Henry update

Henry had his 18-month checkup this week, and the ped was delighted to see him back on the weight chart (5th percentile). Since he eats all day long, and most of that time he's in motion, I wasn't worried at all, but I guess she still thinks about it, despite my previous off-the-chart skinny kid. I just grow skinny kids. And they don't eat junk food all day long, so they don't gain tons of extra weight as toddlers. And since they start out skinny, they don't get fatter as they get more active. But they are both healthy, so the weight shouldn't be a concern, yet it is. It still makes me wonder, with childhood obesity on the rise, which surely skews those charts for toddlers and preschoolers, why they still want to worry about active 22lb. 18-month olds. Whatever.

On the language front, Henry just meets the requirements for his age. Apparently, he's supposed to be using 5-10 words by now, including animal sounds. Since he says Mom, yeah (da), that (dat), there (dey), uh oh, and can baa like a sheep, roar like a lion and a multitude of other animals, and bark like a dog, he qualifies as talking enough for his age. It does amaze me how much he understands even though he doesn't talk much. I asked him today if he wanted to eat a pear (Margaret had just asked for one). He shook his head no, and I told him he would have to get off my lap so I could get Margaret's pear. He slid off my lap, turned around and said, da! He then wandered off while I got the pear.

One other sound he makes is the sound Margaret's Fisher Price camera makes when you delete a picture. Wa-chhh. For whatever reason, both kids seem to prefer to delete pictures rather than take them.

He got new green Crocs this week. My mother in law was with us when I took him to a shoe store last week. She's a huge fan of Crocs and all Crocs knock offs, and I thought I'd give them a try since he has such a tall instep preventing him from wearing lots of other shoes. Every other kid in America has a pair, so maybe they'll work for him too. Well they do, and he loves them. After he gets dressed in the mornings, he immediately picks up his shoes and demands that I put them on him, even if we aren't going anywhere right away. He's even learned to put them on himself, although right now he's wearing one shoe and it's on the wrong foot. My son the shoe lover.

Here's a picture of him eating a bowl of pickle chips. He's his father's son.