Happy Birthday Grandma Christie

Dear Grandma Christie,

I hope you have a very Happy Birthday and remember how much we all love you! Please don't be too serious on your big day.



Just kick back and relax. Enjoy what comes.



Don't worry if the candles on your cake start a fire. I'll be there to put it out.



And above all, don't let the monster get you!



All my love and then some. MAX

Summer Fun - End of June

Goodness! It's been a while. The summer has marched on and left my photo behind. I'm still back at June with our family pictures.

End of June was a fun time for our family. After being in Paris through the first half of June, Dan was home and had a reasonable work schedule so we were able to get some nice family time together.



Hooray! Max loved seeing his dad so much.

One major benefit of Dan being home is that Max got to go swimming. (I didn't have a swimsuit until July.)



As you can see, Max loves the water. He loves to be in the little pool - the hot tub without the heat - and wade around the sides, kick his feet and jump to Dan or I.



He's gone from being quite shy of the water to comfortable enough to put his face in. He'll kick his feet and sometimes move his arms a little. He almost let me put him on his back the other week but he changed his mind. We hope he continues to enjoy the water as he gets older and learns to swim.

I have reconnected with a Chris, good friend from Mills, through facebook. Turns out that she lives right here in Frederick about 10 minutes from us. It's been over 10 years but it truly feels like yesterday. Anyhow, we've had so much fun with Chris and Peter and their four kids. I think I've posted a few things with them before. From youngest to oldest the kids are:

Sean



Michael



Rachel



Caitlyn



Max just adores them and so do we. Here's a few from one of our evening with the Kenny's.


Here's our little man on the last day of June being his charming and helpful self before school one morning.



It's amazing to see how much he's grown and matured in the last 2 months. He loves to help with whatever we're doing whether it's walking the dog, cleaning up or sweeping - a huge favorite. He has loved putting things in the trash for a long time but now he's strong enough to pick up bags. Oh to view fun in the eyes of a toddler.



He has changed from a very cautious baby into a pretty adventurous toddler. He likes noise. He loves to go fast and he really like to ride things. Here he is riding his skateboard inside. Dan and I push him back and forth across the living room floor. I see a future luge or skeleton competitor.

Whew! That's an extra long post. I hope to get another up tomorrow with the 4th of July.

Cannonball

We spent a good part of this past Sunday with our friends, The Kennys. They are a fun and wild bunch. Max loves running around with their four munchkins and we love hangin' with the adults. The Kenny kids love to play in the pool and they think Dan is loads of fun. Cannonball seems to have been the word of the day.





If only I'd gotten a better picture of the splash. Maybe on the 4th...

All Done

Tonight I am just enchanted with Max.



He's such a sweet and smart boy with such a big heart and gobs of personality. It amazes me that he communicates so well for someone that has relatively few words. Most of all I love that he's so interested in communicating with us. The last few days he's woken up and promptly started naming all the things he can see. Mama, Max, blanket, doggy, monkey, dot, cup, light, shirt, shoe, book - I think you get the point.

One of his sweetest moments tonight was going on a hunt for his skateboard. It's been almost two weeks since he played with it. Who knew he even remembered he had it? He did and he knew just where it was. Marched to the closet, pointed and insisted on opening the door.

Another heart-melter was when he ran from eating his beans to me for hugs and then back to eating his beans or when he sat on the front porch oh so patiently watching me unload the car. When I was half way through he patted the top step and said, "Sit. Sit. Sit." Of course, I sat for a while and then finished unloading the car. When I unlocked the door he shot off the porch and ran as fast as he could down the sidewalk toward the park. I had to run as fast as I could to catch up!

He had some funny moments with the dog, too. He wanted to go in the yard with her tonight. He seems fascinated with her toys and tries to bring them inside for himself. Tonight he got distracted by the birds. They were twittering away so he stopped what he was doing and started singing to them, "tweet tweet tweet tweet."

He has started to realize that we tell her what to do - and sometimes she listens. He seems most interested in "sit". When I tell her to sit, he comes over and sits like she does all the while saying, "Sit". It's so funny because he squats and puts hit hands down on the ground in front of himself just like she sits. Sometimes, he'll tell himself to sit and other times he tries to tell her to sit. She doesn't listen to him yet.

It's always sweet to see him with Dan. They love each other so much and have such a good time. Tonight he wanted to "Go high" as in ride on Dan's shoulders. He thinks it's so much fun. And tonight he wanted to stop periodically to get hugs and kisses from Mama before resuming his trek around the house "on high".

Warning: These pictures are not from tonight but I've been wanting to post them. I think they are about two weeks old - near the end of Dan's trip to Paris. Time flies. One way you can tell that these aren't up to the minute is that he doesn't have scratch marks all over his face. Pretty cute, though.



A couple cute ones of Hoover.




And now, like Max, I'm "DONE." Good night.

Daycare Can Be Dangerous

It's official. Max is a resilient little trooper. Last Thursday he basically got attacked just about all day by one of his little friends in daycare. No one knows why but look at the damage done!



I was so shocked when I picked him up that I was literally speechless. There were 8 - count them - 8 big scratches with 2 of them quite close to his eyes. Thank goodness the eyes were avoided. Child care had called me twice to tell me that another child had scratched Max a couple of times but no way I was expecting this. Poor guy. We still can't figure out why they let it go on so long before sending the child out of the room (at 4:30) and why they couldn't keep the two separate.

I am amazed by how well Max took all of it. Physically, I think it bothered him for about 2 days. He would cry a lot when he woke up but otherwise he seemed fine. The next day I asked if he wanted to go to school and he was so excited to go and I asked if he wanted to see his friend and he said yes so hooray for leave the past in the past.

It's Monday now and we've had no further incident on Friday or today. Max seems to be healing well and has a bunch of shiny, neosporin dots on his face. Wee ones. They are amazing.