So excited that he gets to hold the bowl!
Chewing on the glass bowl instead of the blueberries...
And blue berries!! HaHa!
Sadly, Max does have just a slight watermelon allergy… But, I wanted to give it a second chance to be sure! He still does seem to, but here are some fun pictures I got of him trying watermelon again!
It is amazing how quickly babies grow… Max no longer fits into his bathrobe!
He loves toys! Especially toys that have tags!
And he thinks he needs to help us out on our computers… He tried to help Daddy write a letter to Uncle Josh this night!
Max’s teeth are getting dangerous… They are so flipping sharp! Here’s a picture of the little daggers on the top…
He thinks my finger is the best teether toy… I don’t usually mind, but I can tell when his teeth are really hurting, because he bites HARD!! That night when we were trying to go to bed, he wormed his way out of a diaper and got a new one, and then he nearly chewed a hole through my finger!! An hour later, you could still see the marks on my finger and I had chills running up and down my spine all night!
On Saturday, we went to see my grandparents. Max got to meet their dog, Tia. He really liked her! But she wasn’t completely sure she liked him back… ;-) She was good, though, and Max liked petting her!
Max wants Great-Grandma's Sobe!
The weather has been crazy lately, so I bought a new hat pattern so I could make a new hat for Little Max! This new hat is so much faster and easier to make than the monkey ones! It took me less than a day to make it, so Max got to try it on that night!
On Sunday, March 27, we took Max to church again for Boston’s baby blessing. Our little guy is so funny… He HATES when people sing in church! He seems to be okay with noise as long as he can figure out where sounds are coming from. But when everyone in the church is singing, it’s harder to pinpoint an exact source, and he starts crying! I had to walk out with him four times during the meeting! That day, we noticed a black spot on Max’s top gum where his eighth tooth was supposed to be coming in. One of Cody’s relatives took a look at it for us and told us that she thought it was normal. I, of course, had to do my own research when we got home… It looks to me like something called a “teething blister.” I guess they’re common in babies when they are teething. It’s gone now and has been replaced by a tooth. We also learned over the weekend that Max loves Ritz crackers! He gets so excited when he gets to eat them!
Anyway, here are some pictures!
Naked little man!
And here are some pictures of the blister... It's on his right (your left) on the outside of his right middle tooth.
Max cried off and on all morning starting at 5:00 a.m. I finally gave up my side of the bed and he slept soundly there for the rest of the morning. I could leave to go do something downstairs. I couldn’t shower. I couldn’t do anything, because if I did, I was worried he’d roll off the bed! So I made him another hat!
This little guy loves bath time soooo much! He loves the water, he loves the toys, he loves the splashing, and he loves the mirrors.
We went to my dad’s house for dinner that night. We had taco salad! Ryan let Max try a piece of lettuce… I’m not so sure he really liked it… LOL!
We let Max try spaghetti on March 29! It was so fun to watch him try to eat it! We served it to him plain without any sauce or butter or anything, and it stuck to him like crazy! It stuck to his arms and his hands and the tray on his high chair! But he sure tried hard to eat it! He enjoyed the pieces I stuck in his mouth and he liked chewing on the couple pieces he managed to get in his mouth!
Anyway, here are some photos from the day!
I love this boy!!
Mommy's side of the bed... He loves it!
I guess the 30th was not a great day for me… Nothing in particular really happened, but it was one of those days that I just felt down for some reason. I’m lucky I have such great guys in my life, though! My little man always gets my spirit up! He is so happy and cute and smiley all the time! And my husband does sweet little things for me all the time. When I came home from work that night, this is what I found from him and Max in the fridge!
Aren’t I a lucky girl?!
On Thursday, Max was laying in bed with me. I pushed his sleeper over so we’d have some room and I stuck the remote control for the TV in it so he couldn’t get it. My little worm wriggled away from me, pulled himself up high enough on the sleeper to see inside, reached in, and grabbed the remote!! This boy knows how to get what he wants!
It was warm enough that day to go outside, so I let Max play in the grass. It was a little bit prickly, though, and he didn’t seem to enjoy that, so we didn’t stay out for long!
Maximus is always trying to get the kitties… They don’t often get real close, though. I tried putting the laundry basket on top of him to see if that would help. It did, kind of… The cats got close but still were pretty indifferent towards him. :-/
That night, we went to Ryan’s dad’s house to celebrate Cameron’s birthday. His birthday wasn’t really until April 3, but this was the day we celebrated!
Lighting the candles!
Making a wish!
Blowing out the candles!
Maralee and Boston!
I had to work on April Fool’s Day… Ryan and I made a pact to not play any April Fool’s Day jokes on each other, though. It would have killed me if Ryan had called saying that something happened to Max and I didn’t know if he was kidding or not. We both were good all day and played no jokes, though!
We took Max to the mall on Saturday and bought him his first pair of Converse! He wears a 2 right now, but we got him a 3 so they’d last him a little longer! Ryan and I are waiting for a sale at Famous Footwear so I can spend my gift card on a pair for each of us… Then we’re going to do family pictures in them! While we were at the mall, Ryan bought some MoonPops. They’re this rice snack, kind of like the Quaker ones you used to see in stores. We let Max try them, too!
