Down on the Farm

Henry dressed up on Monday to visit Grandmother Lorene and Aunt Betty Ann. We had a wonderful MLK day.
The weather was great this weekend. I was sick on Friday and Saturday night--Henry was very distressed to see me hunched over the toilet, he screamed and kept patting me on the back. I laid on the sofa all morning covered up. Henry would pull the covers off of me and I would say "Daddy's cold" and pull them back. He replied "Baby too!" He also has started a routine of pointing to my face and saying "Daddy's nose" then he points to his own and says "Baby's nose", and goes through each ear, each eye, and mouth. I have additionally taught him eyebrow, chin, teeth, and tongue. And he also knows hands and feet but that's not part of the routine unless I ask him. He seems to want to be referred to as "Baby". If I say he is a good boy, he points to himself and says "baby". If I call him Henry in a sentence he does the same.

I think he's ready to be potty trained--I just have to chart out a course of action for that to happen. I've started by asking him to tell me when his diaper needs changing. He hasn't done that yet, but we're working on it.

Bao and Chris came over on Saturday (in the afternoon, when I was thankfully feeling better), so Henry got to play with Kevin for a couple of hours. As usual he was very shy at first but after about 30 minutes he was comfortable with his old friend from Vietnam.
Here are some screen captures of the farm where we live. In the one above I have outlined the property in red. My grandparents bought this place in 1947, but my grandfather and his mother were both born in this small community where my great great grandfather moved in 1842. All of the land on the right side of the road has always had cows on it for as long as I can remember. There used to be two other houses on it. One fell down a long time ago and my grandmother had the other one moved next to the main house in the 1960s. The dark circles are ponds for the cows to get drinking water, and sometimes there are fish in them. The land in the upper right corner is somewhat hilly and has a scattering of trees and an outcropping of white rock. The square of property on the left side of the road was always cultivated by my grandfather. Now it is used to harvest hay to feed the cows. It also had a house at some point. I don't ever remember seeing the house but there is a well so there must have been one there.

Below is a closeup of the lower part of the property, where the houses are. Henry and I live in the house underneath the curved driveway. It's actually two houses very close together. Below the houses and to the right is the barn. South of those buildings is a house, barn, and garage where my grandfather's sister used to live. She died in 1992 at age 99. Since then the property has been bought by another family.

This is a fun place to grow up, but it is isolated. I remember planning out infrequent trips to the mall--the closest was forty or more miles away. Even a trip to the grocery store has to be planned out. But there is lots to run around and see, lots of room to have a garden or raise animals or ride a bicycle.