Henry is 17 months old!

Henry is 17 months old today!!!

Here is a picture of him from this day last year:





And here he is at the park today:








To celebrate this momentous day, Henry had his flu shot. Yes, I am the best mother ever.

Girl's Weekend

It is time to send a big THANK YOU to my wonderful husband Mike who took over all parenting duties for the weekend so that I could head to Philadelphia to celebrate my friend Erin's 30th birthday (Happy Birthday Erin!!!)

The weekend did not begin auspiciously. Wednesday night Henry very suddenly got sick - severe shaking (and extreme grumpiness) as his fever shot up to 103. One of the other kids at his daycare had hand foot and mouth disease (very common this time of year, and VERY contagious), so we were worried that might be what he had. A quick trip to the doctor on Thursday confirmed that he was sick, but not what exactly he had. So, we took a wait and see attitude and the final decision for me to go ahead with the weekend wasn't made until Friday morning when we saw that Henry's fever had broken (he seems fine now, so it looks like it was just a short bug of some kind).

Friday I flew to Philly to see Erin and Roy and was joined later that evening by Beth and Jess for a nice William Smith reunion. On a side note - it was SO NICE to fly by myself! I only had my one little carry-on! I got to read on the plane!

We had a great weekend complete with excessive amounts of cheese, spa treatments, lots of sangria, bowling, two separate birthday cakes, more cheese, and the largest game of Apples to Apples ever played.

Here is a photo of the lovely birthday girl in all her bowling glory:




It was also a mini-baby celebration because Erin is having a baby BOY in January!

Thanks again to Mike - I know Henry enjoyed all the daddy time. We can't wait to see everyone again in a few weeks for our Columbus Day celebration!

Updates

I have been slacking so we have lots of updates today!

Henry had his first week of full day daycare last week (Wednesdays and Fridays from 9:00 AM - 5:00 PM). So far he seems to be doing very well! He loves playing with the other kids, does art projects, sits nicely in his chair and eats snack and lunch, plays with Sadie the Golden Retriever, and generally wears himself out. The big news from last week is that he took a nap ON A MAT (as opposed to his Pack n' Play we have there - this was truly shocking. I don't know how they did it.) Also, he has a girlfriend. She is an "older woman" being 2 years old, but they are the talk of the daycare. She ran up and gave him a big kiss when I picked him up on Friday.

Henry also officially "graduated" from his Early Intervention program last week. He had another full evaluation and is now deemed at our above age level across the board. In fact, he is like a 2.5 year old in terms of gross motor skills! His expressive communication is now right where it should be - and he added the word "book" to his vocabulary today. His EI therapist was a great help to us, and while we are glad that he no longer needs EI we will miss her!

In other "expressive communication" skills, Henry's new passion is singing. He is quite adept at the "ABC" song - he follows the tune very well, and while most of what he sings is more babbling, he gets uncannily close every now and again (especially during the "now I know my ABC's" part...). We need to try and capture this on video (and learn to post video clips!)

Henry makes me laugh

This picture cracks me up. He was going down the slide but for some reason on this trip refused to let go of the bar on top. So he hung there, frozen, for about 5 minutes.

His expression is awesome.

Rain, Rain Go Away

The Powells don't let Tropical Storm Hannah deter us. Instead we put on cute frog boots and frolic in the rain.

Henry's First Artwork

As some of you know, Henry started daycare this week. Just two days a week (and this week we did half days to ease him in), but we thought the group environment would be a lot more stimulating for him than continuing with his nanny one day a week (although we love and miss Katy!)

Today when I picked him up, I was presented with his very first art project. They used paint and old-fashioned shaving brushes, and he did it all (including picking the colors) himself. He is clearly an artistic genius (it does run on the Powell side.)

Lazy Days

Henry - relaxing and reading his favorite book:

New Furniture

Henry is very pleased by his new table and chairs. Mike and I don't quite fit....





Also, this is our 100th post - woo hoo!!!!!!!!!!