Category: Max

There are new Max pics up that Uncle Steve was kind enough to take: Playing in the backyard at Grandma’s. There are some really nice shots of my little boy. Good job, Steve!

Max woke us up last night crying. That usually means he’s lost his pacifier and just needs help finding and reattaching it to his face. I hopped out of bed, wandered down the hall and when I opened the door was attacked by a smell I don’t remember smelling before. It was a combination of vinegar, summer deli dumpster and dill pickle juice. Max had puked all over himself, his clothes, and his bed. I grabbed him, ran him to the bathroom, fired up the tub, stripped him down, wrapped him in a towel and held him until the tub was ready. He was shaking uncontrolably, and visibly uncomfortable, so I put him in the tub, washed him off quickly, washed the vomit from his hair, grabbed him out of the tub, dried him off, ran him downstairs, put on a fresh diaper and put clean jammies on him. Just as I was standing him up to pull his flannel pants up, he let loose another pink deluge of partially digested food all over me and the towel. I caught most of it either on me, or the towel, sparing him the need for yet another change of clothes. The smell, again, was amazing. I had to fight back my own heaves just to keep catching chunks and hold him up so he didn’t fall off the changing table.

It was great fun. Jen and I spent the next two hours on the couch with him in my lap. I held the bucket and did my best to catch the ensuing expulsions. I’m pretty proud of myself. I only missed the first part of the first one after we sat down, and that was only because he overshot. I was able to catch the rest in the bowl, keeping him nice and dry and me less puke-stinky. Jen sent me to bed after it looked like he was all done and worn out. She laid down on the floor in his room with him, and I tried to get back to sleep. I think I may have gotten about 4 hours of sleep, but it wasn’t very restful. He’s feeling much better today, although he’s fighting eating the blah food and will only eat popsicles or pedialyte.

I think we handled the whole thing really well. No one flipped out. We didn’t call our parents crying for help. We did what we could do for him and comforted him the best way we knew how. I think I’m getting the hang of this parenting thing…

I’m exhausted, but at work toiling away on my big project. There are so many things I’ve wanted to write about this week but haven’t had the time to, like Greg the Bunny, and how I want to start a Tardy fan club. The show is brilliant. I hope it lasts longer than Steve Levitan’s last show (which was also very good, but stuck in the morass that NBC Thursday night has become – Must Cancel TV), Stark Raving Mad. I was going to talk about this whole “warblogging” thing, but it’s old and getting older the more I read. I want to talk about James Lee Burke and how everyone should read him, how much I love to hate the South, the joys of toddlers and the many things I’ve learned about being married. But, they’ll have to wait for some other time. Now, it’s back to work and answering the minute-by-minute e-mails flooding my box.

I had Max all to myself last night. Jen had to go to church to herd her girls into something meaningful, so it was a boy’s night at Chez Lawver. We watched Lyle Lovett on Sessions at West 54th and some basketball. We played with Marbleworks, jumped on the couch (he did the jumping – I spotted), drank juice, sang songs and read books. It’s a lot funner now that he has a little personality and can keep up his end of the conversation. He danced with me to Lyle’s Church song, and after I made him listen to If I Had a Boat a couple times, tried to sing along with me.

I think he’s really close to reading too. He knows all his letters and can point them out (and does – ALL the time) when he sees them. He can spell his name, has been trying to spell “mommy” and “daddy” and has started recognizing words in the books we read. And to think, he’s only 2 and a half. If he’s reading by 3, I’ll be shocked. And what’s even crazier is he wants to. We’re not forcing him to spend time with his “letters”. He can’t get enough of them. I just hope he doesn’t get burned out and by Kindergarten, he’s bored with numbers and letters and wants to go back to colors, shapes and drooling.

There are things I probably should be doing now, but I can’t seem to get started. Motivation, where did you go? It’s probably at home singing the ABC song along with Max. Instead of being my echo in the four or five songs he knows, he’ll now sing along at the top of his lungs. If I slow down the tempo, he slows down. If I go fast, he does his best to keep up. My favorite part is the middle of the alphabet. He enunciates all his letters very well until he gets to el-em-en-oh-poo. I love watching his face as his tongue flails around trying to get the letters out faster. It comes out like el-ah-no-BEEE! And then it’s back to normal through to Z. I love my kid, can you tell?

Max counted to one hundred last night. He’s two and a half and counted to a hundred. He needed some help after thirty. He got to thirty-nine and then looked at me. I said “forty” and then he promptly moved on to forty-nine, at which point I said, “fifty” and so on until we got to one hundred. At that point, we clapped and he shouted, “The end!”, like one hundred is the biggest number he’ll ever need to count to.

Jen’s started leaving Max’s door open a crack at night, and then leaving our door open a crack as well so Max can come in after he wakes up in the morning. I think the shower woke him up this morning because when I got out, there was Max, laying on his lamb on the bed in his Batman pajamas. He smiled his sleepy smile and said quietly, “Hi, daddy” and then layed back down. He is so cute, it makes me want to cry.

Today we got the first big snow of the year. We took Max out to make snowballs and had a great time. No more blogging now – need more kung pao beef to warm up. They say we could get a couple more inches tonight. YES!

Max’s Trip to the Reston Zoo is up (finally). You know, I’d get these things up sooner if people told me these pictures existed. Silly people. I’ve also found pics that Jen took of Grandpa Brian’s October visit

I love looking at pictures of Max. Those were taken this summer, just a few months ago, and it’s amazing to realize the changes Max has gone through since then. He’s taller and faster, which is expected. He’s talking now, in complete sentances sometimes. He has shorter hair, and yes, it’s still crazy. He’s a joy to be around (which isn’t really change). He’s a lot more fun now that we can have little conversations and our little drawing sessions where he tells me what to draw, and then I tell him what to draw. I love having a son. I love him. I honestly wouldn’t exchange it for anything.

Some new pics of musical maestro Max are up. (and in the pics of him and our tiny Christmas tree, he’d just gotten out of the tub – he’s not dirty)

Max’s Wall Monkey, because monkey = funny. I finally got a good capture of the monkey my sister and I painted on Max’s wall for his birthday (thank you, iMovie!).