Anecdotal

On the way to drop Max off at school yesterday morning, I heard a lot of babbling from the backseat. At a stop light, I turned to see what all the chatter was, and Max was pointing out the window and 'talking' about what he saw.

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Max has always loved our cell phones, mostly because they light up and make noise when you push the buttons. But, recently he's figured out what they do. When my phone rings, Max will hold his hand up to his ear and say 'hi!' He's even started talking into the phones, themselves, and when he plays with them, the first thing he does is hold the phone to the side of his head (he even did this with my parents' portable phone in Mason). I've even noticed that when he wants one of our phones, he will hold his hand up to his ear and look in the direction of the phone in question.

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Max's word of the moment is 'shoes.' He know what shoes are, what his shoes look like, and which shoes are Mama's. He even says shoes, pronouncing it sort-of like 'shus.' At our small group on Wednesday, he found Holly's shoes and started playing with them, and even tried Emily's on.

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He can also say 'dog,' 'woof-woof,' 'ball,' 'balloon,' 'book,' 'bird,' 'mama,' 'papa,' and 'pa-paw.' He has his own word for 'glasses,' which is 'gah.' Today he pointed to the cup of milk in one of his books when he was thirsty, and I find that he is finding other ways to communicate to me his wants and needs. It's so exciting to watch him figure out how to tell me things!

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Max loves music and loves to dance, but his favorite music is hip-hop. I'm guessing because of the very distinctive beats. Sometimes he will dance to other types of music, but if hip-hop comes on, I know he is dancing away in the backseat. His little Ray Charles-esque groove has been refined to a more distinctive head bob. Sometimes, if he's standing, he will bounce. And I've even noticed what I think might be a bit of singing...He's even starting to get the clapping with 'If You're Happy and You Know It.' Not in the right spots, but he knows that he claps.

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Our little guy has finally gotten the hang of how to get off of things (the bed, the couch, chairs) by flipping onto his stomach and shimmy-ing off feet first. It's really cool to watch him do this! I also noticed that he can reach forward and pull himself onto things, if they are narrow enough for his arms to span (like a bench or a chair that's lower to the ground and not too deep)!

Bark-a Lounger

A boy and his mom's friend's dog...Miss Chaco and Max, being buds. She really is so good with him.

V-I-C-T-O-R-Y

Max is FINALLY sleeping through the night! This event has occurred every night this week. Can I get a 'hallelujah'? Wait, wait...I don't want to celebrate too much, for fear that word will get back to him that Mom might like this (despite the fact that he does wake up between 6:30-6:45 every morning)...now if only I can get used to sleeping through the night, we'll be set.

"Gee Brain, what do you want to do tonight?"

Last night, Clint came to bed 'early' (look! It's not even 1:00, yet!), and curled up next to me to cuddle, as he often does before retiring to his side of the bed. He asked me to scoot over, so that he wasn't hanging off the bed, and as I did this, I noticed the silhouette of a little head pop up. Max was in the bed with us...

Now, this is not, in itself, so curious as I will often bring him to lay with me when he wakes up at night. The only problem is that neither of us can figure out exactly how he got there last night. I cannot remember getting up to get him from his crib, and I never fall asleep with him in bed-partly due to paranoia, and partly due to the fact that he WIGGLES and keeps me awake. He woke up at 9:30, long before I went to bed, and I don't remember holding him after that time.

People, it has been YEARS since I last sleep-walked (slept-walk? slept-walked? What is the past tense of that?)...I am not the lightest sleeper ever, but any sound Max makes wakes me up. I highly doubt that I would have gotten up asleep and brought him back to bed with me...but this seems to be the only logical conclusion. I know Max. There is NO WAY that if he climbed out of that crib we would ever keep him in there again (Lord help us when that day comes). And, for this reason, it took me a solid hour to fall back asleep, and I was convinced that every move he made was him trying to shimmy back up the bars. After an hour of crib-watching, I knew that he had not 'escaped.'

This evening Clint asked me 'So, do you remember getting him, yet?' No. No, I don't. Maybe he is Max, Baby Genius, and he created the first ever teleportation device that he tests out only when he thinks everyone else is sleeping (and here is where the joke in the title comes in, for those of you who never saw Pinky and The Brain)?

Yeah...I guess I did get up at some point last night...

Indeed, It Was...

I got a text message from a friend last night at about 11:30 wishing me a happy mother's day. I read it, and then looked down at the sweet bundle of blond little boy curled in my arms. He had woken up a few minutes earlier, and we were now lying in my bed, him curled in the crook of my arm, looking into each other's faces and smiling. He put his chubby little hand on my face and told me a story in a language that my mind doesn't understand, but my heart does. It involved liberal use of the word 'papa,' and many dogs barking. We cuddled, and talked for a few minutes, and then I put him back to bed, thinking that I could have never imagined a love so all-encompassing.

B is for Bah!

Max is talking up a storm, and recognizing more and more words. It's really cool to see him understand what we say. He knows Mama and Papa, ball (bah!), book (booh!), bird (bir!), dog (dah!), and he barks! If you ask him what sound the dog makes, he first looks around for a dog, and then will say 'Woo...ooo!' Sometimes there's a bit of an 'f' on the end, but not often. He will also make this sound any time he hears a dog bark. There is a mylar balloon hanging (out of reach of kiddos, no worries) in his classroom, and he knows that it is a 'balloon.' He also makes lots of other sounds, and understands 'No,' 'sit down,' 'stand up,' 'you're alright!' and, of course, much more than we give him credit for. But it still always amazes and excites me when I realize that he just understood me, or verbalized something new.

You're Late

Yesterday, I was the latest I've ever been to pick Max up at school, and he somehow knew it. His teacher said he seemed sad. He's only one and he already knows me well enough to understand that I'm so neurotic about being late that I'm always early...If I was late, there was something wrong!

I hugged him and apologized and asked him 'were you missing Mama?' His immediate response was 'Papa papa papa...' Oh, thanks. It was as if he was telling me that he knew we'd already missed Papa's dinner time, when he comes home from work to see us. Well, sorry kiddo, but the laundry doesn't fold itself...

Max's First Shiner

And I don't mean the beer. Take a look at what the boy managed to do to himself this morning:

Eye, meet window...ouch.

And I know this one really hurt because he howled for a while. Normally, when Max hurts himself, he might give one or two really good shouts, and then he's done. And only if it really hurt. I've seen him bust his lip open and only give about 3 really good yelps. But this time he cried pretty hard for a good while. Poor little guy...he inherited the genetic crossing of my 'grace' genes with Clint's...there's no hope for him.

And I finally uploaded the pictures from my camera from the birthday bonanza. See? All it took was a black eye.


A local brewery called Independence Brewing Co. does a free tour & sampling the first Satruday of every month. In April, it was also a fundraiser for a mixed-breed rescue in Austin. So...lots of doggies. This pup happened to belong to the brewery. Max was in heaven.


Max, eating his muffin at his school birthday party. Can't tell that the boy likes to eat, can you?

Out in Mason on his bday, brainwashing the kid early. He even got a couple of John Deere books for his birthday...

Max and Grandma found a butterfly.

Max likes cucumbers...

With his Great Grandpa Gene and Great Aunt Edith. You can't tell that Max came from this gene pool, can you?

Grandpa. Or is it Pawpaw? Mimi...? My vote is for Gramps.

Mimi and Gramps. We took about 50 and this is the best shot we got...Kids.

Max & Mimi.