Halloween

 

Thanks to Auntie CC who got creative and made Max's costume this year from scratch! :-) Max didn't go trick or treating, but we did go to a get together at a neighbors house, so he got to check out all the other costumes.

October 2009

Here are some recent photos of Max I took.



And here is a picture of Max when Daddy came home after work one day. THIS is why both of us like pick up way better than drop off.


Here at the farm across the street from his day care. It is a real farm, but they cater to the holiday stuff mostly. We'll have to go back because even though he did NOT want any of the pumpkins (we left empty handed, but all the little pumpkins were sold out), he was NOT happy about leaving the tractors. With Cars and Finding Nemo are his 2 favorite movies now, his favorite games are lining up his cars, WWF wrestling with his stuffed "Mo Mo" (Nemo) and tractor tipping (like "May may" Mater from Cars).

Peanut Butter Cookies

Sorry it's been forever since we've posted anything. It's been a busy few weeks. On Labor Day, Max wanted to try a peanut butter cookie. Just a few broken pieces left, but Max was very insistent after refusing cakes and other yummy things, so we thought we'd let him try. His face broke out in hives and these skin things don't show up well in pictures, but here's a pic of our little guy ~20 min after eating what amounted to less than 1 cookie:

 

We got him tested and he's allergic to peanuts, eggs and shellfish (shrimp & crab reacted and the other bivalves were pretty low). Max tested negative for ovo-mucoid, which means he is ok with egg so long as it's cooked long enough to break down the proteins, so no scrambled eggs or even hard boiled eggs - stuff should be baked at a high temperature for a signifant amount of time. By completely eliminating exposure, this should help Max grow out of it if he is going to, so we're going to keep our fingers crossed.

Mo Mo

Max has been having a tough time recently. First he got hives pretty
bad from a peanut butter cookie. Then he started the hyper reaction to
benadryl. He's been having some trouble with his 2nd year molar (all
his 1st molars are in) - so the sleeping has been all out of wack.
Here he is with his cow (the only stuffed animal he seems to care for
at all) and watching his most recent demand ("mo mo" = Nemo). Luckily
wei yan figured that one out at 2:30am last night, cuz Max was getting
really frustrated with me for not getting it.

This kid's got rhythm

So we're at that point where Max is really learning things my leaps and bounds. Recently, Max has been pointing to Wei Yan's iphone and saying "Ma" since the wallpaper image is a picture of Max. Yesterday, he turned on the phone, said Max like 3 times, turned on the music - which happened to be a Pearl Jam and started rocking out. I tried to get him to say it after me - the Max he yells out is not the way he normally says it, but it will do. This kid's got some rhythm! Oh, he also likes Pink and sadly Britney's circus song (which is banned from our radio, sorry buddy).

Yay for me!

So Max says "pu pu" for Supra now. And he knows who some people are or can at least figure it out by powers of deduction some of the time. Since we learned the hard way that pointing to oneself and saying "daddy" or "mommy" isn't the best way to teach Max who we are (ask him who Mommy or Daddy is & he'll point to himself) - Grandma tried to see who Max knew by asking him to give people puzzle pieces. Listen for "Supra" in the beginning too:

18 months old now!

Here is a picture of Max's "Stanky eye" (according to Auntie CC):

 

We had his 18 month check up today where he was 22lbs 4 oz (moving up to 8th percentile from 4th), 30-1/8" (4th percentile, but he was NOT happy about being forced to stretch out, so don't think that was very accurate) and 10th percentile in head circumference. Seems like each time he goes, his reaction to the shots gets worse. This time was a full out meltdown including 3 bandaids to help stop the bleeding on his finger prick (hemoglobin level to check his dairy/starch gluttony and lack of most other stuff isn't a problem). He ripped off all bandaids and was NOT having any of that. Luckily dad wore a red shirt today!

Sorry, been a little slow on the updates. Grandma was here for a week and I'll have to post some pics of that visit soon.

hehehe

yesterday, max came home from day care with this laugh:

we have no idea where this came from or how long it will stay.

Thank you

 

So while we were in Cali, we visited one of our friends and Max was playing with their daughter in their backyard. I heard some commotion & found Max had backed this little girl up against the wall and he was trying to claim all of (her) bubble wands. I scolded Max and since he's been having much trouble with the whole sharing concept, I tried for success by asking him to pick 2 and let the owner have the rest (assuming here that with 1 in each hand he could not protest too much). After he grabbed 2 (of her bubble wands, mind you) I told him, "say 'thank you'" - just as a passing comment and I heard a "do do" in a VERY loud, forced tone! ATTITUDE already??? And this since I wasn't really expecting him to say anything, cuz he's said a 2-syllable "do-do" a few times in a rising & falling pronounciation a few times a while back. These 2 survived their encounter with no hard feelings - how nice it is to be young enough to forget infractions in minutes!

all max's new tricks

Touch down part II

making uncle ryan proud!

