The Wonderful World of Henry!: Playing Catch-up

I haven't posted in almost a week! Jeff has been home a lot, so we've been playing games, going out to eat, and just hanging out together at home. I haven't had my usual posting time. So, that's a good thing...but not for people who want to hear about Henry more often.

Last week I started taking Henry to two different classes. The first one is called "Explore Music Together" and it's offered through our local parks & rec department. It's for ages 18 months through 36 months. Henry is 18-months-old today, so he's the youngest in the class. The class meets on Thursdays from 6:05-6:45 in the evening. The first time we went, Henry spent most of the time walking around the room and trying to open the door to leave, while the rest of the little toddlers sat in a circle on their parents' laps. During a quiet lullabye song, Henry started crying...loudly. When the teacher brought out a big plastic tub of instruments, the rest of the children took turns selecting instruments. Henry sat in the tub. I thought he was probably tired, and he might need to get used to the setting and the people. This past Thursday wasn't much better. He again spent most of the class trying to get out. Do you see Henry in this picture? Look waaaay over to the left. By the door.

He did enjoy picking out an instrument. For about 5 seconds. Then he wanted any instrument that someone else was already holding.

It wasn't until class was over, and almost everyone was gone, that he was interested in listening to the guitar.

I'm hoping Henry will like the class better as time goes on. I've already decided that we'll try it for two more weeks (It's a 9-week class). If he still spends most of the time crying or trying to leave, I'll take that subtle hint, and we'll stop going. The other class we started last week was Gymboree. My dad gave Henry a gift certificate to Gymboree for his birthday, but we just started going last Saturday. Again, Henry wanted no part of the organized activities. He loved the equipment and the balls and he had a great time exploring, but he didn't join the rest of the kids during the "circle times." He wandered over and looked at the bubbles and he checked out the parachute time, but he spent most of his 45-minutes there being Mr. Independence. This was o.k. with me since he wasn't crying or trying to leave. The Gymboree teacher said it was fine if he didn't participate in the group times. She said that most kids will usually join in once they're comfortable. We'll see if that happens. We're going again today. I didn't take any pictures last time, but maybe I will today.

Another recent development is Henry's verbal skills. He's starting to talk more and more. Most of his words sound like "dada" but they can mean lots of different things. Some of his most recent new words are "Okay," "Wow," and "Wow-wow" for "Bow-wow." We have a book about Clifford (The Big Red Dog) and at the end of the book, it says What does Clifford say? Clifford says "bow-wow." So now when we ask Henry what Clifford says, he will answer with "Wow-wow!"

Here's a morning conversation from a few days ago: