Inside Henry's Mind

Since Calvin has been in school this year, I've had a lot more time one on one with Henry. He has this amazing imagination that I only rarely tap into, and that I often don't understand or appreciate fully, mostly because my creativity runs to the practical or innovative, and his is still in the childhood realm of play and fantasy, for no other purpose than fun.

He talks pretty much all day long, from the time he wakes in the morning, until the time he finally falls asleep (often talking himself - and Calvin - to sleep). Often I come back from an accidental tune-out and finally ask him, "What did you say?" and he will say, "I wasn't talking to you! I was talking to Ducky (or to whomever)." Other times, I don't come out of the tune-out quickly enough, or I mistakenly think he is talking to Ducky (or to whomever) and he is really talking to me. So we have our communication mishaps.

But I have been loving so much about his thoughts and the things he says and does lately...

For one thing, he has a little accent that I can't quite replicate, but it is adorable. He says "floor" like "fleur" and "tomorrow" with the slightest little "v" sound where the double "r" is. He says "rocket" like "racket" and "car" like "cur." And anything with a "ch" at the beginning he says with a "ts" sound instead. I just want to bottle his speech up.

He has also been creating a lot of art lately. And he has some pretty deep explanations for his drawings. One was a picture of each member of our family in their own personal air balloon. He showed his Dad and said, "Guess which one you are in, Dad?" David couldn't guess, and Henry said, "The one at the bottom, because you are the biggest and the heaviest so your balloon can't go so high. And Charlie is the highest because he is just little and not very heavy."

A little while ago, he made a construction paper cutout scene of me and him looking at the Pyramids. He showed it to me and said, "I chose red for the backgwound because it's soooooo hot in the desert."

He has also become very aware of letters and words and can read an awful lot. He recognizes many of the cyrillic letters and knows what sounds they make, too. Today he asked me, "What does a Russian 'w' look like?" I told him that there isn't a Russian 'w.' And he immediately answered, "Well, how do they spell 'water' without it?"

In the last day or two he has also started saying, "Thank you" for very spontaneous things. Like today: "Thank you for buying this kind of bread, Mom. I really like it." And, "Thank you for letting Ducky come snuggle in your bed, too."

We've had a few rough moments months years with Henry, but times like these remind me that inside, he is a very thoughtful and bright and quite a sweet boy.