henryisms

henry has an unbelievable vocabulary for a 4 year old. in just 1 short year he has added, oh say, one million words! there is not a dinosaur that he doesn't know the name of. even though he has trouble saying the word "yellow" he can say the most complicated dinosaur's name. he corrects me all the time.

so, we've been working with him on spelling. he can sound out most words and tell you at least the first letter. i was pretty impressed yesterday when he sounded out "iguanodon"(i'm sure i'm spelling this wrong since i don't have henry here) & told me it started with an i. whoah! and he was able to sound out eva & tell me it was spelled e.v.a. so dan came to pick up eva yesterday, & i asked henry to spell dan. so he started out with duh, duh, duh, d! and then an, an, an & he stopped & asked me "does it have a lot of letters?" he's no dummy, he was wondering how much effort he was gonna hafta put into this before committing! i said "3" & he proceeded to spell it d a n a. maybe he knows something we don't know. huh, dana? i mean, dan?

he's also been trying to master the scissors. just a couple of weeks ago, he was snipping every which way & couldn't even hold the scissors without them flopping around. well, yesterday he was cutting up the newspaper for us & i thot he wanted to cut out out sponge bob but all of sudden he announced he was going to cut into sponge bob, instead. i questioned him on whether that was really what he wanted to do & he assured me it was. not an hour later, while he was eating lunch (his usual - mac & cheese) he started to cry & said he didn't mean to cut him up. big tears rolled down his face as he thot about his mistake. today he got a 2nd chance, as sponge bob made it into today's paper, too! thank you cols. dispatch! mom & dad said he's been spending awhile each evening cutting paper at their house, too. hmmmmmm.......

anyway, today - he came into my office & i was on the computer & he told me he was going to cut some more stuff & he informed me that it was because i said he could only watch 1 "tom & jerry" cartoon today. i have no idea what that was all about. i have been the video police in the past but not today. anyway, if he can't watch tom drink too much coffee & get all hyped up, i guess he must cut. so i gave him some leftover yarn & he went to town on it.

i always wanted to be called grandma.

when henry was around 18 months, he started calling me "may meee". i don't know why. he also called & calls shelly "ba ba" & his pacifier was a "bee bot". well, off & on, he's called me "mee mee" or "mimi". that's also what he calls his other grandma, rose. more & more, he calls me "mimi". it makes me nuts. (not because that's what he calls rose because i love her! but because i want to be "grandma".) i ask him all the time "what is my name?" and he says "may mee or mimi or whatever". he really says this to me. i've tried to get him to call me grandma (because he doesn't call anyone else that) & it doesn't stick. next, he'll be calling me "hey you!" probably.

henry has to have his "quiet time" with something in the bed with him. 2, 3, or 4 whatever. today, he didn't bring any dinosaurs from home (sorry, thomas - you no longer cut the mustard with henry). so---- on his own, he said he needed something to sleep with & on his own, he decided the thing to do was sleep with 3 or 4 (or 6 or 7) pieces from a dinosaur puzzle. what kind of kid takes a nap with puzzle pieces????????????????????????? a henry kind, i guess. so he did & so he did. after he woke up, he took the pieces & put them back where they belonged in the puzzle on the floor, but the brontosaurus was missing! i "knew" it wasn't in the bed because i remade it after he woke up but he had to go tell baba. guess what? it was under the pillow. i guess next time i make the bed i better check under the pillow for dinosaurs! (or at least pieces of dinosaurs!)

i love our "henryisms" & look forward to "estonisms", "corbinisms" & "evaisms" but i must confess i'll never get used to "shellyisms". ha,ha!