Metal Meredith

Vivienne had a major fit in the parking lot of a bookstore this week. She was trying to wriggle away from me in an attempt to get to the car before her father and brother ("Let’s Race! I bet I will win!"). Even though we are in a parking lot and I am yelling “STOP NOW!”, she is still trying to get away. So we got to the car and I put her in and took her toy away. She cried and kicked my seat and pouted for 3 or 4 minutes. When she was done, she got very quiet. The conversation went like this:

Me: Vivienne, are you ok?
Vivienne: Yeah. I wasn’t a very good boss of me, huh?
Me: No. Are you better now?
Vivienne: I guess so. But I think I need to get my ears checked.
Phil: Why is that?
Vivienne: Because I didn’t listen so good.

It has been a while since I bragged on the Big Butterball, so I am taking this opportunity to do so.

Henry is about 25 lbs. When you look at him, he looks big. But when you pick him up, it is obvious that every cell in his body is storing some food for later. He is solid and his little legs are as thick as those turkey legs you can buy at the state fair. Blessed with the double combination of Hertzler/White genes, he has stumpy little legs and no butt. Sad, sad white man’s back with a crack.

This is my favorite time in a baby’s life, when he is just starting to really learn his own feelings and wants and needs. When he is so obviously thinking and explaining, even though it doesn’t sound like anything but practicing Vietnamese. Unlike Vivienne, he is loud and talks a lot at this age. He sings, repeats sounds and mimics everything around him that catches his ear.

He has started recognizing that objects have names. He sees his ball and will crawl toward it repeating “Ba...ba.....ba....ba...” until he reaches it. If he sees Phil, he will say “Da da da da”. There are a few others, but you really have to be listening and observing the repeated sounds a few times to get what he is trying to say. He breaks out in song in Target or the grocery store and if there is an echo, there is no stopping the performance.

Like any good parents, we have taught him a handful of ‘tricks’ that we like to make him to on our whims. We have taught him to clap when anyone says “yay!”. Phil taught him to raise his hands above his head when someone says “wheeee!”, making him appear to be on a roller coaster. This did come in handy last week, when I was changing a particularly liquid diaper of the normally solid kind, when his hands would wander southward. Each time, I said “wheeee!” and he immediately raised them above his head.

We have yet to injure him too badly, or allow him to do himself harm. I think he fell off the second stair a few weeks ago. Yesterday, I shut his little foot in the car door. He is resilient as can be and bounced right back from all of these. With only a few real bumps and bruises, I wonder what kind of daredevil activities we are in for.

Henry’s main motivation in life is food. If you have it, he wants it. If you are cooking it, he smells it and will barrel toward you begging for it. Crack open a soda, beer or take a sip of water, he wants that, too. Put a pile of food in front of him and watch how quickly it vanishes.

Vivienne was walking at 11 months and 1 day. I have a feeling Henry will take a little more time and we are a-ok with that.

Phil is always taking Vivienne on adventures. He loves to take her to the river to jump on the rocks or to the park to walk around or bike ride. He wants to take her to the beach or the zoo or an apple festival, the Smithsonian, an aquarium. I can’t say that I am all that interested in taking her lots of places, especially now that depending on her mood, she will be a lunatic about having fun or complain the whole time that she just wants to be at home. I can fully admit that I never had a ‘thing’ with Vivienne that I had to share with her. Until now.

My parents took me to see a lot of plays when I was in my late teens. I enjoyed the time spent with my parents but was captured by the plays I got to see. I was so excited when I was able to go with Vivienne to see her first play. On Sunday, my mother took us to see Cats. I tried to explain going to the theater a few times in advance to Vivienne, but she never quite got it. I told her we were going to see “people dressed up in costumes, that get on stage and sign and dance and tell stories”. Then she caught me telling Phil that we were going to the theater and she decided that we were really going to see a “Cat Movie”.

When we walked into the theater, she was confused at the set, the lights and all of the ‘stuff’ on the stage. Mom spoiled us with front row seats. As we waited for the lights to go down, she kept asking me where the cats were and why the people weren’t on the stage yet. When they finally went down, Vivienne was so excited, she just smiled and stared. She told me which cats she liked, asked me continually what was happening and why this person was doing this, why that person was saying that. She hummed, sang and giggled. At times, she clapped loudly and enthusiastically.

She sat on my lap almost the whole time. I listened to her hum the songs. She clapped when I clapped. I really did have the best time with her. 

I am just too busy this week to do real posts. I suck, no?

So here is another silly video featuring Vivienne: