Happy New Year!

Kevin and Henry playing in a school park last Saturday.

Today is my birthday. Taking a lead from Jack Benny, I'll just say it's the anniversary of my 39th birthday.

I was looking at Youtube and found some videos that a man posted from his trip to Vietnam. I watched them and they were very informative. They give a good overview of the type of thing I experienced when I was over there.

Saigon, Mekong Delta, and Cu Chi Tunnels:




Hanoi on a moped:

Merry Christmas!

Henry walking into the living room and seeing his presents. The first thing he saw and the thing that continues to be his favorite is the tricycle. It's sort of a Big Wheel knock off, with a theme from the "Cars" cartoon movie. His feet do not reach the pedals, even though I have put it at the lowest setting for the seat, but he can push himself around by pushing off with his feet on the floor. He likes to load the back up with various toys and propel himself around the house.

He also got a "Henry the Octopus" doll from the Wiggles show. It sings as Henry makes it dance.

Henry looks at his other presents. I finally found toy food to go with the toy kitchen, as well as toy pots & pans and toy dishes. I had to look hardest for the dishes--most were Disney princess theme.

Henry got a Wiggles poster. I haven't hung it in his room yet. He recognizes the characters and will point to the one whose name I call. Here he points to Jeff, the one that got me started with having him watch the show. I saw a Jeff doll in a store and bought it because I thought it would be fun for Henry to have an Asian doll (or is it an action figure?)

Henry didn't catch on to unwrapping presents--I had to help him with that.

Henry continues to play with cars and trucks with the most interest.

Henry likes the things on the toy kitchen that make noise, like the microwave and the faucet.

Later in the day Henry enjoyed watching a video in his room. He has just recently started being satisfied staying in his room by himself, playing or watching a video or both. It was also quite warm during the holidays--it got up to 76 on Christmas day.

In the evening Henry lined up all the cars he could find in the den.

It was a long day--Henry fell asleep while he was eating.

Christmas Eve-...

Henry tonight right before I put him to bed. I kept these snowman pajamas back for tonight. He doesn't know what is going on, although he does know we've stayed at home all this week. Now I have all his presents laid out in the living room and will just wait for the morning.

I've spent all this week off getting things organized. We've moved into the main house and there is so much to do, Even though we've only moved twenty feet from one house to the other I have been running back and forth getting things where I want them--which requires planning because I have to do it when Henry is asleep.

Getting Ready for Christmas

Henry's favorite toys continue to be books and cars. He enjoys looking at any kind of book or magazine--here he gets ready to look at "How the Grinch Stole Christmas."

I keep books on the piano. Last week Henry started climbing his small recliner so that he could reach the books that had previously been out of his reach.

When he gets a book he likes to sit in his recliner and flip through it. He seems to enjoy this as much as he likes me actually reading the story to him.

This weekend the full moon was especially close to the earth and was large and visible at dusk and dawn as well as at night. Henry has discovered the moon and for the past two or three weeks it is the first thing he looks for when we go outside in the dark. We had his ECI evaluation last week and they asked me how his eyesite was--I used the example of him looking at the moon as evidence that he seems to be able to see at a distance. The above photo was taken in the morning--the moon was setting in the west as the sun was coming up behind us in the east. My camera cannot capture the beauty of the colors and light.

Henry wearing his Sunday best for church. Yesterday was unseasonable warm--it was as high as 80 in the mid afternoon. Then it started getting cold and the wind blew really hard last night, and it was 28 degrees when we got up this morning.

Christmas Parties

This week was the beginning of the campus party season. On Tuesday there was the President's party for the entire campus. Long and drawn out with lots of door prizes--I didn't get one this year. But it was held in the brand new student center and was in fact the first event to be held in the new building.

Then yesterday I had a whirlwind of three parties--first over to the children's center for a party with Henry, where I ended up staying for 45 minutes. It becomes an ordeal to leave him because he gets so upset. He is happy to get there in the morning but if I go during the day and do not take him with me he is very distressed. As always he prefers a routine and the routine he knows is that when I come I take him with me. So I ended up staying longer than planned. Four clarinet players from the music department came over and played Christmas songs, and at the end of their performance Henry finally crawled out of my lap and started playing with the other children so that I was able to leave with very little fanfare.

Then there was the party in the English department, which isn't one of my assigned areas but since I am working on a doctorate in that field I am connected. And finally the College of Education party, which is one of my assigned areas so making an appearrance was actually in line with my job.

Next week there are two more parties--College of Arts & Sciences and the College of Business. Then the week after the library is having two Christmas parties.

Meanwhile tonight Henry and I are dropping by church for a living creche exhibit and some songs by a female barbershop quartet called the Sweet Adelines and another church choir as well as our church choir. It will hopefully make for an interesting evening and get us in the spirit of the season.

Very Thankful

I have so much to be thankful for this year--Henry has brought such joy to my life. I still find it hard to believe that the dream I nurtured for several years came to fruition, and that things have developed so well. Henry is such a wonderful child--so good natured and loving and easy to raise.
We drove down to San Antonio and stayed at the campus of the University at Incarnate Word--my mother lives at the Village at Incarnate Word. This is Henry by the refurbished fountain in the courtyard.

Here is Henry on the balcony outside our room.

Henry inside our room.

Henry sitting on the balcony.

Henry eating in the cafeteria.

On the way back from Houston we stopped at the large Sam Houston statue. I have passed by it many times but never stopped. Behind it is a replica of the head--I suppose so people can get a closer view of the face. Henry was terrified of it. I tried to point out the nose and eyes and ears, but he wanted nothing to do with it at all.

That reaction was nothing compared to Henry's reaction to the full statue. He acted like he was seeing a monster. In fact later the lady at the gift shop said small children usually are afraid of the statue and call it the "white monster". Adding to the terror, the statue isn't far from the highway--Henry is afraid of moving cars unless I am holding him. He does not like to be down on the ground when cars are going by.

After Thanksgiving we drove to Houston to visit friends Robbin and her children Geordan and Annie Laurie. Henry got dressed up for church and also shows his new haircut. He is demonstrating the tiger move from the Wiggles song.

Here is Henry with his new haircut (we actually both got our hair cut by a Vietnamese lady in San Antonio who cuts my mother's hair). I miss Henry's long hair but it was getting harder to manage. Like mine it is unruly in the morning if washed the night before, and he also was prone to rubbing yogurt and other food in it.

Henry enjoys playing with my mother in her room in San Antonio.

We had a very good trip--made doubly enjoyable by the new GPS I bought so that we did not get lost. It took me on more than one off the beaten track routes that ended up cutting our travel time down.

Phase Two

I think we have entered into the next phase of our experience as a family. I am learning how to deal with Henry's tantrums. They don't last long, but if we are out in public I get kind of frantic as to what to do. He seems to understand when I talk to him about what is happening, even though he doesn't talk back. I will develop my approach out of removing him from the situation and talking to him and moving to a "time out". It doesn't happen very often, and seems more common when he is tired--like he was when I woke him from his nap to go to the party.

I also noticed a couple of days ago Henry opening and looking into the cabinets in the kitchen while I was cooking. He has never done this before. I have wondered if and when this would happen--I knew surely he would show some curiosity about what is in all those cabinets. I keep the one under the sink locked since it has chemicals, but the others just have pots and pans and plastic storage bowls and other non-dangerous stuff. But I'm expecting the next step will be dragging everything out of the cabinets, not just looking.
Another thing that hit me--today I mailed off the first year report. I went to the campus post office where I have so often mailed things off to either the agency or to Vietnam or Austin, and before that I was mailing stuff to Ukraine. It was all in anticipation of what I am living now with Henry--like a dream I was dreaming and now it has come true.

Backyardigans Concert & Princess Party

Saturday we went to the Backyardigans concert with Bao and Kevin. Both boys watch the show and seemed to get a kick out of it.

Waiting in the lobby--where the inevitable toys with the Backyardigan logo were being hawked.

Henry enjoyed the shield--the story had a medieval knights theme.

