Texas Strikes Again

Wow, over a month since my last post, oops. The fall weather has arrived and I'm feeling more like myself now, so hopefully this will translate into more regular and frequent blog entries.

Henry: Henry is a full-fledged school boy now. He still feels nervous and sheds a few tears on school mornings, but his teachers say the tearfulness stops the minute I am out the door. When I pick him up at the end of the day, he is always playing happily, and usually he says something along the lines of, "Mommy, I'm not ready to leave, I want to keep playing!" He is making friends at school, slowly and cautiously (he's like his mom!). He talks a good bit about a girl named Penny - he calls her Penelope Claire! - and apparently he often holds hands with another girl, Libby, when they pair up to go outside. Libby's mom introduced herself one day and relayed this information, saying Libby talks about Henry all the time. I'm beginning to think I'm going to have to watch this one around the girls. He is beginning to learn to write letters now, which is exciting, and often when he's drawing, he'll start making letters. "That's a 'D' Mommy!" he'll say proudly. He also learns new songs and Bible stories at school, and one night he even launched into the Pledge of Allegiance, to our great surprise! The most important thing he's learning, though, is that he can be away from me and still survive, that I'll always come back for him. It's taken some time, but I think he's just about convinced. We weighed Henry this week, because I've been struggling to pick him up lately and knew either he was growing or I was experiencing some sort of premature muscle degeneration. He weighs 38 pounds! Henry is really into playing with action figures, now, especially Russell's old Star Wars men, or "guys," as we call them (even Charlie can say "guys"!). He spends hours each day pretending with his vast horde of guys, and he has the nice guys fighting and "knocking out" the mean guys constantly. If I hear it once, I hear it twenty times a day, "Look, Mommy, so-and-so is knocked out!" And there are so many weird names for these guys - Bib Fortuna, Mace Windu, Weequay - I can't keep them all straight. But buddy, Henry can! In sad news, Henry's friend, Parker (and my friend, Jenny) are moving to Texas in just a few days, so this is going to be hard for both of us. They were our first friends after Henry was born. Henry keeps saying, "I'm going to be sad when Parker leaves," and often I'll overhear him saying one of his guys "is moving to Texas," so he's definitely trying to process this new, painful fact of life - sometimes the people we care about have to leave us. I wish he didn't have to learn this lesson so soon, but I guess it was bound to happen eventually. I'm glad he is in school now, at least, so that he does have other kids his age to play with.

Charlie: Charlie has officially passed the eighteen month mark, and he is fully a toddler now, no longer a baby. His vocabulary is expanding daily, but my favorite new word of his is "Henry." It sounds like "eeny." He also says "car," "all done," "cracker," "cookie," "big," "tree," "Mamaw," "Papaw," and many more words I should really record as they are uttered, but don't. He is really beginning to mimic doing many of the things he sees Henry doing, like having two "guys" pretend fight or putting on socks. Charlie's favorite toys are cars and trucks and other vehicles, which is interesting to me because Henry has never taken much of an interest in automobiles, preferring little people instead. Charlie is a tough, fearless little boy, and he loves to roughhouse, especially with Henry, and especially if Henry is not particularly in the mood. Charlie will put that big, hard head down, battering ram style, and run at Henry full bore, tackling him. He does this despite knowing that Henry is bigger and will probably knock him aside easily (and probably painfully). He loves balls, which I assume all little boys do, and he loves telephones, real and pretend. He is a very affectionate boy, and right now he will give me kisses, on demand, any time I want them! I take advantage of this service frequently. Charlie gets very excited and begins dancing frantically when he hears the trumpet opening to CBS's "Sunday Morning." Henry did this, too, when he was a toddler, and though it may be an interesting song to all babies, we imagine it's something in their blood, since Russell is a trumpet player.

Family news: We continue having family culture day on the weekends, or at least family fun day. This past weekend we visited a pumpkin patch, and the two weekends prior were the zoo and a harvest festival. We're trying to decide whether we should get a dog. Or whether we should have one more baby. I asked Henry what he thought, and he voted "dog," then changed it to "both, and a mouse." I can't make up my mind about the dog, or the baby, but given our recent history with small animals, the mouse seems like a no-brainer. Last month we went to Gatlinburg with Russell's family, staying at a chalet in the mountains. We had a fantastic time - Henry panned for gold, we ate at Pancake Pantry, and on the last day, we saw a real black bear! We ended up staying in Morristown for a full week afterward, too, and it made me really wish we could live closer to our families - it's just so good for the boys to be surrounded by the love of extended family. Russell's job should keep us in Middle Tennessee for a long time to come, though, and we love the area and the friends we've made here, so we'll just have to plan on making frequent trips to East Tennessee. At least it's not Texas!!