Ryan has been stressed out at work lately, so Max and I decided that we would make him some cookies this day and take them to him at work. Max liked watching me scrape the cookies of the cookie sheet. I wish I could have shared them with him, but these ones had walnuts in them! Maybe next time… ;-)
Visiting with Daddy!
That night, Ryan had Max all ready for bed. He’d brushed his teeth, changed his diaper, put him in his pajamas, read him his story… And I was going to give him his bottle. As I started, Max let loose and needed another diaper change… Like, fifteen minutes (if that) after he’d just gotten one!! So I changed him… But Max has this thing where he doesn’t like to stay on his back for me (go figure he’s an angel for Ryan!), so the diaper change took me a full ten minutes. I decided I needed a drink, so I gave him a book to play with and look at while I went to get him a glass of water. I was horrified when I walked back into his room and saw green stuff all over his hands and chin! I couldn’t figure out what it came from, and then I realized… There was a message written to Max in the book I’d given to him. It was in green pen! Max’s slobber had gotten it wet and it smeared everywhere! I wiped the little guy as clean as I could, but he was still stained green before we went to bed!
Here’s a picture I got of Max’s green fingers the next morning… They’d been a lot greener the night before, but they faded during the night. There wasn’t any green left on his chin by morning, either!
So, Max and I just hung out all day like we usually do on Wednesday. Here are some photos we got that day!
I had to work that night. And I humiliated myself at work… It was great… This girl came in who I used to go to grade school with. I recognized her and she recognized me. Anyway, she was buying Baby Orajel. She looked pregnant, so I figured she was just out shopping and figured she’d pick up baby items while she was out. So I asked her if she was pregnant. Guess what her response was? Yeah, that’s right… “No,” she said, “but I just had a baby.” I asked how old her baby was, and she told me five months! I was mortified that I’d asked a girl if she was pregnant when her baby was five months old! But in my defense, even my friend, Amber, at work thought she looked seven months pregnant! So, I am officially a member of the “I Asked a Fat Girl if She was Pregnant” Club. It was the first time I was ever brave enough to actually ask someone, and of course it blew up in my face!!
On Thursday, April 7, 2011--two days before my baby turned nine months old--MAX LEARNED TO CRAWL!!! I was SOOOOO excited!! He did so good and I am so proud of him!! As is his daddy, of course!
Pretty much all of the video footage I got that day have too many megabytes to upload them here, but if you’re my friend on Facebook, I have a couple others you can watch, too! I do have one that is small enough, though…
Isn’t he AMAZING?!?! I’m so proud of him!!
Anyway, here are some pictures we got that day…
Playing in the water he spilled out of his cup!
He does this when he's done with solids and is ready for his bottle!
Max loves bath time...
Practice, practice, practice! That is all Max has done lately! He is trying so hard to master his newfound skill of crawling, and he is getting better each and every day! Here are some photos I snapped of him crawling Friday morning! There are a lot… There is seriously nothing better than watching your baby learn new things, though! It is truly an incredible feeling to see them learn and grow!
Ready... Set... Go!!
For the first few days of crawling, Max would ONLY crawl to things that he really wanted--like his talking toys, my laptop, my phone, or a bag of wipes! So that's what we used to motivate him!
Look at him go!!
LOL, he sticks out his tongue like Daddy does when he's thinking hard!
Success!! He got Momma's phone!!
I spilled my grape juice all over the carpet on my side of the bed that day when Max was ready to have his lunchtime bottle… The poor kid was starving, but I couldn’t just let the grape juice soak in! So I laid Max down on the bed and gave him his bottle to play with while I cleaned. To my surprise, he started feeding it to himself!! Ryan said he’s been doing it for a while, but this is the first time he’s really done it for me!
Until he gets Momma's phone and realizes he's getting his picture taken, too!
Cute little guy!
Since Max won’t stay on his back for me during diaper changes, Ryan’s cousin, Emily, suggested sticking a toy down his shirt during changes. I guess her son used to do the same thing, so she’d stick a toy in his shirt and by the time he got it out, the diaper change was over with. So, I tried it, and have tried it several times, but Max just doesn’t seem to care that he has anything in his shirt. Even if it’s a hard plastic car, he’d rather lay on it than be on his back!!
In the time since then, I’ve learned that if I let him hold my phone during a diaper change, he’ll be content to lay on his back! I’ve been training him to keep it out of his mouth! He needs reminding almost every time that it doesn’t belong in his mouth, but I think he’s learning! And losing interest… :-P
On Saturday, I had to work. But before I left for work, Max woke up and wanted to talk to his Daddy all morning! So of course I snapped some pictures!
"Wake up, Daddy!"
Too cute!
And we snapped a couple pictures when I got home from work… Just because!
And then we went to my Uncle Hal’s house to celebrate his birthday! Max got to play with Tia again, and Tia was even more uncertain of him this time! Max also got to show everyone how he can crawl!
Max with the birthday boy!
Max cut his eighth tooth on Monday! It’s been a long time coming! This is the one that was underneath that teething blister…
Here are some pictures I took that day…
Playing with toast!
