Meet Henry, sarcastic toddler

Photo taken by Mabel, at the hotel in Springdale last month.

Henry is now about 21 months old and, although extremely expressive, not terribly verbal. Many of his words sound about as clear whether he’s got his binky in his mouth or not. He can say “shoes” very well, and “mine!” and “ball,” and a syllable that means “outside” (and sounds something like “guy.”) He’s also known “no” for a long time (very important word when you have three bossy older siblings,) but somehow finds “yes” much more difficult, so, for the last several weeks when I offer him something, I can tell the difference between his yes and his no by the expression on his face — a sincere “no” is offered with a scowl and loud voice, but if he means “yes,” he’ll say “nooo” with a wry comic smile on his face, in a lilting tone, and rolling his eyes. Finally, just today, he managed to get out his affirmative response this way: “nooo–yeh!”

A couple of weeks ago I was asking Henry to point to family members: “Where’s Mommy? Where’s Daddy?” This game was a little too rote for him, so he started deliberately pointing to the wrong family member. He especially refused to ever correctly point to me, and seemed to think it was all hilarious (which, actually, it was.) Now he’s perfected the game to the point where as soon as I start to say, “Henry, where’s . . ?” he’ll interrupt me, point at Dean, and shout, “MA!”

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