Archive for the ‘Henry’ Category

He’s been 2 for 22 days now.

Emotionally, he turned 2 a few months ago. It’s been rough in this house – I always tell him he’s lucky he’s cute.

We never experienced the “terrible twos” with the other boys. This is a new thing for me – I think God saved it all up for Henry. We can no longer walk into stores with Henry – he screams like we’re cutting off his arm and don’t even think about trying to get his hair cut.

We’ve also been enjoying what “2″ has brought to our lives. We can take walks and Henry will hold our hands. He LOVES. LOVES. LOVES. books. He’s getting better about communicating what he wants, his pediatrician is FREAKING. OUT. about the fact that he doesn’t speak much. He doesn’t speak in 2 to 3 word sentences, so his doctor wants to send him to speech therapy. {Don’t get me started.} We’ll see where that takes us. He’s also become quite good at using a fork AND a spoon – makes for cleaner shirts

The boy is a gem. I just cannot imagine what my life would have been like without him.

I had BIG plans to be up to date on Henry’s scrapbook. I would do each month as it passed and I would be able to open the book today and see pages done up to 22 months (he’s 23 months old). That never happened. In fact, he’ll be 2 in a few short weeks and I don’t have one page in that book. I have a few done, but they aren’t in order. I’ve heard scrapbookers say that one can never be behind in scrapbooking. My oldest boy will be 8 this year. I have his 3rd birthday done. I’d say that’s being behind. My middle boy turned 6 in January – I’ve got his 1st birthday done. Again, behind.

Here are some that I’ve worked on recently:

I think it’s something that’s embedded into the genes of women who become mothers. You know you’re done having children. But, seeing babies makes your uterus and ovaries quake like nothing else. You see a fresh from the heavens baby and you sigh and look longingly. I do it often. I see pregnant women and long for that belly again. I know I don’t want anymore children. Sigh.

I’ve been forced to sort through the baby clothes in my house. Henry is moving into 2T stuff and I need to clean out the smaller stuff. I hold up the itty bitty pieces and tears well up in my eyes. I’ll never have another peanut to put in those clothes. I’ll never be able to soak up that baby smell. I’ll never sit on my couch and hold a newborn for hours. and hours. and hours. It amazes me {and saddens me at the same time} that time has flown that quickly. I look at some of those clothes and remember my sweet Will wearing them and now, he’s 7 1/2. I held the outfit that Jake wore when he first learned to walk. I smelled the clothes that I swear Henry wore last week, but really, it was many, many months ago. Time is funny – it has a way of making you mourn what you don’t have anymore, but it also has a way of making you treasure where you are right now.

My sister in law is having twins this summer – we’re all very excited. I’m sorting the clothes for her {if she has a boy or boys}. I took out one outfit that I’ll keep forever. It reminds me SO much of my two younger boys – it makes me smile every time I look at it. I’ll keep one that reminds me of my big boy, too.

I’ll pass these clothes on to people who need them, treasure the few pieces I keep for myself and smile. I have lots of pictures and memories that no one else can have.

Apparently, God likes the look of snow far more than dead grass. Just when I was able to see my entire lawn, He switched it up and dumped a good 5 or 6 inches of that icky, white stuff on us. {I prefer the look of dead grass myself}. That icky, white stuff gave my boys a much needed snow day, where they were able to play outside with friends and just be little boys.

Henry experienced his first snow day, too. I wasn’t sure of the reaction I’d get when he felt the snow, but he loved it. {bad mom alert – he’ll be 2 in April and this is his first snow experience. I hate snow and don’t like to be in it, so I’ve never taken him out in it. I suck.} He loved it so much that when it was time to come in, I had to physically pick him up and drag him in the house. {the temper tantrum thrown once we were in the house was like one I’ve never witnessed from a 22 month old before. Ever.} The snow day was nice for me, too – I didn’t need to set the alarm to get up at 0 dark thirty to get everyone ready for school.

I spend most of my awake hours keeping this little handful out of things. I’m certain I’ll look back on this stuff in a few years and laugh, but right now, it’s incredibly frustrating. I need to find a cabinet lock to put on my pantry – as you can see, he likes to get in it. In fact, he likes to try to SIT in it. Right now, as I try to type this out, I’m sharing couch space with a box of cake mix, some teddy grahams and some boxed dinners. Those Betty Crocker fruit Stickerz packages are thrown all over the living room floor. I have packages of food in my pantry that I can’t identify – he’s torn the boxes up and taken stuff out of boxes, so I have no idea what belongs where. I keep telling myself that I’m going to miss this stuff, so I’m doing my best to just take it all in stride.

