Henry @ 22 months

It's been a while since I've given and update on all Henry can do. So here you go!
* He will say the alphabet on occasion...not on demand, but time to time he will sing it while he plays.
*He recognizes the letters E,O,W,T,Y,U,A. He points out letters on signs, in the grocery store, in books and shouts out random letters. It almost sounds like he has some rare form of Tourettes :) He gets the ones he knows right but I'm just happy/impressed that he recognizes that yes, those are letters and they make up words.
*He counts to 10!! Yes he can! Most of the time he leaves out 7, but still, I'm amazed.
*He knows all of his body parts, moving beyond the basics. He now knows elbows, back, etc.
*He knows the shapes: circle, triangle, diamond, star, heart.
*He will attempt to sing the days of the week--we're still working on this one, but he has picked it up because of a book on time we have.
*He knows several book titles just by looking at the cover-Big Red Barn, Goodnight Gorilla, Small, Small, Pond, Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, Rock a Baby Band, Goodnight Moon, Mommies Say Shhh!, Bunnies on the Go, Z is for Zoo.....I could go on and on. He LOVES LOVES LOVES to read so he is familiar with most every book we have. You can say "Go get ________ off the shelf" and he will grab it and bring it right to you. You will also catch him "reading" these books to himself. He will look and the pictures and narrate the page. He is very accurate!
*His new favorite movies are Peter Pan and Beauty and the Beast. Surprisingly, he has backed off of Cars a bit. No change in Curious George though, he still LOVES him.
*He's very aware of his surroundings. For instance, we can get in the car and he will shout "Ice Cream...mmmmmm!" and we will be driving past Brusters. On another occasion, we passed the library and he shouted "Books! Books!" Best yet, we were driving down the road one day and we turned right. He started crying. I asked him what was wrong and he said "Nene's house!! Go Nene's house!" He realized where we were at and that we had turned the wrong way. Had we turned left, we would have been right at Nene's house!
*He loves Luke. Very often during the day, for no reason he will just run over and kiss his head. If they are playing on the floor, Henry will come and kiss him and hold his hand. He also loves to "hold" Luke. I hear "Mama, mama. I hold!" a lot.
*At night when we let the water out of the tub, EVERY time he will wait for all of the water to drain out and say "Bye Bye bubbles! See ya tomarra!" :)
*Each morning when he gets up, he ask me where his Dada is. I tell him "Dada's at work baby, he'll be home soon." Again, every morning he says "Dada work with BIG tucks at stuction site!"
*He wants so to be a helper! It ends up creating more mess but melts my heart that he tries so! He likes to help put the clothes into the dryer and when I put them on the couch to fold them he will wad them up and hand them to me saying "Tank you!" His newest habit is getting the dirty silverware out of the dishwasher and putting up in the drawer for me! lol

I could go on and on. He amazes me daily with how bright he is. He picks up things quickly and I do work with him a lot BUT the biggest thing is he always WANTS to learn about new things. I can't begin to tell you how many times we hear "What dat?" in a day.


Now, for the flip side of being 22 months old. We have started to get a nice preview of the "terrible twos"! Stubborn and strong willed and easily upset. It's frustrating. That's the truth. As a child development major, I keep reminding Jeremy (and myself!) that this is a normal part of development. He has increasing independence and is pushing his boundaries but doesn't yet have all of the language necessary to express himself either. I'm sure Luke has a part in the bad behavior too, I expected that! Henry has always been a Mama's boy through and through, and he still is. He seems to get most frustrated when I'm feeding Luke. He never takes it out on Luke though, he just gets mad at me!! We are picking our battles with him. Addressing some things promptly and firmly and ignoring others (like the tantrums he decided to try. found out quick those don't work!)
Oh, and let me address this while I'm on this topic! We were in Hibbet last Sunday so Jeremy could look at some shoes. I had the boys in the double stroller. We got ready to leave and Henry wasn't ready to go, started crying. We quickly headed to the door so we could get out without causing a scene and ruin someone elses shopping experience. As we are walking out some nosy middle aged woman says "Oh bless his heart! He's just upset because he has a brother he wasn't ready for and had no say in the matter." What the hell lady!?! Did we ask for a comment from the peanut gallery #1. #2, our reproductive choices are frankly none of your damn business and you had better be glad my husband didn't hear your comment until I told him when we got in the car (and had to stop him from going back in to retort back). And just a side note, peoples lack of couth all together on the closeness of our two floors me. "Was he an accident?" "Were you on birth control?" believe it or not someone asked me "how it happened" I don't think an adult should need a lesson in basic sex ed and "how it happened" RUDE RUDE RUDE! Anyway, RAMBLING! I will stop! Back to Henry....

He is still extremely sweet and happy. He sings and dances through the house, loves to paint and draw with his "cayons" and still gives the best kisses and hugs. Oh, and nose kisses, but those are reserved for Mama ;) I love my sweet boy and couldn't be more proud of him.