Fall Days

We are having a really beautiful fall. The weather is mild with random days that are still in the high 60s and 70s. Gotta love that! My mom has been here since the end of October and leaves the day after Dan returns from his trip. It's been nice having her here especially since I've been struggling with this virus turned something else nasty for the past couple weeks. Max just loves his time with Grandma and I love the extra hour of sleep!

I haven't taken nearly enough Grandma pictures but I do have a couple to post of our fall goings on. Dan sent another bouquet of flowers and these spray roses are so pretty it takes your breath away. The smell wonderful, too. Here's a close up. The photo really doesn't do the colors justice but it's what I've got.




These are the straw people we built with our friends, the Kenny Family. They've held up really well, especially considering the amount of rain we've gotten. The only real issue they have is that they lost their heads. Don't worry. I found some pumpkins. How do you like my pinhead?



A couple of the ol' Maximus out enjoying our new trees in the Fall weather. There's not stopping that boy. Constant motion.

Close Your Eyes, "NO!"

Max has finally gotten to the point where he's able to put himself to sleep but it's not always at the pace you'd wish! He did not want to go to bed at all. He was all about reading stories and goofin' off but not sleeping. After his stories are read I pull up his blanket, give him a kiss, and tell him sweet dreams. My last words are something along the lines of "Close your eyes. It's time to go night night Max." Usually it works. Usually. Not tonight.



This is what I got after about the 10th time of telling him to close his eyes.



Followed by this...



...and this.



Then he faked me out and looked like he was about to cave.



I guess that paparazzi was too much so it was on to baby yoga.




Finally, after about an hour, he fell fast asleep with sweet baby snorkles.

I Love A Pretty Bloom

I have to say I postively have the most wonderful husband. He's on a trip for about a month and communication has been a bit spotty but he brightened my day greatly with these beautiful flowers. The apricot roses are just perfect. I love the fall foliage mixed in. Dan, you're the best!

...and it's only taken me 5 days to get this post up! Happy Fall everyone!

The leaves are falling but we have new trees.

We've been talking about planting some trees in the front yard since we first looked at the house. Dan went on a scouting expedition on one of his days off before his current trip and he found a greenhouse he really liked. They came and planted our trees on Tuesday. The look great. Can't wait to see them with leaves.

Trick or Treat

All Hallow's Eve was really more of a All Hallow's week for us. There was a pumpkin carving contest at work and Dan and I plotted our entry on Monday and then carved and decorated on Tuesday. We went with Monster Mash as our inspiration and created a Pumpkinstein and the Mummy as pictured below.



We had a costume contest at work on Thursday. A few of the girls dressed up as swine flu. It was probably horribly inappropriate and insensitive but we got a laugh out of it. Not many people guessed what we were on first glance but everyone in the Allied Health and Nursing Programs did. They seemed to get a kick out of it. I have since discarded my pig nose. For the record, I don't know how anyone wears those respirator masks. I just about had an anxiety attack from the claustrophobic nature of it. Yet another good reason I am not in the medical field.

Thursday evening we went trick or treating with my friend Kristi and her girls, Sam and Chloe. The kids had so much fun!



Sam was a Brownie and she made her own badges. Chloe was a tree and Kristi made this wonderful costume with the help of her friend, the glue gun. I love the bird on Chloe's shoulder! Sam and Chloe christened Max "Little Darth Vader".



We were totally late getting to Smithsburg. Kristi sent me a text but I thought she canceled. Then she called at 6 when we were supposed to be there and asked if we were close. Uh oh. Max and I jumped in the car and headed out. The girls made the rounds around downtown Smithsburg before we got there but they were happy to go around again with Max once we'd arrived. The had so much fun with Max. They were very protective making sure that he didn't get bumped by other kids or wander into the street. They carried his pumpkin bucket since he thought it was too heavy.

There was a limited trunk or treat at one of the church's and Max got to trick or treat from Tigger. He thought this was so great! He still talks about it and seemed to think that he'd see Tigger every time he trick or treated. When we went trick or treating again on Halloween, he kept saying, "TrickTreat Tigger" at just about every house we went to.



Our little Darth Vader and his totally whack light saber. I forgot to get him a light saber until that night and when I went to the dollar store, this was the only one I could find that wasn't in two pieces. It was wedged in between a couple of gift bags and the saber was barely connected to the handle by a thin wire. In the spirit of Halloween's past I bought some glow sticks and a roll of packaging tape to reinforce the jacked prop. It worked and Max loved his light saber.



Sweetness.



Max's school had a pajama party on Friday instead of a costume party and you can see Max's very Halloweenie outfit. His skeleton arms didn't make it all day but they were awfully cute. And he is very attached to them. When I picked him up from school he kept saying, "My skeleton arms!"



He thought Pumpkinstein was pretty cool. He kept stroking his hair and saying, "Gentle." Then he wanted to kiss and hug the pumpkin as you can see in the bottom photo. He's hilarious.



Finally, it was Halloween itself! Max was pretty into the dress up thing by now and that was nice. I didn't have to convince him to put on his costume. However, I did have to go out and buy him a costume alternative to the fleece Darth Vader costume. We had a birthday party to go to on Saturday afternoon and I knew it would be way too hot for him to wear Vader. He would have burst into flames! I had to come up with a new costume and fast! Of course, it was totally last minute and the only stuff I could find were things he wouldn't wear. Finally, I found a costume that would work but I found totally offensive. It was an "Indian" costume complete with headband and feather. I decided to discard these, slap some tevas on the boy and say he was Grizzly Adams. It works, mostly.



Max had a great time at the party. The weather was beautiful so we got to play outside and inside. Cat, our hostess, dressed up as a Hogwarts Student. Can you guess which house?



Despite the fact that I never dress up for Halloween I decided to get a costume and get in the spirit because the invitation said, "Wear your costume". Apparently, that was just intended for the kids because I was the only adult dressed up besides the hostess. It was fun to do and Max loved the make up. He points at the picture and says, "Mama" so he seemed to get into it.



Here's another of Max and also one of the kids dressed up. All the girls were princesses and fairies. The highlight of the party for Max was watching a dumptruck dump a load of dirt on the neighbor's yard. He was mesmerized for about 40 minutes.




We rushed home after the party and had pancakes and waffles with Sam and Chloe before heading out for trick or treating in our neighborhood. Here they are with our straw people in front of our house. Once we got home they were so sugared up and giggly. They went crazy with Dan's zombie mask and each of them took a turn wearing it. I probably had the most face time as the zombie but I think this picture of the brownie zombie is pretty hilarious!



Even Hoover had a costume. Meet Elvis Herselves, the canine King. Cute, isn't she?

Poor Sick Boy

Our dear little Maximus is not having a good week! He's really been struggling with a bad cough since last Thursday and it's just gotten to be too much this past couple of days. We went to the doc on Monday to no real solution. "He's sick, keep him hydrated. It's nothing serious but bring him back if he has a fever or trouble breathing." Fever came last evening and I was really fortunate to get an appointment with one of the doctors we have a lot of confidence in for first thing this morning.

It was a good thing we had the appointment. He had an AWFUL night. It seemed he could barely catch his breath and he barely got any sleep. The verdict: a bad upper respiratory infection with the possible beginnings of bronchial pneumonia. The RX: a kiddie version of Zithromax. I gave him the first dose today and he should be done in 5 days. Please keep Max in your thoughts for good health.

Despite his illness, we had some good laughs today. He had a lot of fun making a birthday drawing for our friend, Ann, and then drawing all over his arm, hands, head and belly. LOVE those washable markers! Two seconds in the tub and he was clean.

This mama will be happy when his daddy is finally able to come home tomorrow! It's been a long week for Dan and at and for me at home with a sickly Max who hasn't really slept through the night since last Friday. We both need to catch up on our Z's. Dan has promised that he'll sleep with the giant in the treehouse and I can have Mommy/Daddy room all to myself with the door closed. Isn't he the best?

Hope all of you are doing well. We'll be watching our second game of the football season on Saturday. Dan missed the first last Sunday night so it's kind of like our first game of the season. AND all of our Packer gear arrived on Tuesday so we'll be wearing the cheesehead, Max will be in his little jersey and we'll have on our vintage NFL gear. I am such a girl! I decide to be a football fan and my first actions are to go shopping for gear and plan menus for the games. I've just got one thing to say, "Go Packers!"

Accessories Rock!

Despite have a pretty major cold and an awful night's sleep, Max was bright-eyed, bushy-tailed and ready to go this morning. His mama, on the other hand, was dragging a little. =)

I'm always amused by this boy. This is what resulted when I said we have to get ready for school. He did need a little help putting the goggles on but he brought them to me. Also, this is the sweetness I got when I said, "Smile". He loves his Paddington bear from Auntie Sarah. It is a genuine Paddington from the U.K. but Max has already Americanized it. He says, "Mah Teddy Bar". I missed the cutest moments where he was hugging and kissing Paddington and then having Paddington give me all sorts of sweet kisses. Max is the sweetest little guy.



The thrill of the goggles only lasted about 15 minutes and then he was on to bigger fish. He wanted his helmet but it was in the garage so he settled for Daddy's. He asked for help with the "ticket" by which he meant closing the clasp. Whenever he puts Max in the carseat Dan says, "Click it so we don't get a ticket." This weekend Max has started saying "Ticket" whenever we close a clasp. Hilarious.



I'll leave you with a shot from a couple of weeks ago. We're so blessed with our little fella!

Yay for Max ( and the 'rents, too)

Just a quick post as a follow up to the earlier post about moving on up to monkeys. Today was our first tear free, cling free drop off and it was inside! I'm so proud of Max and so very happy to see him comfortable and happy with his room at school. This transition has been so difficult for him and I'm relieved that he seems to have come around an important bend.

On a similar note, I made an amusing discovery today on my way out of Max's classroom. There are kids art projects lining the walls at the child care center. The main hall is virtually an art gallery. On my way from dropping Max off I noticed a new art piece accompanied by some photos. The piece is a smudgy looking sheet covered with all colors you can imagine. I took a closer look at the photos and realized it was pictures of the kids dancing on the sheet doing a footpaint. Great idea. I half-heartedly looked for Max and he was right where I expected him to be: running hither and thither and dancing about 6 feet away from the sheet and the paint. Loving being nakend except for his diaper but wanting no part of that big ol' mess. Gotta love him.

Sing-A-Long

Yesterday morning, August 31 to be exact, marked one of those unexpected firsts in Max's life. I was driving him to school and singing "The Wheels on the Bus" when he joined in and sang a few words. He sang along with "round and round" and "all..thru..town". A wonderful milestone for sure.

If I can only remember to keep singing...

Cha-cha-cha-CHANGES

It's official. Max is now a MONKEY. He even has the uniform!



In case you are wondering what I'm talking about. Welcome to the newest episode in the wonderful world of parenthood where we all sound like blathering, braggin idiots all the time. Can't use universal terms like 18 - 36 month room. That would be too easy. It's Monkeys or Butterflies and MAX is a Monkey. Still confused? Me, too.

Max has finally transitioned to the next room up at child care about 3 weeks ago. The rooms are all named after animals and his new room's cutey moniker is Monkeys. The official room sign is pictured below.



We have waited a looooooooooooooooooooooong time for this transition. He was in the old room about 4 months longer than he should have been. There was some sort of logjam in the transitioning. I guess Max was born at a particularly fertile time of year in the Ft. Detrick area. There were 5 toddlers waiting to move up in his room and they were getting BORED. Boredom combined with small spaces at this age is not a good thing. The kids answer to this was pretty much hitting, biting, chasing and pushing. There were a lot of incident reports to sign for all of the parents.

But, he's moved up and he got to go with one of his good friends, Trey. Change is hard for Max, particularly when it involves a change in the people in his life. He still has a good amount of stranger anxiety so he's been trying to adjust to the new caregivers. It's a challenge for all of us but we're getting through and Max is doing well. At first he would come home and say, "No Monkeys." The first day he went to Monkeys he came back to the Pooh Bear room at lunch and said, "I back. No Monkeys. Trey Monkey."

He's gotten more comfortable since then. It helps that they spend a lot more time outside. He LOVES being outside. They have a lot of activities and he's totally intrigued by the potty training. He's gone back to the 15 minute nap and, hopefully, that will change once he gets more comfortable with his new peeps. Though the drop off is still hard each day, he looks forward to school and always says, "Monkeys?" with an excited voice as we are getting ready in the morning.

One of his favorite people at school is an on-call employee named Michelle. She was in his room a lot when he first starting coming to the center. She is now in Monkeys covering for a gal who's on maternity leave. That has helped Max a lot. He will pat the ground next to him in whatever activity they are doing and say, "Sit. Chelle." Very cute.

Another one of his friends from Pooh Bears has transitioned into the room and he likes that. He's also made a new friend, Liam. The other day I asked him who his friends were at school and he told me Trey, Liam and Morgan. I was so impressed. It's amazing to think that we can actually have little conversations now. I don't know about Max but Dan and I are thrilled.

I took a picture of one of his art projects at school. Slowly, he's becoming more comfortable being messy. He likes playing with crayons and markers and even ink pads or paint brushes. The fingerpaint is still too messy for him but he might squish it around one of these days soon.



I started with out serious monkey and I'll sign off with our cheeky monkey. See you soon.

Mr. Personality

It turns out that Max is both charming and a hellion, which is actually a pretty good mix. It keeps us on our toes for sure.



Here he is being partincularly charming last week before we left for school. He loves to play with hats and it's fun to watch him entertain himself putting the hats on and off and then trying to get them on Havers.

The terrible two's which the politically correct child developmental crowd now calls "asserting the independent self" are fully upon us. I will elaborate more on that in a later post.

For now, I will be thankful that our little man is still every bit as sweet and adorable as he has been. The difference is that the sweetness has been condensed to be even more intense and serves as a buffer for the moments of flailing legs, arms and screams of we're not quite sure what.



He's hilarious in that understated, straight-man kind of way but he can break into a giggle fit, too. I think this photo is a good example of that. More is coming soon.

Early Morning Cuteness

Yesterday morning when Max woke up he called for me as usual and when I went to his room he looked up and me and said, "All done. Sleeping. All done, Mama." Who can resist? I gave it my best effort as it was 5:30 am. I trudged out to the kitchen, got some milk, brought him back to our bed and wouldn't you know it, we were up by 6.

On a related sleep topic, he's pretty interested in snoring. I taught him the word and the noise while entertaining him on our drive to the Maryland Shore last weekend. It just so happened that I brought a book that ends with Peter Rabbit sleeping and a snoring sound effect. Max thinks that's hilarious. He often asks for the bunny, (who is) sleeping and then he does a snoring sound effect. Such a card.

Hershey Park!

We just got back from our morning constitutional. Max is down for a nap so I thought I'd take a moment to post. A couple of weeks ago we went to Trogue's Brewery in Harrisburg, PA and Herhsey Park with some friends. The brewery tour was great but we spent most of the tour in the back looking at the tanks and an air pump. Max just didn't have it in him to sit still through the brewing process. To be honest, our charming tour guide lost him after about 5 minutes of the history of the company!

After the brewery tour we headed over to Hershey Park for the freebie tour and a stroll through the marketplace. Hello Hershey!



Max had a marvelous time! He is quite the live wire. Always running from here to there and some days you wonder how did such a little boy get filled with so many antics? The world is his playground if only we'll let him play. Here he is trying to climb the fence to the NASCAR, which I think was a Reeses Cup decorated race car.



Then it was off to bite the tables. I'm glad we've given up on being germ-phobe parents. We'd been out of our minds trying to keep him out and off of everything and he'd be missing out on all this fun.



Everyone else had milkshakes but I had a sundae. YUM! Vanilla ice cream with peanut butter swirl, hot fudge and peanut butter sauce and I almost forgot the most important part - reese's cups. A little bit of heaven. You probably won't believe this but I didn't eat all of the sundae or any of the whip cream and gave Dan 3 of the 4 PB cups. I must have been feverish.



Time for head stands.



Shaking the sign.



Run, be chased, roll on the ground. Good times.



They say curiosity killed the cat but it merely led our child to rummage through the trash. He pulled this shiny purple and gold ribbon from the trash can and across the room. Nice.



Jason, the top of Elli-Grace's head and Anna Claire on the chocolate facotry tour. Max was not INTO this at all. I think he was scared. He lightened up a bit once we got to the conveyor belts with all the chocolate bars but even then he was "allllll done."



Photographic evidence that we were, in fact, in Hershey Park.



Hugs from Elli-Grace.



Looking cute. (Duh!) One of the funniest moments of the day was at the end of the chocolate tour. The Hershey Rep says good-bye and offers you a snack size hershey bar. Max was still a little traumatized by the tour so he said, NO to the bar. Dan took one. About 10 yards later, Max looks at Dan and says, "Chocolate. Please?" So cute and Dan could not say no. He LOVED his chocolate bar and had a bunch of chocolate all over his face. He even managed to con a whole bar out of Anna Claire. Lucky for him she's good at sharing.

It's so funny how the language development progresses. As far as we know he hasn't even heard the word chocolate that many times and he certainly hasn't had it more than 5 or 10 times so how did he know what to ask for? Don't know but still we were amazed.



The after party was not nearly as much fun as the trip. He was a very grumpy smurf but the picture is still pretty hilarious.