Henry, at this moment

I know I say this a lot, but Henry's brain amazes me. At 13 months and 2 days, this kid recognizes the color blue, and I'll be darned if he doesn't give saying the word "blue" a college try. Today he found one of his Baby Einstein mini books and sat quietly facing away from me saying "bwoo". When I looked over, he was on the "Blue" page pointing at all the blue objects. That same afternoon he found Dr. Seuss's ABC book and turned the pages on his his own to find his favorite page in the book. The first time I read that book to him, when he was probably around 8 months old, he laughed so hard when I read "Goat, girl, goo goo goggles, G! G! G!". Its still his favorite page, I see. Only now he was saying "Go Ga!" at the page. Which to me means he was attempting saying Goat, Girl. I swear my heart couldn't get any bigger right now. Speaking of books, a few weeks ago he started bringing us books from his pile, holding them up to us, and grunting. Its the cutest thing I ever did see. He's also been playing favorites lately with a few of his books. One in particular gets read to him at lease 5 times a day, sometimes 5 times in a row! Its big board book all about trucks and planes and tractors, you know, all the things that make little boys' hearts sing. 

He's started refusing to eat anything we hand him. He has to use his fork, like a proper young gentleman. At first it was hard for me not to help him with it, to push food onto it for him or to reposition it in his hand. I learned quickly that he wanted no part of that. If I put food on his fork, he was going to take it off and not eat it. So meals take a little longer than they used to but that's fine because he's learning. He's picked up speed and precision pretty quickly. 

Now that the temperatures are warming, we've been spending the bulk of our days outside. We usually stick around the farmyard at home, but sometimes we will go visit Grandma in town or Auntie at the park. Henry LOVES going outside. So much that its the first thing he wants to do in the morning. A lot of mornings, he'll run out into the kitchen and grab his shoes, bringing them in to me and shaking them in front of me saying "doo! dooo!" which is his word for shoe. Other times he'll follow Chris on his way outside to start morning chores and refuse to let go of his leg. When Chris finally sneaks out the door, the moment Henry hears the door squeak he collapses with so much drama to the floor and screams. If it weren't so cold yet in the mornings, I'd gladly take him out. But some days, when its raining and windy, Henry just doesn't understand that being outside isn't an option. He was so upset on one such day last week that I had to put his coat and shoes on and step outside with him so he could feel why it wasn't a good idea. After a few seconds he was reaching up for me and trying to get back inside. Lesson learned. He says "OW! OW!" when he stands at the door which I take as meaning "out". He's such a little person now. I still call him my sweet baby and probably always will.