Right after I submitted our last post, we all went down to the Canal to see the tulips for Mother's Day. Apparently, Holly used to do this every year when her grandparents would come up in May so it kind of resonated with her that now she was the mother and not the child walking among the tulips. We saw all kinds of wonderful flowers including Holly's favourite (double tulips with lots of extra petals, almost rose-like) and mine (the tulips with the pointy petals, not the rounded ones). I wore Max the whole time and got pointed at, cooed at and generally ogled. Yep, I've still got it. Max got a bit of nice tulip time before he decided he was pretty hungry and it started spitting . . . that was pretty much the end of that.
The next day, we got to celebrate our wedding anniversary! 7 years altogether, but our first with a little bystander. We didn't get up to much, but still got to get all reminiscent and schmaltzy with each other, so a good night in general.
The Thursday night, we all piled into the Maxmobile (on loan from the Tuscany-based Auntie M) and went out for our first Ultimate game of the season. We really weren't sure what we were thinking in terms of both of us signing up and bringing the baby. Every time we were both on for a point, he went a little crazy. It didn't help that the game overlapped his dinner time (we tried feeding him, but it was tricky to organize with us bouncing in and out of the play) and the start of his bedtime. Our teammates were wonderful, though, and did their best to keep him calm while we thrashed the other team :) . The one nice thing that came of that evening was that I think we established that Max didn't get mommy's mosquito-magnet gene. Although maybe he did and he just isn't emitting as much CO-2 as the mothership. Apologies for the lack of pictures; we didn't think to bring the camera.
On Friday night, we got together with our friends
from Regina (well, Vancouver, Ottawa, Waterloo and only most recently Regina) who were in town for a visit. They brought their two-year old daughter who was less than one the last time we saw her. I have to admit to paying very close attention to toddlers now, thinking "Wow - Max is going to do those things sometime in the not-so-distant future! Crazy!". It was great to catch up, introduce our friends to Max and see how their girl is becoming a total angel and super cutie. 16 months isn't too big an age difference, right?The long weekend was a bit of a treat for all three of us - I didn't have to work for a day, Holly had two extra hands around the house for a day and Max didn't have to go to torture class, a.k.a his swimming lesson. Holly's folks all converged on Ottawa for the weekend as her cousin came up from Guelph and the elder family members returned from their Italian retreat. Apparently, it was a fantastic trip but it was pretty obvious that some aunties and grandparents were suffering from baby withdrawal. We also got out to Saturday lunch with a couple of friends (thank you so much for such a nice visit!) and "cool auntie Kerry" in Aylmer. Our friends have two younger children so I was in full "Man! He's going to be able to do that?" mode all over again. We also filmed an excellent video of what happens when Max gets close and personal with his good friend air, but I know there are some people who are philosophically against my reenactments of Max at Kittyhawk, so I'll just keep that under wraps for now. Know that Max loves heights. For now. However, I will release the video of when we got out to our friend's birthday BBQ food & fun people extravaganza Saturday night (thanks to you guys for such a rockin' time). Max had his first go at DDR and did OK. **Oh no! it looks like the video exceeds the size restrictions of Blogger. I'll have to figure out how to slice this thing up...
After a really good spell of sleepy nights, Max started some 2:30 wake-ups about a week ago and then seems to have regressed into screaming and ear-tugging recently. There's no sign of the top two teeth surfacing, but know we kind of know the signs and won't be surprised to see blisters or some other sign within a week or so. The only blip in his new bad-sleep routine came this past Thursday night, when Max's great auntie K came by to babysit for our second Ultimate night. Apparently he was a real treat to be around until the food ran out (sounds about right) and then he eventually passed out in her arms. Whatever downer she slipped him in his meal (or wonderful dormant baby-mothering skills she activated) that night worked like a charm as Max slept from 9:30-7:30 without a wake-up. Thanks so much auntie!
We got greedy though and assumed he'd do the same last night so treated ourselves to a couple of hours on the couch watching So You Think You Can Dance? (So good - our first hanging out like that sans baby in months) after Max went to sleep. We got so burned - he got up three times between 12 and 6 and Holly had to get up early to go garage sale-ing today (so many treats for Max . . . almost disgusting). So we're both a little tired now.
Torture class was better than normal today. Not good but better than normal. Max only cried through Hot Potato, If You're Happy and You Know it, Bombs Away, What Time is it Mr. Wolf? and The Grand Old Duke of York. He did not cry through the entire 3 minutes of ball-kicking at the end of the class. So only about 21/25 minutes = 84% cry factor today. Better yet, he sat through his entire time in the warm pool (yes sat, as in unassisted sitting) completely chilled out. Even after some kid threw a bunch of toys in the water and totally splashed Max in the face. After the last class, I had the list off triggers down to a) Max hates water in his face and b) Max hates colder water. Well, after today, factor b is certainly on the list, but factor a has taken a beating with that warm pool display. Granted, if Max is upset and gets splashed, he gets more upset, but it seems that if he's relatively calm, a splash surprises him and that's about it. The instructor came over to me in the warm pool and marveled with me. I understand that I shouldn't feel sorry for this guy for having inflicted Max on him (he signed up for it, right?), but this is a pretty calm class of kids except for my guy. Who knows, maybe the cry factor will dip below 80% next week. Unprecedented!!
The only other update is that Max had another run-in with the doctor on Friday and it looks like he's still riding his weight curve so that was good news. Although it looks like I was paying so much attention to his weight that I never noticed that he's generally short for his too now! Screw it, he's well-proportioned, hella cute, healthy and fun to be around. Although we have apparently been given the green light to introduce the second meat: ground beef. Of course this meant another trip to the local deluxe deli to get organic meats costing about 4.25 times the junk you can get at any grocery store. Good thing he only goes through about two adult servings in three weeks! Over the past couple of weeks, we've added parsnip, squash, and quinoa to Max's diet and have reintroduced brown rice mush and avocado. That makes 3 grains, 10 fruits, 8 vegetables and 3 proteins . . . as if he already eats 24 things!
Oh yeah, Max has now gotten into adventure crawling. He still hasn't started cross-crawling on all fours (thankfully), but has gotten quite good at dragging himself over obstacles (cushions, mats, me). It's going to take a nation of millions to hold him back. Which makes me think - Holly grew up in a very classic rock household and I grew up listening to the lighter classic rock and quite a bit of Motown...I'm not sure how those influences have shaped our musical tastes (although Holly still loves to listen to The Boss and Van while I like jazz and, surprisingly, had to fill her in on Ben Stiller's Little River Band spoof on American Idol last season) but I often wonder how a child brought up on the sounds of Josh Ritter, Radiohead, Sarah Harmer, Indigo Girls, Justin Timberlake, Ani DiFranco, Jose Gonzalez, Be Good Tanyas, Outkast, The Postal Service, Chemical Brothers, Michael Franti, Daft Punk and Kanye West is going to come out the other side. Maybe there will be a genre in 2020 that will be a fusion of fusions that Max will get into. As long as it's not speed metal. Although I love that ad from a few years back of the punk teen girl who pops her thrash CD into the car player and does her best to look insolent. She rolls her eyes as driving dad reaches for the console . . . only to crank the music as he rolls up to drop her off to school. I want to be that dad. Car optional, I suppose.
Here is another video to tide you over:
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