of understand his hesitation. We do it when it works for us, and don't really push it otherwise. We've put child safety handles on the pantry door. He just couldn't keep his little hands off it-it's a plethora of fun in there! He seems to be back into exploring again in general...he went through a phase of opening drawers, emptying, dumping, etc. a while back, and now he's into it again much to my chagrin! Oh, well. At least I know it is a phase. He's getting better at knowing his colors, but just when we think he has the basics, he will say a random color for one he "should" know. Oh well! He knows the letter "H", and we are starting to talk about some others...he's capable of knowing these. I feel kinda bad I haven't worked with him on it more! I'm realizing what a good sleeper Henry is. After our little bedtime routine, Henry wants to snuggle for just a second, but then he says, "night, night!" and he kind of lunges for his crib. He LOVES his blankie, and as long as he has that he is great with getting in it. He kind of giggles as he is getting lowered into bed and snuggles right in! It's certainly a blessing. He still has 12 hr nights and 3 hr afternoon naps. One more thing-he was such a ham for the above pics! When he saw we had the camera, he plopped himself right down and proceeded to say, "cheese!!" and over. I didn't mean for his wet hair to look THAT slicked down, but oh well! It's either this or total wildness:) He loves to see videos of himself and pictures of himself, and this provides us with some distractions sometime, which is a handy-dandy thing to have in your back pocket!

Well, this has ended up being so long. Sheesh! We love you, little man. Can't wait to see what next month holds!