Henry VanDyke

Henry is now an eggplant, well as big as an eggplant now that we’re at the six month mark.

I'm sure I'll like Henry more than I like eggplant.

I’m making a technical change to Henry’s blog. If you notice a link or something not working please leave a comment or send me an email.

Warning technical details to follow. This is the point at which most people should stop reading.

I had been hosting Henry’s blog as a sub-directory within my jamesvandyke.com blog. While you could access the site from henryvandyke.com, you were actually being redirected to jamesvandyke.com/baby. Shortly after getting everything setup I realized that he’s not going to be a baby forever. To avoid endless teasing during middle school, I’ve figured out a way that keeps you at henryvandyke.com and should last well into his toddler years when the world will likely have given up on the whole internet thing.

We finished painting Henry’s room and putting together his crib and dresser. So his room is starting to take shape. Pictures weren’t doing a great job showing the entire room, so here’s a video.

Henry is getting more and more clothing these days. His latest haul comes from a trio of generous donors. The blanket and dog themed onesies at the top left are from Steve and Donna Springer who are friends from Clarksville. The “Robot Friends” onesies are another European addition from Erin’s Dad. The Samford t-shirt and onesies were personally delivered from Birmingham by AJ (Aunt Jennifer).

As parents-to-be, Erin and I feel the weight of guiding Henry’s young impressionable mind, particularly through his wardrobe. I think the latest set will guide him on the path to graduating from Samford and then building friendly robots that provide company and comfort to orphaned puppies. I guess it could also give him an identity crisis where he thinks he’s a robotic dog named Samford… nah than could never happen.

"Stylin' and profilin', whoo!"

We finished putting Henry’s crib together last week. Here is the finished product. Who knew mattresses weren’t included?

No scratches. Now accepting wagers on how long that will last.

Henry’s future room has been making some dramatic changes in the past week.

Henry’s room started out as James’ office. However, we wanted a room for guests to stay in while visiting Henry, so the office got the boot. The first step was selling our desk, which we did on Craig’s List. Then, cleaning and painting ensued.

We chose a cheerful baby blue for the room plus, as we mentioned earlier, a chalkboard wall. The magnetic primer for the chalkboard wall smelled awful and the odors stayed in the house a good 24 hours after we finished painting.

We woke up early on Sunday planning to just tape off the room for afternoon painting, but we just couldn’t stop once we started. In what is likely one of the most productive mornings on record, we completely painted Henry’s room. I still need to finish up the chalkboard wall but here are some pictures from start to mostly finished.

[Show as slideshow]

Erin and I have decided to turn one wall of Henry’s room into a chalkboard. They make paint now that can turn any wall into a chalkboard or whiteboard. In addition we thought it would be fun if Henry could put magnets on his chalkboard and sure enough there’s a paint for that. A magnetic primer will be the base coat and then we’ll put the chalkboard paint on top of that. We’ll update you soon on whether it works.

He'll know the difference between which wall to write on right?

Like Henry's personality, his wall will be highly attractive.

Henry now has a registry at Target.

Similarly to when we got married I assumed my husbandly duty of operating the scanner. While generally I took Erin’s recommendations on which items to add, I did take the initiative to select a few items on my own including a Nerf Football and a lego helicopter set. Sadly those items were deleted upon further spousal review. One item did make it past the censors though for your enjoyment while reviewing the list.

"You can only hope to contain me." -Henry