Update on Max

Hi all! This is a brief interlude from Holly telling you about her first trip away from Max to fill you in on some of the new things Max is doing these days. First off, though, a story about Mom and Dad losing an awful lot of good parent points.

On Friday night, we put Max to sleep and went down to the basement to enjoy our first rented movie in months and months. We had the monitor on and, at some point, Max started coughing. About four times in total. This was weird because Max didn't have and wasn't getting a cold. But he settled down in the end so we never went and tended to him. He woke up just after 4 in the morning (which seems to be his new pattern) and Holly went in to get him. As soon as she stepped in the nursery, she said "Something's not right." Yeah, it turns out that coughing at 10 p.m. was likely the sound of Max vomiting. So for the 6 hours after the incident, Max's tossing and turning ended up turning his body into a big paint roller and spread the puddle all over his mattress. Yuck. The poor guy was freezing and drenched too. In the early days, we would have been to groggy to act quickly, but after over a year of SEAL-like insta-wake up training, we roared into action, stripped Max's bed and got him changed and into bed with Holly in no time. He eventually fell asleep again and stayed down until 8, which was nice. We're not sure what brought that on (you may recall that this had happened once before), but some gastro bug had been circulating amongst the other boys at daycare as well as their parents. In fact, I may have caught it myself last night. Boo. Hopefully it goes away and doesn't come back.

On to the more fun stuff.

Max loves to bounce on springy surfaces. Maybe this is something he picked up at gymnastics, but he loves standing on our bed, looking at himself in the full-length mirror and trying to jump. I don't think he's managed to leave the ground yet (well, without wiping out), but that day is coming. When we're not upstairs, he likes to do the same stuff on the couch, with the added bonus of getting to chuck cushions around.

As a follow-up to the past item, JUMP is one of the many words that Max understands. As in we say JUMP and he starts bouncing around. I tried to compile a list of all words that he understands and this is what I came up with: JUMP, GO, STOMP, TURN AROUND, SCRUB, FLUSH, DANCE, SIT, ARMS UP, UP, STEP OUT, EAT, BOOK, FOOD, BOOTS, SOCKS, MILK, MOMMY, CAT, OUTSIDE, DOWNSTAIRS, LIP BALM, PHONE, BATH and NO. That's a pretty good list, considering he doesn't really know how to say any of these words:)

Max has successfully gotten himself into one of his boots by himself. It's still very hit-and-miss, but he likes to line up his boot beside our ottoman and attempt to hoist his foot/leg into the boot. He hasn't quite mastered orienting the boot the right way or ensuring that he's got the proper foot, but yesterday, after donning one boot, I watched him step into the other one by himself. It was a bit of a moment.

We had a friend come over to the house last night and he started to juggle some of Max's toys. It seems, from Max's reaction, that he loves juggling. Max picked up two of the three objects being juggled and tried it himself. That is, he shook the two toys vigourously and then threw them at the ground. He was pretty proud of himself. Not I-got-my-own-boot-on proud, but pretty proud. Max and our friend also engaged in a good game of rolling a ball to one another across our coffee table. It looks like Max is really grasping the art of the bounce pass.

Monday, Max got to go to his playgroup for the first time in eons (mostly weather-related). One of the songs they sing there goes "tick. tock. tick. tock. I'm a little cuckoo clock..." It seems that Max really got into the song, rocking back and forth like a grandfather clock and, get this, saying something that sounds an awful lot like "cuckoo clock". I think this is the first time I've seen him mimic the movements to a song and, more importantly, the first time I've ever heard him properly reproduce a specific consonant sound.

Max has always been quite fond of Lily and she, in turn, has typically been patient with him. These days though, Max is pushing the boundaries of their relationship. You see, he has been trying to mount her like a bike. Perhaps it has something to do with his rocking toys, that he just thinks he can hop on our cat. Lily meows, but has yet to really lash out at Max. It's pretty impressive actually.

So that's our boy. Always coming up with new ways to entertain us and himself.