Finally, Tom and I were able to catch an Academy Award-nominated film: Slumdog Millionaire. And, it didn’t disappoint. I felt myself biting my nails, crying, laughing, turning away in disgust (at the jumping in a lake of poop scene) and cheering for the main characters of this movie. One thing that amazed me was the director’s unapologetic snapshot of the human condition of the Indian people over the last twenty years. The child actors in this film were outstanding. Their performances made me want to hold Henry just a little bit tighter when I hug him each night before he goes to bed.

Speaking of Henry, we’re entering a phase of Time Outs, him asking “why?” and for some reason, jumping on furniture every chance he gets. Instead of sitting and participating in his regular Saturday morning music class, he announces “I’m running away!” and hightails it out the door. Is this a sign of things to come or merely a phase? Judging by the perpetual twinkle in his eye, and his bionic-man energy level, I’m guessing we’re going to be dealing with things like this for a long time! We can’t believe he’ll be two years old next month, and I don’t know about you all, but I’d love to see him appear in the comic once in awhile.

What do you think? Would adding Henry to the comic mean it’s finally jumping the shark? Or did it scale the heights of sharkdom years ago?

This was a post I was supposed to write yesterday. But due to a hectic, stressful and overloaded schedule, it didn’t happen.

Yesterday was my son Henry’s birthday. And as I did the year before, I thought it would be nice to post a picture of the little guy so everyone can see how he’s doing.

Henry is doing very well having recently had tubes put in his ears for the second time and his adenoids removed to correct chronic ear infections he was having earlier in the winter.

Since Henry turned 2, we finally cut him off from pacifiers and we’re dealing with the ramifications of that right now. He really didn’t use them very often except when we put him down at night and he would use them to calm himself down. Now that they’re gone, he has to find other methods to relax. So he’s been shooting heroin into his eyeballs for about a week now.

I kid! I kid!

Every Saturday we take Henry to a music class where he learns rhythm, songs and dancing to a beat. It’s been paying off. He often sings “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” and it’s tonal doppleganger, The ABC song.

He’s a bundle of energy, that’s for sure. HIGHLY verbal and bossing us around already. He’s deeply addicted to Mickey Mouse Club on the Disney Channel and listening to Daft Punk in the car. In fact, he demands them by name! Well, almost. “Robot rock, Daddy!”

My son is awesome.

Happy birthday, buddy.

Over the holiday weekend, we engaged in a “first” as parents and took Henry to his very first movie – The Polar Express in IMAX at The Science Center of Iowa.

Every year The Science Center shows The Polar Express on their gigantic IMAX screen as a holiday tradition. I’ve seen the movie on TV, but never really enjoyed it (Those dead-eyed children… So creepy!). After seeing it in IMAX through Henry’s eyes… Well, I feel a little different about the movie.

We’ve been wanting to take Henry to a movie for a long time, but we wanted his first movie-going experience to be a good one. A lot of the children’s movies that were out this summer didn’t inspire confidence and, actually, we were going to wait for Disney’s The Princess and The Frog until we realized the movie was coming out the Friday after Cami’s scheduled C-section.

But when Cami suggested The Polar Express, it seemed like the perfect solution. Because right now, Henry is really into trains and just last week he saw Santa Claus at the mall. Perfect!

More importantly, we wanted to do something special for Henry before the baby is born because his world is totally going to turn upside down once that happens.

We showed up a little late to the movie because Henry’s napped a little longer than we expected. So when we arrived, it was already dark in the theater. As I scaled up the steep incline with Henry in my arms, he whispered in my ear, “I wanna go home, Daddy.”

“It’s going to be fine, Henry. We’re going to see a movie!” I assured him.

“I wanna go home.”

We plopped Henry into the seat between myself and Cami as the movie fired up. We were worried that the IMAX experience would be too intimidating for Henry. At the very least, we fretted that the sound would be too loud and might scare him.

Let me tell you, Henry did great during the movie. He didn’t fidget in his seat, he didn’t wander around, he didn’t scream or cry. The movie kept his attention throughout its 99 minute running time. He smiled, he laughed and he squealed with nervous anticipation during some of the film’s more harrowing sequences.

If you’ve seen The Polar Express, you know it’s a little bit of a roller coaster ride. During these action scenes, Henry would clench his fists and tense up his arms. So Cami and I made sure to lean in close and remind him it was just a movie. Putting my hand on his chest to reassure him, I could feel his heart pounding through his chest.

After the movie, Henry told us totally unprovoked “That was a good movie!” When we asked him what his favorite part of the movie was, he said “the Elf center” – presumably the scenes involving the three children running around on conveyor belts as they try to get back in time to meet Santa.

As parents, I think we (collectively) put a lot of pressure on ourselves to provide a “perfect” experience for our children. Sometimes we lose sight of the experience they’re having versus the experience we WANT them to have. It’s a definite tight rope walk between living vicariously through your children and (if you’ll pardon the pun) railroading their own experience with your own expectations.

These thoughts aside, I feel our experience watching The Polar Express was absolutely perfect. It couldn’t have gone any better. I’m not just talking about Henry’s behavior in the movie (because, really, who can predict what a two year-old is going to do at any given minute). Instead, I’m talking about what he seemed to take from the experience. Looking over at him as he watched the movie, he really seemed to be enjoying himself.

That’s all I could have asked for.

In what is quickly becoming a tradition around these parts, I wanted to take a moment to mention my son Henry. Yesterday was his birthday and he turned 3 years-old.

I don’t talk about my kids in the blog, but I like the idea of writing about them on their birthdays. I have this vision where someday my kids will Google me and read all of the dumb crap I’ve written over the years. But then they find these articles about their birthdays and think “Hmm. Maybe the old man wasn’t such a jerk after all.”

One can hope.

I’m amazed that Henry is already 3 years-old. It’s cliche, but the time slips by so fast. I imagine time will only slip away faster and faster after this.

Henry is doing well these days, but, as always, he’s a handful. He’s constantly running around, banging his shins and begging to watch one of his “shows.” These days, that either means Wow Wow Wubbzy or Chuggington.

Henry is doing very well since Pearl was added to the mix three months ago. It’s safe to say he loves his baby sister. He constantly wants to look at her, hold her and give her kisses. Sometimes we have to ask him to knock it off. Henry’s sense of personal space hasn’t really formed yet. So he thinks nothing of running up to Pearl and patting her on the head while she’s sleeping. Such is life.

The big news in our house with Henry these days is potty training. At this point, he pretty much understands the mechanics of it. He can go to the potty, drop trou, do his business, button up and wash his hands by himself. The only trick is getting his legs to listen to his brain when it tells him “Bladder full!” or “Time to poop!” Henry is often fully engaged in whatever it is that he’s doing. So asking him to stop and take a break almost always results in a tantrum.

For his big day, Cami and decided to take Henry to Chuck E. Cheese and we couldn’t have been more thrilled with his behavior. It was fun to watch him wander around and take in all the sites. He was fascinated by every game, but had no idea how any of them worked. When we asked him if he wanted to play, he’d say “No!” in a sad tone that inferred “I don’t want to miss looking around at other things.” It wasn’t until about hour 3 that he kind of settled in and started playing on all the games and rides.

Late in the evening, exhausted after playing all night, Henry looked up at me and said sweetly, “Dad? Thank you for taking me to Chwuckee Cheeze.”

You could have knocked me over with a feather.

Happy birthday, Henry. I love you, buddy.