I’m working on some cute scrapbook pages that I’ll share here soon. My husband also bought me a sewing machine – YAY!!!! I tried to go to Joann’s and look around yesterday, but someone wasn’t very cooperative and started screaming as soon as we walked in. I can’t wait to start sewing some things.

As you can see, it’s been a hodge podge of sorts around here. We’ve been doing little bits of this and that. Life is good.

I don’t remember any trying times from the 2nd year of my older boys’ lives. They were both pretty even keeled. While we did experience the occasional tantrum, those 2 years were fun and not too eventful.

So, I believe what I’m experiencing now is called payback and Henry is only 1 1/2. It must be the 3rd child thing. Henry…oh, Henry. The cord being wrapped around his neck should have been my first glimpse into the trouble this child would be involved in.

The hard surfaces in our house should beware – Henry has taken to banging his head on anything hard that’s near him. He’ll do it once, then scream. Then, he does it again and screams. He’ll repeat it until I tell him to stop. Then, he throws himself on the floor.

Being told no is not on my boy’s top 10 list of fun things. I have a feeling the next year and a half is going to be lots of fun around here.

and now, he’s one and a half. This morning, I had several moms at the school my older boys attend ask how old Henry was. I had one mom say she remembered when I was pregnant with him. I remember it, too. Like it was yesterday.

Eighteen months have flown by – much, much faster than I’d like. He’s turned into such an awesome, fun little boy with a big personality. I’m afraid that I’m going to blink again and then, he’ll be on his way to Kindergarten. He starts day care on Monday – just one day a week. I’ll use that one day a week for doctor’s appointments, grocery shopping, hair appointments AND to help in the classrooms of my other 2 boys. I’m hoping Henry will spend those days learning and playing with other little kids. I, too, hope that he’ll want to come back to his mama at the end of day care day. Mama can only handle so many hours of being away.

I spent the majority of this week feeling helpless. My baby boy was sick and I couldn’t take his pain away. What started out as a low grade fever turned into a knock down, drag out 104.9 fever that rendered my boy horribly lethargic, miserable and in the ER. While we were still at home, I tried Motrin and Tylenol and the fever would come down to 102 and it wouldn’t budge from there. Within an hour or so, it was right back up again. We spent several hours in the ER with a resident who was a bit of an alarmist (She walks into the room, takes one look at my boy and rushes out yelling, “I think we need to admit this kid”. I immediately start to panic and cry. She comes back in and says, “I didn’t mean to worry you.” Really!?!?!) Urine tests, chest x-rays and blood work all came back negative. They diagnosed him with a possible ear infection, gave him a whopper of an antibiotic shot and a script for more antibiotics and sent us on our way. Two days later, he wasn’t much better, so we went to his pediatrician. He was diagnosed with a throat infection there (docs in the ER said his throat was fine. ugh.). His pediatrician said that he’d start to feel better by Friday night or Saturday morning and that was true – by Saturday morning, he was feeling a little spunky and by this morning, he woke up cool as a cucumber and feelin’ fine. I’ve never been happier to see that boy show me his devilish, little smile. With Henry around, life is always interesting. Hopefully it will be a little less interesting for a while.

Ensemble from Target.

You Capture. Sweet.

One year ago today, this sweet little boy entered the world. Once I put him on my belly and started talking to him, he stopped crying and stared at me. The love affair began right there.

I’ve done my best, as his mother, to soak up EVERY. OUNCE. of this year. I’ve patiently dealt with all of life’s upheavals when a newborn joins the family. I’ve spent many, many hours just sitting – staring at him, smelling his hair, playing with his feet. I needed to memorize all of him.

This year has gone so amazingly fast. I vividly remember every detail of his birth – my water broke at exactly this time 1 year ago (1:34 p.m.) – I remember where I was and what I was doing. It’s so surreal to me that all these months have passed and we’ve hit one year.

ONE YEAR.

I have a bond with this boy that I didn’t know could exist. Don’t get me wrong, I adore my big boys. They both hold very special places in my heart and I have bonds with them that I don’t have with Henry.

I didn’t sleep well last night – there was a yucky pit in my stomach. It was inevitable – he was going to turn 1, whether I wanted him to or not. I’m happy and excited on the outside, but a little piece of my heart is breaking on the inside. I just wanted him to stay little forever.

Staying little isn’t going to happen. I’ll continue to enjoy every bit of this. I’ll keep that little broken piece of me on the inside and celebrate this year with my family tonight and let him grow.

Happy Birthday my sweet boy. I love you more than you’ll ever know.