Oh, Henry!

You know I love you, little man. I know you were born to a Calvin-centric universe, but you make my world go round, all the same. You’re so mellow and easy-going, I think I might take for granted that you are so good, and quite funny to boot. You really actually keep us all in line when we get out of hand. And you know I could never disregard a child whose first word after "Mama" and "Dada" was "Bot-Bot." (That's "chocolate" for the other people reading this love letter.) I love your “Outer Banks blue” eyes – they’re yours alone, apparently from someone in the gene pool farther back than your dad or me. I love to hear you say your own name, “Hen-nay,” since you learned it this week. I like how you hop from one foot to the other and chant, “Mo joos, mo joos, mo joos” for your first draught of OJ in the morning. I adore your “Monkey-Monkey-Baby-Monkey” song and the funny face you make while you sing it. I love how you snuggle, and how you grab your dad’s head on both sides to give him a kiss. I like how you start tug-o-wars with Calvin by calling out, “My Mama!” And even though I am the rope/jungle gym in those wars, and I know it’s more about making Cal mad than about making me feel wanted, I’m learning to like that kind of attention. I get a kick out of the way you crawl up and sit on the couch next to us, and you always cross your feet at the ankles once you’re situated and comfortable. You probably saved my life (or at least insured the possibility of younger siblings for yourself) with your phenomenal sleeping habits – you are the hands-down winner of the “Napper of the Year” and the “Night Sleeper of the Year” for the past two years in a row! And I am so flattered that the bright orange "fringies" I made you before you were born are your favorite for snoozing. I will have to admit that I sometimes like to make you just a little mad or sad, so I can see you tip your head sideways and stick out your bottom lip, like you did when you saw that all the stories I've been blogging lately are about Calvin. I hope this post makes up for that. (You know a PICTURE is worth a 1,000 words, right? Count 'em up, and you're about even with Cal now.) And I hope that you understand that the reason I don’t tell more about you is that there aren’t words enough to express how you melt my heart and make me just want to squeeze you, or cuddle you, or eat all your chubby sweet deliciousness up (or at least lick the syrup off your cheeks and out of your hair), so much that I can’t stand it sometimes. I really do notice that already you get “second sonned” a lot, but I’m working on it, and I hope you know that I love you the purplest. And while it's my mother's prerogative to allude to you being a candy bar, I will fight to the death anyone who ever calls you Hobbes, because you are so much more than a sidekick.