Henley at a Glance!

Henley is 16 months old today and I am finally getting around to writing something about her. We can hardly believe that she is growing so quickly. At her 15 month check up everything went well and she was a whopping 22 lbs and 10 oz and measured 31 inches long! Now to the average person that means nothing, but here is what it means to us. Henley is in the 45% for weight and is closing in quickly on her skinny, no eating brother who weighs in at around 28lbs. She is drumroll please....in the 70% for height? Above average! Is it not crazy how genetics work? Henley is the polar opposite of her brother in every way you can imagine! We are not worried that she is going to be taller than her brother, but we know that she should be taller than me! :)

When I talk about opposites here are some of the things that Henley does well and her brother absolutely hates. She loves to eat and has just recently started to become picky. We are hoping that she will never be as difficult to feed as her big brother can be. Henley loves to brush her teeth and cries every night after her bath if we forget about brushing them. I know, but she only has four...and more are coming in right now so we should be better.  It is nice though that she is so diligent about it and I do not have to fight her! Changing diapers is not a chore like it was with Christian. She will usually just lay there and quickly get cleaned up. I love that I do not have to pin her down and sit on her like I had to with Christian. Last, but certainly not least is sleeping...what a  BREEZE! I hope I am not jinxing myself by saying that? We learned with Christian that rocking, holding and snuggling your child to sleep every night was probably the most stupid rookie parent mistake you can make! It is an issue we struggle with still to this day. So when are darling baby girl came along it was like this...we love you, kisses and hugs and then right in the bed she went...AWAKE! Self soothing, there is nothing like it in the world! Sleeping is probably what she does best right now. I think she is trying to completely transition from two naps to one long nap a day. Most days she takes a three hour nap in the afternoon, but occaisonally she will still snooze in the morning. All in all I could not ask for a sweeter little girl.

As far as personality goes she is definitely more laid back than her brother. She can get rambunctious, but it is in spurts not all day events! Henley is a daredevil! We are not sure if it is in her personality or if it is from having a big brother that coerces her into trying everything he does? Whatever the case she thinks her brother hung the moon so she follows his lead on any occaison. They have gotten to a stage were they play really well together. I just have to watch and make sure it is nothing dangerous because things can get out of control quickly! Brian was out of town the other day and we had all taken showers. I left them alone playing in the living room to go finish getting dressed. I decided a few minutes later to go check on them and I was glad I did because this is what I found! The kids got a table and chairs for Christmas. For some reason they like to move the chairs everywhere and stand on them to get into things they should not. Brian and Christian build forts all the time, so Christian had taken all the pillows of the couch and made a fort for him and his sister. They had pushed the table and all the chairs over by the stairs and the couch. I walked in to Henley standing in her shopping basket push toy trying to climb up onto the table to climb onto the back of the couch? What in the world are yall doing? Just in time because I think someone was about to take a serious tumble! So the morale of the story is do not leave your three year old alone with your one year old for too long! However, I must tell you that Christian was never a climber at 1 year of age like Henley seems to be. I catch her climbing up things you would never think a child would imagine to climb on! Our daughter might end up with a broken limb before her big brother does at this rate!

I know you all are probably thinking stop enough with Henley, but this is in honor of her and it helps me to journal things that she was doing at this stage in her life. She is talking up a storm these days and probably has a vocabulary of 20 or so words. The average person might not know what she is saying, but we do. Her first word was mama and it took awhile for dada to arrive, but it finally did around November. Some other things she says a lot are: Jetta (our dog), brother, baby, bottle, night night, bath, bye bye, hello and a lot of names of people she sees regularly. Henley, like her cousin Preston loves to chat on the phone too. She will grab it out of your hand and walk around just a talking up a storm. Singing and dancing are among her favorite pastimes too. The kids will sing nursery rhymes together sometimes and it is so cute! One day I will get it on video, but lately they have been shy for the camera! Every time the video comes out, Christian wants to see what is recorded, not be on the other end! We are so thrilled that they finally get along and play together. The big brother has finally realized that his baby sister is not so bad after all! However, I am not so sure she likes all the attention she gets from him now...

Henley is a sweet, sweet girl, but she definitely has a temper! We laugh all the time because she sure gets mad when things do not go her way. Brian is just smitten with her and can not stand to see her get upset, which will be interesting as she gets older! Brian and I laugh because she always tries to pull that card with her brother...you know the one where if he gets near her she screams! The type of scream that always get her brother yelled at because we are so sure he did something mean to her and we just did not see it! :) She has gotten so bad, that he can be a couple feet away from her and she will still scream.  Then look at us, like do something! Now, we just laugh at her and tell her he is not anywhere near you silly! Anyhow, it is never dull around our house and I would not have it any other way!

That pretty much sums what is going on in our house right now! Keeping the peace between loving siblings and trying to remember the funny things they do on a daily basis. I have some video of Henley and Christian that I am going to post. It just shows what a follower she is right now with her big brother and whatever he does so shall she!