April Update

Here is a quick update as to what Henry has been up to lately:

• He has finished his gymnastics class that he took through parks and rec. I was really happy and surprised at how much he progressed since it was once a week for 3 months. At the beginning he would not walk on the beam (even the one that was about an inch off the ground), wouldn't do a forward roll, but LOVED going and running around and hanging from the bars pretending to be a monkey. By the end he would only walk on the 'big beam' (regular height, but he would hold my hand), can do forward rolls by himself and was willing to attempt backward rolls. He even was getting good at the handstand drills. It was really fun to go every week and get out in the cold winter months and the class was perfectly divided with 3 boys and 3 girls.
  
• Henry has continued his musical interests and now can play the trumpet, trombone, piano, drums and violin. He finds random objects all over the house and declares them a particular instrument and sets out playing and singing. He is getting really good at singing songs by himself too and I love listening to him sing.
  
• His imagination is getting interesting. He can find 'food' to eat everywhere and will share some of what he makes with me. Some of his places are his car seat, car speakers, legs, chair cushions, etc. He almost always makes hamburgers, soup and hot cocoa. However, he told me the other day that he can't play basketball because he doesn't have a hoop. This struck me as odd because he's not allowed to play with his basketball in the house so he used to simply pretend to throw a basketball into a pretend hoop, but apparently that won't cut it anymore.
  
• His poor sense of time has him quite frustrated. His eagle eyes found his Easter basket and plastic eggs in his closet several weeks ago and he wanted to play with the eggs. I told him he had to wait until Easter and that it would be awhile. After asking lots of time he gave up on the whole eggs thing and has moved on to pumpkins. He desperately wants to go to a pumpkin patch and has asked that I buy a pumpkin at the grocery store. He also found an infant pumpkin hat that Grandma made and has been wearing that around the house. I tried to tell him it was going to be a long time before we could go to the pumpkin patch, but he just doesn't understand. I'm hoping we can keep him excited about other things while he waits for October to get here.
  
• He loves to make lists for the grocery store. His list almost always has marshmallows on it and the other items change every week. Some things on his list are things we buy like cottage cheese. Others are things we don't buy, but he's fascinated with like coffee beans which he sees people grinding when we go to the store.
  
• He has a pair of rain boots that have monkeys on them and although they are a little big he wants to wear them every day no matter what. It doesn't bother me that he wants to wear them, but it does make him look a bit silly some days. :)
• He's continuing to learn more letters as he looks at all the signs around him. Capital letters are coming along well, but those lowercase are really tripping him up. Too many look the same to him, but he loves to look at his letter books and sing the alphabet song (although we have to do it to the tune of Super Why!). He has also started to enjoy 'writing' and he gets very excited when he happens to make an m.
  
• His favorite vehicles right now are the UPS truck, school bus and the 'red bus' (Cyride which is the university/city bus). He is THRILLED when he finds a UPS truck when we're out running errands.
  
• Henry likes to help us do everything, but he really enjoys doing the dishes with dad, cooking with mom, vacuuming his room, sweeping the floors/being in charge of the dustpan and helping with the laundry. He would love to clean the toilet/use the toilet brush, but I'm holding off on that right now.