Regarding Henry- Mama

Here's an entire post about Henry.

Henry's really come into his own lately, and thanks largely to workbooks, he's been calming down and able to concentrate quietly for long periods of time. Last night he found a box of vehicle stencils and was busy tracing them for an hour this morning.

Of course, there are times when he can't entertain himself- namely when I'm changing June's diaper, putting her to bed, trying to fix supper, or trying to take my 20 minute afternoon nap (he always wakes up just after I lie down).

He's becoming very self-sufficient and can use the potty on his own- though he doesn't like to. He'd rather we pull up his pants for him. He remains the one kid I know who has no desire to undress and dress himself, but he will do it if he has to.

He's very loyal to his little sister, but that doesn't stop him from and occasional push or toy-grabbing. But overall, they get along surprisingly well. June is finally getting to an age where she doesn't demolish everything (namely his train tracks) immediately upon entering a room, but does get in his way sometimes which results in lots of yelling.

He's a delightful id to have around with a few exceptions. He NEVER stops talking, which really wears you out. He's starting to compare mama and papa. For example, mama won't switch albums on her Zune when we're driving in the car. Once we've picked an album (in the driveway), that's what we're staying with (especially since we only drive about 7 minutes at a time). So no flipping from the Beach Boys to Johnny Cash to the Kinks. But papa will change songs on the MP3 player to any song Henry wants to listen to. "Why don't you change it mama? Papa always changes it to my song. I want to ride with Papa next time."

And perhaps Henry's worst vice right now is the already huge amount of guilt that he inherited from his father and the Parsons side of the family. Henry will apologize for just about anything. "Pick up the spoon you dropped" "Okay, sorry for dropping my spoon." He really amped it up one day when we were coming in from outside and he pushed June down the step in the garage. I yelled at him and told him to go park cars in the spare bedroom- which is where he was racing June. I found him five minutes later crying in the bedroom and he sobbed to me and said "It really hurt my ears when you yelled at me." I felt pretty bad, so I apologized for yelling. He picked up on this as a pretty good way to get out of being in trouble, so now everytime he gets sent to time out, the tears flow and his ears hurt from my yelling. His main fault is that his ears hurt even when I don't yell. If I ask him to carry his dishes to the counter he responds "It really hurt my ears when you yell like that, mama." Sorry kid, you just lost all sympathy.