What a month

Another busy week! This one was crazier than most in that we've chosen to pull up our roots and move! Not too far, mind you, but a couple of kilometers further west from where we are currently. We've stumbled onto a real gem of a house and are extremely excited to start our new life there toward the end of May. Hopefully Max won't mind stuff gradually being packed up and disappearing from our house...or the fact that he will have a new room. We'll definitely be posting some dispatches as the move progresses.

This past week has been full of dinners with family and friends as well as house-related running around. The weather has also gotten nicer with highs hovering around 2-5 above 0. What this has meant for us is that Max has started wanting to spend a lot more time outside. He has started to prefer hanging out on our deck or in our driveway after getting picked up from daycare instead of just heading inside to play. In fact, when we eventually do go inside for dinner, Max typically has a disastrous meltdown and wants to stay outside. Should we encourage this or quash it as soon as possible with video games? heh heh. It's awesome that he loves being outdoors and we look forward to taking advantage of this. The only thing that will make outdoor time better is being able to be outside without mitts and a toque. A lighter jacket would be nice too. And if OC Transpo could use the imminent rate hike to put more buses on the road, Max would NOT disapprove.

Speaking of buses, I went to a party at our neighbour's Friday night and one of the other attendees brought their 2-year-old son and some of his toys and books. One of those books was Richard Scarry's Cars, Trucks and Things that Go, a book that I had as a young boy. I saw it on eBay the other month and somehow assumed that it wasn't available in print anymore. Holly made a trip to Chapters this morning and picked up a copy - when Max was going through the book, his head just about spun off in excitement. Crazy-looking large vehicles? All driven by animals? Max's heaven.

Yesterday, we spent the day over at Holly's mom's while we had some work done on our house. Max had a fun time with the family and had a killer nap. He also enjoyed hanging out with me by the Transitway overpass watching buses go by. Unfortunately, he had a little tumble outside and knocked his head on Grandma's driveway. Not much of a bruise, but a good dose of road rash on his temple to show for it. I'll try to get a picture for posterity. Max wasn't upset for too long, as he had family members to entertain him, a piano to play, food to eat and a couch to dive on (see the accompanying video). Last night, I'm not sure if it was the injury, Max's ongoing congestion, or the playpen we had to put him in, but he ended up getting up before midnight and needing to sleep with Holly in bed, occasionally on her chest while she slept sitting up, in order to clear the congestion. I'm not sure if this bodes well for the next time we'll need to have him sleep in a playpen. It's entirely possible that he's just a bit too long and/or active in his sleep at this point...

Today, Max and I went to his first session of Tall & Small 1 gymnastics. It's at the same place as last time, but it's earlier and not mixed in with a Tall & Small 2 class this time. There were two holy terrors in this class. It will be interesting to see whether they were just having bad days or, if that's just the way they are, whether their parents are going to give up on taking them and start staying home instead. Also, one of the children from Max's original play group is in the class. It's really interesting how we keep running into the other members of the playgroup through Max's activities, and cool to see how they're developing as compared to Max ('cause it's all about keeping up with the Joneses right?:):) The early gym class meant that Max had more energy for the class, but it also meant that he had an early nap afterward, which led to him being megacranky this evening. Tonight was the first night in probably two months that Max was asleep by 7:30.

I'll leave you with a brief word regarding Max's verbal development. He has worked DAD/DADA into the mix, so I'm pleased about that. Also, DUCK and DOG are coming along nicely (at least the D and the vowel sound). Max can also tell you that a cow goes MOO (although most of he time, he misses the M...I like to make him say MOM then MOO so that he remembers the M sound...although it isn't the most flattering string of words). He came pretty close to JUICE the other day and also goes bananas whenever we see a bus, with something that sounds like JE JE JE JE JAH! Our daycare provider believes he might be trying to say DID YOU SEE THAT...a stretch, but plausible. Max is also understanding a pile of new things, but the cutest is that Holly has gotten him to lie down to get his diaper changed on request. It doesn't always work (it's definitely mood-dependent), but when it does, it's magic.

Here's Max identifying some dogs on his PJs:

Here's Max destroying our cupboard: