Henry at Dock

Henry is not, in fact, pausing between laps around the lake to chat with his Mom. He is standing in 18" of water in the Merrimac River in Lawrence, MA, where he passed the time waiting for his grandma and grandpa to return from sailing. (This was back in August - Aaron and Ana just sent us this wonderful photo.) First he played in the sand by the edge of the water (burying his feet etc.), but then he demanded to go in. Then he kept climbing in and out of the water, parading around the dock in his birthday suit, and generally having a great time, The sooner this kid gets infant swimming lessons the better.

Taste in books

A couple weeks ago Henry and I were over Anya and Nick's house for supper. While we were eating he went into the living room and randomly picked a book off the shelf. We thought his selection was pretty funny:


Reader contest: Can you think of other books with Henry in the title? Shakespeare excluded.

Asteroid ahead?

Retro Rocket, prepare for blastoff!

Some little Henry videos

Supposedly, you can now add videos directly in Blogger (without first uploading them to Google Video). Let's try it. Here's Henry playing with the Casio at my folks' house - note his promising hand position:



More music! Playing a set of chimes hanging between two trees on the Phillips Academy campus (and saying every baby's favorite line, "Uh-oh!")...



And, now back home - listen carefully! - Henry demonstrating his newfound ability to say Thank You.

We taught him to do "thank you" as a baby sign language sign... but now he sometimes spontaneously says it in words. How long do they stay this well-mannered?

Ana Paula and her mom...

...under the prettiest autumn tree in Andover.

Nope, definitely not afraid of water

Swimming with Aunt Ana

The reason for our visit to Andover was that Aaron and Ana were back in town. They've announced their plans to get married next summer! Ana's parents came to visit from Brazil, too. Of course, I absent-mindedly neglected to take any big family photos. (Hopefully, some of those will turn up at aaronana.blogspot.com.) But here is Ana in the pond with Henry.

At the pond

Saturday afternoon, Harold Parker State Forest (Mass.)

Henry loves to go in the water - we should get him swimming lessons.


Better get out before it gets too cold!

Helpful Henry

A cleanup day a couple of weeks ago (this was before the whisk broom).

The big broom is lots of fun.

Will it work on the rug?

Up!

Sleep has really been an issue lately. Henry was up at 5am on Sunday (his diaper had overflowed -- but we think his top teeth are giving him some grief too) so by 8am we were already post-oatmeal and ready for a hike. It's a nice hour to be on the trail at Sleeping Giant -- empty and peaceful. Need I mention that Henry promptly fell asleep in the car on the way there, and slept more than halfway to the top? Then he fell asleep again in the car on the way home, only to wake up for lunch. Bye-bye, parental plans for an afternoon nap! His babysitter has been reporting lots of napless days as well. To everyone's consternation. (But he seems to be fine.)


Fortunately Henry woke up in time to scale some boulders at the top. "UP!" he said. (One of his most useful new words.)

He's actually quite strong. (The other day, at the playground, he climbed up a chainlink fence with just the tiniest bit of help from me. He had seen some bigger kids doing it and been just fascinated.)

Reaching the summit!

Pix from back in Aug

Henry is getting very cute these days. He toddles around singing "Walk-walk," he repeats the strangest words ("dooo" to the door, "pool" to the electrical pole on our street, "water" to the rain outside), and he can almost do the gestures accompanying the "Itsy-bitsy spider" song. He enjoys being Helpful Henry: bringing his bowl to the sink when he's done eating, sweeping the floor with a whisk broom we bought him (the full-sized broom proved unmanageable), and brushing both of his teeth every morning and evening. That's not to say he doesn't enjoy being Horrible Henry as well: hitting mommy (a big loud slap, ideally), refusing to sit in his high chair, screaming a special back-of-the-throat scream guaranteed to make a parent's hair stand on end. Whether to be good or bad seems to make no difference as long as it keeps him at the center of attention.

We've been too busy to take any good pictures, but here are some from his trip to Wisconsin last month to tide over his loyal fans. Splashing around with Grandpa on the deck...


...and showing off his (formidable!) climbing skills.

An afternoon at Sleeping Giant

Tomorrow is the first day of school for Ken and me. We realized in retrospect what a long and easygoing summer it has been. This afternoon we went to Sleeping Giant State Park for a little hike: one last hurrah.

Henry is exactly 15 months old today. He has a slight cold and got a little carsick on the way to the park. But he's indomitable nonetheless. After sitting fairly patiently in the stroller on the way up the hill, he ran all over the place at the summit. His balance is a lot better these days, and it's a good thing too: one of his favorite games is to pick up a pebble or a clump of grass and hurl it over the edge of a rock wall or terrace. Also enjoys climbing rocks...

...laughing at his own private jokes...

...charging bravely into dark echoey WPA-era towers.

His parents are pretty comfortable letting him run wild, but we have limits.

If only we had some more of these beautiful summer days.

Henry's busy day (finale)

Henry held up very nicely way past his bedtime. Here we're coming back on the 11:22pm train.

In Central Park

Here he's gallivanting around Central Park with our friend Mo, who also went to the wedding.

More urban wildlife to observe: geese (stay out of their sandbox, please)...

...and turtles in the pond.

Our only picture of the wedding itself, held in the Conservatory Garden. (Note the handsome groom at stage left, talking on his cell phone.)

Henry's busy day

Last gasps of summer. Yesterday Henry had a very full day. After breakfast we went to our usual park, where Henry played on the toy car on the playground...

...and saw the family of swans that lives in the river (the cygnets have gotten much bigger since we first spotted them last spring).

Then we took a train into New York to attend our friend Aditya's wedding. It was Henry's first train ride and he was all over the place, peering over the seats in search of peek-a-boo participants.

On the 125th St. train platform.