Uncommons

The school dining hall, Commons, is under renovation. So we had dinner tonight at "Uncommons," a.k.a. the old skating rink. Henry enjoyed the huge space, bright light, and commotion. Not to mention the mozzarella salad -- boy has the food gotten better since I was a student.

Birthday party

Yesterday was my Grandpa Valentin's birthday...

...but it was Henry who got the presents: a magnetic train that spells out Henry. (He practiced saying "Happy birthday," but didn't produce it till we were already out in the car.)

Growing menagerie

In Boston (where Mommy had a job interview... fingers crossed!). Henry has grown a lot and acquired a lot of new vocab since he last saw my folks less than a month ago. He has also gotten a lot faster. Here he is enjoying the run of the house and especially the big fuzzy rugs.

In the past two days he has also developed a fondness for a new pair of stuffed animals: Tiger and Bear. This is in addition to Doggie and Monkey. Now the five of them go everywhere together. (Except the first night when he announced he only wanted to sleep with Tiger and Bear, leaving the two more domesticated creatures out in the cold.) Sometimes he needs his hands and then he orders: "Mommy hold ammals!"

Diso eat pogit

We have discovered bubble bath...

...and blow-your-own soap bubbles. Henry loves poking them and shouting, "Poke!" or "Pop!" But here he is in a more contemplative mood:

I'm blogging now because Ken is away, on his way up to Boston for a job talk. By the first week or two in February we hope to know what we'll be doing next year. The possibilities (not choices! far be it from us, after 52 years of education between the two of us, to have choices!) for next year seem to be Boston, St. Louis, or just outside Austin, Tex. The job market has been a drag, but at least next year, no matter what else happens, both of Henry's parents will be living full-time in the same city. That will be a big relief. Having Ken back this past month (they get a loooong winter break, don't start again till Jan 28) has been wonderful, even if most of what we've had time to do is coach each other through interviews.

Meanwhile Henry... Henry. He is more than half my height (33 inches last Ken measured); talks in sentences, sometimes with articles and verb tenses ("Daddy was working." "Mommy is drinking a cup of water." "I want to eat amana" (he means banana); is getting attached to Doggie and Monkey, the stuffed animals (beanie babies really) that keep him company in bed; claims to have dreams at night ("about boys. And girls. Walking."); and when we are late to pick him up from the babysitter picks up a toy phone and sternly says: "Hello. Mommy? Hello. Hello, Daddy?" On Saturday at the Natural History Museum, where I had taken him in desperation on a very cold day so Ken could get an hour of writing done, he saw some dinosaur skeletons displayed on a bed of red gravel and announced: "Dinosaurs eat rocks." By analogy I guess, he came home and decided that his plastic miniature dinosaur eats pomegranate: "Diso eat pogit." So it goes.

Table toes

At lunch yesterday we told Henry that everything on the table is fair game for eating -- toes included. That did not deter him.

Mmm, yummy toes!

Tools

Does curiosity about tools come naturally to little humans? These photos are from before Christmas - Ken opened up one of the toys we had bought to realign the axles, which didn't seem quite straight. Henry was immediately intrigued and wanted to play with the screwdriver.

He was pretty adept with it, too.

Later he kept bringing the little school bus back to Ken and saying, "Broken!" in the hope that Ken would unscrew the cover again. Meanwhile, he had to content himself with pretending to take apart his little dump truck.

Quandary

Last night Henry figured out what names were for. It was amazing. First he said: "Henry... Jonah." Then he said: "Henry Jonah... Garden." Then he pointed to his dad and said: "Ken... Garden." (I can't remember whether we asked, but we had certainly prompted him for daddy's name many times before.) Then he looked at me, hesitating. Finally he said: "Mommy... Garden."

Whoops! Makes you want to change your name, doesn't it?

With Tosya

Who wants to sit with Mom and Dad (visibly exhausted from carrying you around all afternoon)... when you can go play with the doggie?

New Year's Day was Henry's first real exposure to a big rambunctious canine, though both his Grandma and Grandpa in Wisconsin have dogs too. He was intimidated of Tosya at first ("No, Doggie!") but it wasn't long before he ventured over to pat her.

Soon they were old friends. She even gave him some big wet kisses (not pictured). He said: "Doggie, kiss!"

Walkless walk

We took a walk around Lake Frank near Rockville, Md. Henry's feet didn't touch the ground.

Nor did he deign to sit in the stroller.

Lucky kid. (Good biceps workout for Mommy and Daddy, too.)

Ambidextrous?

Henry at our friends' Sanek and Marina's house in Virginia (over New Year's). Can you see the second spoon in his left hand? Why limit yourself to just one when you can use two?

(Of course, the presence of only one mouth causes a bit of a delay.)

"Leave your hat on"

Henry would like to wish all his fans on four (perhaps five or six? John, are you reading this from Antarctica?) continents a very Happy New Year.

Hurray for 2008!

These were taken in the afternoon on the 31st, before we left for the New Year's party around 8. Henry then fell asleep in the car. He stayed asleep most of the way through the party (we had brought along a Pack-and-Play), only waking up at 4am, in very good spirits, to do a brief cameo appearance until we left at 5. Miraculously, he went back to bed when we got home and slept until 9:30 am, by which time someone (namely my mom) was awake enough to take care of him. So, New Year's Day was much less miserable than we had feared. (This is for the information of all those people who have asked us how having a baby affects one's social life.)

Christmas in Madison

Happy New Year, everyone! We are back in New Haven now after a trip to Madison and Richland Center (with a short detour to Chicago, sans child, for a romantic lunch and a very un-romantic round of interviews at the Modern Language Association conference) and then another little trip to the DC suburbs to celebrate the new year with family friends. Henry was a real angel on all the flights, was friendly to most of the new people he met, didn't pull the tails of any of the dogs (as far as we know) and seems to have enlarged his vocabulary about fivefold. ("Honey! The bees! A hive!")
And now some photos from last week (aka last year).


Here is Henry continuing to explore his interest in the visual arts at his Grandma Ann's dining table (while his Dad goes on and on about something highly abstruse).

Hmm... body painting?