Week in Review

A handful of stories that haven't fit into any other recent posts:

Henry and Eleanor have been interested in sitting at the kitchen table, so I ordered them some booster seats. They arrived this week, and we’ve been using them to some success. Eleanor likes to stand in hers, and I have to repeatedly remind her that we sit at the big table. And Henry tries to climb from his booster onto the table. But yesterday and today they have eaten all their meals in their booster seats. They’ll stand by the chairs and ask me, “Up?” so I’ll help them to be seated. We might be on our way to weaning off the high chairs.

On Saturday Julie and I went to Kroger, where I picked up some curried couscous salad to eat for lunch when I got home. Eleanor saw me eating and did her baby bird imitation to score herself a bite. I didn’t think she would like it—it’s a bit more flavorful than other foods she eats. But she LOVED it and I maybe got one bite for every four of Eleanor’s. I got Eleanor to say “couscous”—“coo-coo,” she called it. Henry had some, too, but didn’t seem as enamored of it. When I’d try to sneak him a chickpea he’d spit it back out, although he thought the raisins were pretty tasty. I was happy that they both enjoyed their first taste of curry and daydreamed of the trips to the Indian buffet in our future.

I think Henry’s had some bad dreams lately. One morning he woke up super-early, like around 5:30 or so, and another night he awoke suddenly around 11:00. Both times he was immediately crying, and it took a little while for him to calm down. Poor little guy. I want all of his dreams to be of dogs and cars and computers.

Henry sometimes does a little happy dance when you’re preparing him some food. This weekend I was pouring some Goldfish into his snack cup, and Henry started making the sign for “more” and saying “more cracker.” He got super fired up, and started hopping from one foot to the other and saying, “more cracker more cracker MORE CRACKER MORECRACKERMORECRACKERMORECRACKER.” This is probably a “you had to be there” story, but Julie and I are still cracking up about it. It was probably the most ridiculous I’ve ever seen Henry act.

Eleanor has become more obsessed with her cat stuffed animal/blanket. She’s taken to carrying it with her everywhere. It went with us to a playgroup last week and on errands yesterday. If you hear her saying, “kitty! kitty!” you know you’d better find Kitty soon or else.

My recently-placed Old Navy order arrived last night. Included were the hat and mitten sets that I bought for Henry and Eleanor. Eleanor saw me taking items out of the shipping box, noticed the hat, and demanded that I put it on her. She sat at the kitchen table for a while with Aunt Julie, happily wearing her hat while drinking her bedtime milk. Henry saw Eleanor’s hat and wanted his on, too, so they both ran around with them on. The mittens were still attached to the top and would flop to and fro as they ran. They wore them through story time and watching Wheel of Fortune and took them off only when it was time for night-night.

A few photos for your perusal: