This blog post is now 2 whole months late, but 2 and a half sounds better than 2 and 2 thirds so I'm going to have to just go with it. Here's a little update on my beautiful big boy...
Weight: Henry now weighs 30lb and he's 93cm tall. Pretty much 50th centile for both so bang on average still. His feet are a size 7 and growing rapidly, just like they did last summer! He costs me a fortune in sandals, jelly shoes and converse this boy!
Routine: Henry wakes around 7am and goes to bed about 8pm. He still very much needs his afternoon sleep but can just about cope without it on days when we don't manage one or we're super busy. He'll be really grumpy by 6pm but an early bath and bed soon sorts him out. His naps are generally a couple of hours, sometimes a little longer or shorter depending on where we are. Now that I'm pregnant (and therefore totally exhausted) I've been sleeping at the same time as him most afternoons so it's definitely a blessing that he's still happy to nap. I say happy, but every day he tells me he doesn't like his sleeps, then promptly falls asleep seconds later!
Food: He's still an amazing little eater; he eats like a horse and will pretty much eat anything. We've always been pretty strict with food in so much as we always eat the same thing together every night, I've never made him his own separate dinner and he knows if he doesn't eat what he gets, there isn't another option. And for a hungry horse like Henry that's enough to ensure he'll eat whatever's put in front of him! Of course he has his favourites, he tells us every single day that he doesn't want cereal, he wants toast, but then eats every spoonful of the cereal that's given to him. He'd choose berries over any other food and absolutely loves beef, sausages or anything meaty! He's started to enjoy his veggies more recently thanks to the herbivore dinosaurs like brachiosaurus and diplodocus who he loves....apparently if they eat broccoli (or trees) then it's good enough for him too!! Sugar snaps have been named dinosaur peas which makes them a total hit and he even had his first ever fillet steak last week which apparently made him like T Rex. Boys! He adores the butcher in the farm shop who is absolutely lovely to him and enjoys his weekly chat with him, telling him that mummy needs 'mince beef and sausages please' before regaling the poor man with his knowledge of 'pigs make sausages, cows make beef etc etc'. He's definitely a littla foodie. The other thing he loves is to cook. On the days where he can't really help me, he stands on a chair in the kitchen at the hob with a pan of cold water making 'soup' - an interesting concoction of bread crusts and vegetable peelings which he's cut into small pieces. Very appetising. He also makes bread with his Marmar most days and is always so proud of his finished loaf, declaring it 'absolutely perfect' as it comes out.
Sleep: His sleep isn't too bad really. He is now in a proper single bed and will usually sleep in his room until around 3am before coming up to our bed. I usually sleep with him in the spare room at that point so that we can all get a few more hours before getting up! Daddy's snoring mixed with a toddler literally lying with his feet in my mouth and fingers in my ears isn't all that conducive to good sleep I can tell you.
Sizes: He is in a range of clothes now from 18-24 month things to age 3-4 things. There is a massive variation in the shops and he still fits in a lot of his old stuff which is great. He's out of nappies but in pull ups at night and they're size 5.
Milestones/other random things
• Back in September I wrote that I was really concerned by his lack of speech but within weeks, literally weeks, he was forming full sentences and chatting away. I'm constantly amazed by what he can say and words that he's remembered, we have whole conversations now and he forms proper full sentences. He still gets me/I/my and us/we mixed up, but apart from that makes pretty good sense. He says the most gorgeous things, there's something every day that makes us smile or laugh. A couple of days ago he said to me "Come and see my girl" referring to my old gran who was sitting in the lounge. He absolutely adores 'his friend Rose' and their relationship is so so lovely, especially when her dementia means that her other relationships are very different to how they were in the past. The fact that Henry calls her 'his girl' is just gorgeous. Yesterday morning it was pouring with rain and he was most concerned by the fields of lambs and mummy sheep so shouted to them, "Don't worry sheep, farmer coming soon to take you to the barn. Can have some hay there. Farmer just finishing his tea, don't worry" before telling me that the farmer would take his favourite horse Harry an umbrella down to his field to keep him dry!
