Here's a belated update on the little guy.
A lot's been going on with Henry since I last wrote. He celebrated his half-year birthday, he's started to eat solid foods, he's starting to stand on his own--and he's learned to, if not crawl, then at least propel himself forward on his tum.
We went to the doctor at the beginning of this month for Henry's six-month checkup. Hank continues to a healthy one. You can find his latest measurements on his
details page.
While we were pleased that he continues to grow and thrive, he continues to take after his Dad: the kid's short. His weight and head size are well above average--like 70th percentile range. But the poor kid is in the 15th or something percentile range.
He is doing better than me. As my own father likes to remind me, I was so short, I was "off the charts." But it's somewhat irksome that Henry hasn't been able to break the Wolverton family shortness curse. I guess that's what I--and Henry--get for marrying Tara and not someone of taller stock. Somehow I think we'll all cope.
One of the highlights of our meeting this month with Dr. Langston was that he gave us the green light to introduce Henry to solid food. Tara and I were really excited.
For some time now, Henry has been fascinated with what we've been eating and has taken to putting everything--and I do mean
everything--in his mouth. So, that following weekend, we went out and bought Henry three different kinds of cereal: rice, oatmeal and barley.
You would think a kid with an oral fixation like Henry's would be super excited to finally try something other than milk. You would think that. But you would be wrong. The kid could take or leave solid food, at least as far as the cereals go.
Everyday now since we started feeding him solid foods, we've dutifully mixed together some cereal for him. And every time we feed him, we end up with more on the outside of his mouth than actually inside it. There's usually far more than either of those two amounts on our clothes or hands or on the floor.
Now, I know, most babies are messy eaters. But Henry is more like a messy taster. The funny thing is that he's far more fascinated with the cup that his cereal is in than the cereal itself.
After going through the three different cereals, we broke down this weekend and made him a vegetable: winter squash. He actually seemed to like that. And we might have actually figured out how to get him to take cereal more readily too: by heating it up. He actually ate most of his barley cereal yesterday after we did a simple thing like that. Amazing that it took us three weeks to figure that out. Rocket scientists we are not!
Besides the food fun, the other thing Henry's been doing lately is trying to locomote. He's not yet crawling or walking, but he's eager to do both. And he gets
darn frustrated that he can't do either particularly well yet.
While he can't yet crawl, he's anything but immobile. In addition to rolling over, which he learned a couple months ago, he can now turn himself around in a full circle while lying on his stomach. And he's gotten great at stretching out while he's on his tum to reach for things he wants.
What's more impressive is that he can now also make like an inchworm to get to where he wants to go: he gets into a crawling position on all fours, then propels himself forward onto his stomach, then gets back up into a crawling position. It's not the most graceful thing--but hey, it works! (And it's darn cute too.)
He's also gotten darn good at jumping. A couple of months ago, we got him a jumper that hangs from the door frame. As you might have seen in his
Jumper video, when we first got it, he didn't really know what to do with it. He kind of knew how to bounce himself up and down in it, but he grew tired of it quickly.
Now, though, he
loves the jumper. He bounces himself up and down in the thing so much he looks like the Energizer Bunny. In fact, he loves to jump so much, that sometimes that's all he wants to do when we're holding or playing with him! To Henry, jumping is often where it's at.
Henry's latest bit of locomotion is to pull himself up into a standing position. He can't do it everywhere, and often needs assistance in standing, but he's found a way using his bouncer seat to pull himself up. And from a standing position, he thinks the world is his to explore.
Tonight for instance, while Tara and I were eating dinner, we got Henry to stand leaning against our coffee table while we ate (nothing else would pacify him at the time). Well, he was determined to get into everything that was on the table: from the mouse and power plug on Tara's computer to our plates to the salad bowl. Everything looked so enticing to him! Even his food bowl looked pretty neat from that vantage point, if only to bang it on the table and throw it on the floor!
Needless to say, our days of eating at the coffee table are numbered. Fortunately, we have a high chair that should be coming our way shortly. I think it's about time for old Hank to hop into it!
-- Troy
