2 Year Old Henry

Holy moly I love my almost 2 year old Henry even more than I loved 18 month old Henry or any of the Henrys before that. We are having so much fun these days. Especially these past 2 weeks now that I am officially used to him disagreeing with everything I say:

Me: You're doing great

Henry: No doing great

He talks a lot. Just pointing out things he knows and narrating what his toys are doing, making his own little sentences. It is so sweet when he gets the grammar wrong like when he says "make it more". But it is also so sweet when he says a perfect sentence in just the right context. He even says "I" every once in a while.

He sings. His favourite songs are The Alphabet Song and the Thomas the Tank Engine Song. And occasionally he'll sing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star which is awesome too.

He plays. Some days he'll play by himself mostly all day, totally engrossed. My favourite is when he plays with his doll house. He makes the family sit down to dinner (always pancakes and maple syrup if you ask him). And he rocks the baby to sleep and sings to it.

And of course he plays with his cars. Pushing them all around. He can also be very nurturing to his cars especially to Lightning McQueen who always gets a share of Henry's food and drink and one time Henry even said Lightning McQueen needed his diaper changed and then ran into his bedroom with him. And he likes to take his toys including his cars for rides in his doll stroller too.

He is really into playing with water the past month or so too. He LOVES baths. He LOVES going to City's big indoor pool. And he even likes putting his hands in the water while I wash the dishes which makes washing the dishes more fun for me. And he likes to wash his hands and when we do he often wants to run and find a car to "wash wheels" and then he'll play with the car in the water in the sink for awhile.

And he loves to go on walks, a new thing he likes is riding his lion car all the way to the playground. He loves that lion car. And he still loves to help shovel snow.

When he wakes up he comes into our bedroom and says "mommy and daddy play". And sometimes he'll say "play together".

Just recently he loves saying that he's a bad boy, I don't know where he got this from. He even has a squinty-eyed face to go with his bad boy persona. And of course we can't help but laugh when he says this so he will continue to do it.

When you suggest that he close his eyes, the only way he knows how to do it is to squint a lot. And he has forgotten hos to blow. He wants to blow out the candle and puts his face up close and then nothing, it's a bit sad.

He really likes his bedtime routine: the monster pyjamas and reading the horrible boring Thomas the Tank Engine Books that are too boring to read the rest of the day. So he'll often say he's "ready bed" when he's not.

He still loves being read to.

He is done napping, with just the occasional nap on busy days or days when he had a bad sleep and he usually wakes up cranky from them. The only thing that calms down super cranky Henry is suggesting we watch some Thomas and then he immediately goes from crying to smiling and saying "choo choo" and "all aboard".

He sleeps in his own bed in his own room and when he wakes up needing help getting back to sleep he just comes into our room. Occasionally I am so happy to see my little sweetie that I let him stay but, in preparation for the new baby coming, Kevin usually takes him back to his own bed to lie with him to help him back to sleep.

I keep waiting to get used to having a kid, but it's not happening. Henry gets better and better all the time and I am constantly blown away by how awesome being a parent is and how crazy it is that I just happen to have the best kid in the whole wide world.