• Speaking of horses and umbrellas, his imagination is utterly amazing. He is constantly role playing and no object is as it seems. His piggy bank is a pizza oven, the coins inside are pizzas, a piece of semi circular rainbow puzzle is his petrol pump (the green piece, because mummy gets green petrol from the garage!), a roll of wrapping paper is obviously a sword and his box of plastic eggs are clearly dinosaur eggs which need protecting from the vicious didelphodons who like to eat dinosaur eggs. Poor George the dog gets to the play the part of the didelphodon!! We have 'picnic adventures' every night and play airports pretty much every day. He amazes me at the things he comes out with and it's been so so lovely to see his imagination really come out over the last few months. Unfortunately, being a typical little boy, everything is also a gun. A wooden block, a tv remote and even a chicken wing have been used as pretend guns in the last few weeks.
• He now has a full set of teeth! Woo hoo! Now for about a year off from teething before baby number two starts. Fantastic.
• He loves to read and knows so many of his books off my heart now so he actually ends up reading to me at bedtime. Probably my favourite time of the day.
• He's now eating all milk and egg, raw, uncooked, the lot. So bloody glad to see the back of those allergies!!
• He is still beyond laid back and really really easy. I could count any proper tantrums he's had on one hand and he really hates us being upset with him. If we tell him off or tell him he's made us sad, he immediately starts to cry and says he's sorry. He's super polite and people comment on it all the time, he always always says please and thank you and even went through a phase of saying 'thank you sir' to everyone...we later discovered it was because that's what everyone says to the Fat Controller in Thomas the Tank!
• He's still a proper farm boy, never happier than when he's knee deep in mud and surrounded by animals! He loves going to any farm and tells us that his favourite animals are 'big horses'! He loves being outside, whether it's in the garden pottering around hunting for snails or out with his scooter. He still loves Toy Story but his other favourite films are Ratatouille and Up. We watch Andy and his Dinosaur Adventures ALL the time and he still loves Peppa Pig too. Dinosaurs are suddenly a big hit in our house and the facts that he's picked up already are astonishing. Just yesterday we were playing dinosaurs on the floor, me crawling round after him, him roaring in my face (fun times when you're 6 months pregnant) and he told me I was a diplodocus and he was T Rex. I told him I was coming to eat him up and he laughed and said "Don't be silly mummy, diplodocus only eats plants, not little boys!" He thinks the fact that I can't tell my allosaurus from my T Rex absolutely hilarious too....I really ought to pay more attention to Andy next time he's on tv!
• Henry absolutely adores babies. All babies. At playgroups or soft play when the other children are running off exploring, Henry will be sat next to a car seat tickling the feet of a little baby. He shoved his head into a random pram a few weeks back and shouted 'ahhh it's my sister!' and he has a real thing for our friend's little girl 'Baby Martha'. He can't wait to be a big brother and has nicknamed this baby 'Simba'. We've suggested names to him but he is adamant that we'll be calling him or her Simba....I have a feeling it's a nickname that's going to stick!! He talks to my tummy, feels for kicks and tells Simba about all of his toys that he wants to share. I'm under no illusions that having two will be easy and I'm sure he might be really jealous, but I have no doubts at all that he's going to adore 'his' baby more than anything.
• He can count to 15 really well and counts objects really reliably and accurately now. He can recognise a few numbers (generally the ones we see in lifts that I tell him to press!) and spends his days counting random things! I definitely think he's going to be a numbers boy when he gets to school. He knows all of his colours now too and recognises circles, squares and triangles in books and on objects etc.
• We potty trained him on Boxing Day so he was 27 months and he did so well. Within a week he was totally dry at home and he's only had 2 or 3 accidents at home since then. Being out and about was a little bit harder in terms of accidents so he's generally been wearing pull ups for when we're out for long periods of time, just in case. He's pretty much there now, accidents are few and far between and he's dry most nights too, probably 6 nights out of 7. The end is definitely in sight.
That's about it for this update I think, I just can't believe how big he's getting every day. We are so beyond proud of him and what a beautiful, kind little boy he's turning into and the amount of laughter and happiness that he's brought to our lives is beyond measure. I never once doubted that I'd love him before he was born but I honestly never ever anticipated these feelings that I have for him.
We love you so so much little Pigwidgeon, now if you could stop growing up so quickly that'd be great!
