Stargazing with the Boys

Walter and I are obsessed with one another. 'Course, for him it may have a lot to do with my being his food source, but I like to delude myself in believing that I am the most important person in his life (again, maybe due to the food source thing...). We gaze at one another as though no one else exists.

Henry is marvelous. And a stitch. He has this way of talking himself into things. He'll ask a question to me, and if it is about him doing something he already wants to do, he won't wait for me to answer, he simply says, "Yes, Okay" and proceeds onward. He says "ok" very firmly as though the decision has been made and there is no going back.

I'm learning about Toddler Time - which simply means to find that perfect balance of giving notice when needed, but not when it would be distracting. Hmmm. For instance, when at the playground make sure to give notice of when we're leaving: "Henry, 5 more minutes." This is good. However, saying something like, "Henry after dinner we're going to go see your friends C and L", is NOT good. Timing is EVERYTHING, I am learning, and the latter is not something poor lil Henry can wait for. Everything, EVERYTHING must come to a stop and we must go see friends NOW.

In the above case, I did try to impose my rules and tried unsuccessfully to get him to eat first until I finally realized that it didn't matter if he wanted to go first and eat later. We were almost ready to go when I found my lovely lil son dancing (which he does wonderfully) in the living room all the time chanting, "Chicken! Chicken!", giggling all the while.

For those of you who don't know Henry AT ALL, he is rather obsessed with things that go. As we are on a leisurely stroll, it is not uncommon to all of a sudden hear him scream out, "mor-sickle!!!", or "bus weiss!!!!" ("Weiss" you ask? Oh, it means "here/there".) "Where?" I bite. "Weiss!!!" he says pointing in the direction a bus/camper surely must have been, or currently is. If indeed it is a camper, I might tell him the difference between a bus and a camper and point out that in fact, they do look rather similar, and he will undoubtedly respond with, "Weelll, yes!"

Henry is interacting more now, having recently realized that his parents are much more useful than he ever imagined in that they could be used as playmates! So, often we are "asked" to "Play Now" - which, if I remind him to ask nicer, morphs into "Mama, Play Now. Please." with a slightly gentler tone.

Today we toodled down to the playground and Henry said, "nice day". And it was - a lovely summer, blue sky, no humidity day.