Hiccups from Henry (Latest News)

Hiccups from Henry

Latest updates on Henry Xavier Murphy Wolverton
Troy and Tara's newborn son.

Tuesday, December 13, 2005

It's been more than a year since I last wrote and -- as might be expected -- a lot has happened with Henry: walking, talking, eating by himself...

You can catch much of these momentous events in the pictures and video on this site. And maybe I'll fill in some of the details on this blog at a later date.

For now, though, I wanted to recount some of the latest goings on with Henry. Very frequently these days -- often daily -- I find myself awed at just how smart the kid is.

This evening, for instance, as we were getting Henry ready for bed, Tara and I read him several books, including Dr. Seuss' "Mr. Brown Can Moo! Can You?"

We got that book for Henry before our trip to Baja this summer. Although it's been one of his favorites since then, we haven't read it a whole lot lately. So, you might imagine my surprise at how well Henry knew the book tonight.

As suggested by the title, "Mr. Brown" is a book about a guy who makes all kinds of animal and other noises. Well, Henry was our Mr. Brown tonight. Every sound Mr. Brown made, Henry made -- most without being prompted by Tara or me or by the text.

In other words, when Mr. Brown says, "Moo," Henry would say "moo" before we read "moo" in the text.

Now, you might think that's no great shakes. The kid sees a cow and he moos, big deal, right? But he got more than just the easy ones. He remembered that the shoes go "eek" and the butterfly whispered. He remembered the buzz of the bees, the boom! of the thunder, the pop of the cork and the pip of the goldfish kiss.

It was pretty neat.

Like I said, though, he's been impressing us pretty often lately.

Last week, for example, Henry started saying, "lollipop." As he's want to do, instead of just saying it once, he said kept repeating it. Tara and I were apt to just shake our heads, answer, "yes, lollipop," and be done with it. But Henry wouldn't let us.

Instead, he grabbed Tara's hand and dragged her to his room. From there, he directed Tara to his closet and had her open the door. Inside Henry's closet is a shelf full of books. Henry wouldn't let the subject of a lollipop drop until Tara had gotten down the book he wanted: Eric Carle's "The Very Hungry Caterpillar." Once she did, he flipped through the pages until he found what he was looking for: the lollipop that the caterpillar had eaten through on his last day of binging before forming a coccoon.

Neither Tara nor I had remembered a lollipop in that book. Henry's never eaten a lollipop. And while we've read that book a number of times, I think it had been a while since we had last read it.

The kid is just amazing.

But he's not just smart, he's pretty darn funny too. Tonight, as I typically do when I come home from work, I grabbed Henry and we took Haillee outside to our backyard so she could relieve herself. By the time we got out there, it was already dark, so we grabbed the flashlight, which just happens to be one of Henry's favorite "toys."

As I searched around for Haillee's droppings, I said something like "any more poop? No." After picking everything up, I handed Henry the flashlight and expected to chase him around the yard -- or have him chase me -- as we'd done the night before.

Because instead of playing chase, Henry turned on the flashlight, pointed it at the ground and started walking around in circles in the backyard saying, "any poop? No!" over and over. I've been giggling about it ever since!

¶ 8:46 PM