1st flight down

We woke Max up at 4:30am this morning to catch our 6am flight. Knowing
he would not be happy about being awoken 3-4 hrs before he normally
does, we waited til the last min to get him up.

He was awake & fairly active the whole fight and then we touch down &
2 min taxiing then he is PASSED OUT! Now we're stuck waiting on the
tarmac, so guess it's a good time for a nap.

ka

so max is starting to vocalize a little more. he's def not as verbal as some of his classmates or girls we know around his age. the other day he pointed to the cars on his sippy cup and said, "ka". and when we were reading a book, he started making monkey sounds when he saw a picture of a monkey. so we'll take what we can get.

I think the time of toddler frustration is coming though. The other day he spent a good 20 min pointing at something in a bucket of toys - and it felt like I had picked up almost every toy in the bucket which didn't seem to elicit a positive response. We finally ended up distracting him, but that trick is harder to do once he gets his mind set. So, might be a while for posts unless I get a lot of pics/videos while we are in cali...

Looking for fun stuff to do while we are there...

Banana

I hate bananas. To be more precise, just the thought of them makes me a bit nauseous. I don't mind banana flavored candy, and I can sometimes tolerate them in shakes if there are a lot of strawberries or pineapples in the shake - but most of the time I just don't bother. Strangely enough, I tried some banana pudding (with some strawberries) the other day and really liked it. I think it was all the sugary pudding and strawberries and vanilla wafers that I liked. I guess I've now acquired this southern taste after being here for 14 years...the other stuff was a little easier to pick up! ;-)

So anyway, Max is a banana eating machine. This video is a bit long. In less than 90 seconds, Max destroys this banana (not a whole one). We'll make sure on 4th of july he see's kobayashi & chestnut competing in the hot dog eating contest to continue his training.

teeth

The other day I was surprised to feel a new tooth in Max's mouth! He's starting to get some back teeth finally. Well, 1 has just broken through and the mirror one on the other side on the top is also about to break through as well. So this is tooth #9 and with #10 on it's way. I did notice that his drool was worse than usual a week or 2 back, but this is not really much of a distinction. The day care folks have proudly told us that they are down to only 2 bibs a day (3 on a bad day) - this only accomplished by hanging the wet bibs on the handle out side his room in the sun while he wears the drier one.

wink wink!

So Max has been copying a lot of things we do these days. So here is a quick video of Max showing off his new *wink*

More rice please

We went to this singaporean restaurant in chapel hill the other day
called Merlion. Food is awesome there, and max ate almost all my rice
last time we went. I didn't realize that my dish came with a special
rice cooked with chicken broth. So this time, once max figured this
out he was very untrusting - he had to see the rice coming from the
correct side of the plate. Again, he ate the rest of the rice from
dad's plate, and then some from his own order. As you can see, not fun
to try at home. We had to change his rice encrusted clothes as soon as
he got out of his high chair. He also loves Thai sticky rice which is
much less messy! Big tip for the waitresses.

Max's babblings

Max has been babbling a lot these days. Trying to edit this video down a bit, I've watched it quite a few times now. So pretty typical these days, you'll see Max babbling, then showing frustration (hitting the gate when his new friend doesn't let him open it), his squeals of excitement (those are the best) and also using a new word. Earlier today when we were in the chinese grocery store, I heard Max yell out "No!" behind me - I think Wei Yan had said no and Max decided to repeat him a little louder. He's been a little frustrated these days. I've been encouraging him to use his signs since his words are a little jumbled together (like "moa" for more and "meh" for milk sometimes just can't be distinguished,) but I just don't think he's really going to be a signer. He's already abandoned a few signs since he thinks he's gotten the words down, but when he starts crying or getting frustrated, you can't tell what he's saying. But on a good note, we have been asking questions and every once in a while we'll get a nod yes or no with some accompanying word that we can understand (like "do you want ANOTHER banana?" - he ate 2 today for dinner at the picnic today)

New Friends

Max had a visitor today. Normally when we see him with other kids, he's pretty quiet & reserved but he took a liking to our friends' god-daughter. She is 2.5 years old.

Max's first baseball game

 

So here in the Triangle, hockey is the only professional team around - so we went to see a Durham Bulls game (the same team from the movie) with our company. This was at the end of the night when Max was tired, but he actually had a much better time than I thought he would have. He enjoyed all the music (each batter has their own song), cheering and clapping - as well as all the people. He wouldn't try any of the ballpark treats, but this can all wait I'm sure. We'll probably try to go to another game this season after we saw Max had a good time - also, he made it to the end of the 7th inning! (ok, we didn't actually make it for the 1st 2 innings)