On Sunday we went to church, then home for a quick 45 minute nap and I woke him up to go to a "Princess Party" for one of the little girls from the Children's Center. He had already misbehaved in church--it is a three hour meeting. He really enjoys the nursery which is the last hour and forty minutes, but the first hour and twenty minutes are a big meeting for everyone from infants to adults in the chapel. He gets bored at this meeting, even when I take him into an adjacent room where he can run around and I can still here the speakers. After thirty minutes or so he threw a big tantrum--starting swatting at my face and trying to kick me. Eventually when nursery started he was great, and one of the ladies commented on how well behaved he was.

The party was held at the Children's museum. The first thirty minutes or so was playtime, then the party itself was in a meeting room. Henry again threw a tantrum when I took him off of the tractor and took him to where the food and cake were--and also he was the only boy at the party and the girls were dressed in fairy tale outfits. I tried for about ten minutes to calm him down but he kept hitting at me and screaming so I finally took him back out to the tractor. I pulled up a chair and just sat there while he pretended to drive the tractor for twenty minutes.

Oh and apologies to Uncle Joe for the offensive green tractor--it obviously is an inferior brand that broke down and that's why it's on display at the museum.

They had a mock grocery store, and Henry's favorite thing to do is push a shopping cart.

They also had a western frontier section that reminded me of the old westerns I watch.

Henry's second favorite thing after the tractor was this plane. He probably thought it was a car of some sort, because it does not have the wings.

Below is Henry with the birthday girl Nevaeh, outfitted in her princess dress.

I need to figure out how to deal with Henry's tantrums and stop his slapping at me. I am not going to resort to hitting him back. That just seems counter-productive to me.

U.S. Citizen for One Year!

It's been exactly a year since Henry, my mother, and myself arrived back in Texas. That marked Henry's becoming a U.S. citizen. What a wonderful year it has been!

It's Morning in America!

The election is over--thank goodness there was a clear winner and the loser graciously conceded. It appears the country will move forward with energy and resolve. I would have been happy with either candidate--at various times I voted for both (without voting twice in the same election or primary). I just hope we can put the divisiveness behind us in the same way the country has put racism behind it

Yesterday Henry had a routine visit to the doctor. We got to there early and I let him sit behind the wheel. He's actually in my lap in this picture but he seemed to have a sense that he was driving the car. It did occur to me that I'm going to have to soon stop leaving the keys in the car when we are at home because he could be likely to get in and try to start it.

I looked over my blog after I posted this morning--I want to point out that the car is parked in the above photo--we were in the parking lot of the doctor's office, the engine off, and the keys out of the ignition. Reading over it and looking at the photo I realized people might get the impression that I'm actually letting him drive the car. We sat there for thirty minutes and I pulled Henry from the back seat to sit in my lap.As usual the doctor had the Ikea wooden toy that Henry enjoys. He got a second flu shot, she told me to give him Zyrtec once a day, and he got some medicine for a sinus infection. He was weighed at 27 pounds but that was with all his clothes on. I finally got out my portable DVD player and set it up in the car. I ended up switching it to hang higher on the seat so that Henry can't kick it. He seems to enjoy watching--I wasn't sure if he would like it because we don't watch much television at home. One problem is that it seems to skip. I thought it might be the DVD but I switched to another and it still skips, mainly when we hit a bump in the road. I wonder if a newer unit would be less sensitive.

Trick or Treat!

Friday Henry went out with friends to a nearby town for "Trick or Treating" in the town square. People were dressed in costumes and giving out candy in front of the businesses. Henry wasn't afraid of any of the goblins or monsters, but he screamed and clutched onto my legs when a boy dressed like a circus clown tried to put candy in his bucket.

After going around the square we went to a subdivision of the town and went door to door. Henry was unsure about what was happening at first, and kept tight hold of my hand. I stood right by him as the neighbor put candy in his bucket, which I also had to hold out. But he eventually caught on and dragged me to the door and held out his hand. He never tried to eat the candy. Maybe he didn't even realize it was candy. But he knew he was getting something given to him.

Henry's friend Blake gave him this rocking horse that he had outgrown. Henry immediately knew what do do and walked wildly back and forth.