Ready to walk to Walgreens to see Aunt B!
The cute little man!
Mommy and Daddy!
On Tuesday, Max started feeding himself full slices of toast! I set a piece on his tray, and usually he just plays with it. But this time, I took a bite of my toast before pulling his apart into little bite-sized pieces. When he saw me eating mine, I think he realized that he could do the same thing with his, because he put it right into his mouth and started chewing on the crust! He has loved toast ever since and he wants to eat it daily!
We also took Max to meet the Easter Bunny that day after Ryan got home from work. Poor baby fell asleep on the way to the mall and didn’t wake up until we were in line to see the Bunny! We should have walked around with him for a little bit before getting in line so he could wake up more. He’s normally such a great little smiler, but he’s usually kind of grumpy and disoriented when he first wakes up anywhere but home!
So, I decided to snap a few fun pictures of Max on Thursday! Here they are! Sorry, there’s kind of a lot…
My dad’s fiancée’s sister finally got to take home her baby on Thursday. Here’s Baby Mya in that monkey hat I made for her! She’s still so small at over three months of age that the preemie size I developed actually fits her!
Thursday night, we decided it was time for Little Max to go back into his crib. He used to sleep in his crib, but after a laundry mishap, his things were too wet for him to sleep in his crib, so he spent that night and pretty much every night since then with us. Now that he’s crawling, though, we don’t feel like it’s a good idea to keep him here in case he wakes up and crawls off the bed! The first night was the hardest… Max wouldn’t fall asleep in his room (and still won’t). He has to fall asleep with us. Then I have to pick him up and put him in his crib. It’s been okay every night with the exception of that first night… The first night, he cried and cried and wouldn’t stop. I realized he wanted to be close to me like he usually was every night, and that meant bringing him back to our room or hopping into his crib with him. I opted to hop in his crib with him! It took a long time, but by 11:15, I managed to get out of his crib. He woke up about an hour later and I had to hop in with him again, but after I got out that time, he spent the entire rest of the night soundly in his own bed. He’s now been in his crib for five days and I’m proud of our little family for making this adjustment!
Max slept later in his own crib than he has been sleeping in our room. No longer do I have to say that 7:00 a.m. is sleeping in! He’s making it until around 9:00 a.m. every morning now. He was upset that first morning, though, to wake up all alone in his own bedroom. So I hopped in with him to see if he’d think I was funny. He did!
I must have crawled out just in time, though, because when I pulled him out of his crib, his pajamas were soaked and so was his sheet! I think we started putting Max in his crib just in time to avoid accidents in our bed, because he’s peed everywhere two more times then--even when we put him to bed in Size 4 diapers instead of Size 3’s!
I was inspired by the pictures I’d taken the day before, so this day I decided to take pictures of my little monkey with all of his little monkeys! He didn’t really care to have his picture taken that day, though…
And wouldn’t you know that the best shot I got was taken with my phone?!
Here’s Max eating more toast…
Separation anxiety is really kicking in now… It’s so bad that most days, I can’t even get into the shower unless Max is asleep! Friday was one of those days…
He thinks he's funny... He actually started crying because he knew I'd come check on him!
I had to work Friday night. I called Ryan on my way home as I usually do, and he sounded really… Frustrated. So I asked him how his night had been and what was wrong. He told me he’d had a crappy night because Max had FALLEN OFF THE BED!! Ry thought I was going to be mad at him, but honestly, I was just glad it didn’t happen to me first! Max was just fine, too, so I wasn’t worried about it. I guess Ryan and Max had fallen asleep together on the bed. Usually, when Max wakes up, he tries to wake us up, too. He’ll grab our faces, pull our hair, talk to us, push us… But this time, I guess he decided he just wanted to crawl. From where Ryan showed me he landed, it looked like he must have crawled to the foot of the bed, rolled a full 360 degrees towards Ryan’s side of the room, and landed on his hands and knees. Luckily, we have a low sitting bed from IKEA, so it wasn’t a long fall. Ryan said that Max cried, but I’m sure it was because he was startled more than anything else! And by the time I got home, Max was side awake, happy as could be, and wanting to play! We let him stay up and play until around 11:30 p.m. to be sure he was okay. And he was!
On Saturday, Ryan finally sprayed and cleaned the mold out of our bedroom that has been accumulating all winter… We really need to replace our bedroom window! It leaks like crazy… Anyway, since he did that, we wanted to spend as much time as possible out of the house that day. So, we decided to go fishing! Before we did, though, we fed Max his lunch while my Dad and Michelle were visiting with us at our house. We headed up AF Canyon to Tibble Fork and fished there. Well, Ryan fished… Max and I hung out and watched most of the time! We did try to get Max to look at some squirrels, but he couldn’t figure out how to look past my finger and find them! Max seemed to enjoy being there, though! I think it’s good for him to be outdoors in the fresh air after spending all of the winter cooped up in the house!
Cute little guy!
Ryan and Maximus fishing!
I love this picture!
And I love this one!
And this one!
After we were done fishing, we went to my mom’s house. She and Russ needed new marketing photos, so they asked me to be their photographer. I haven’t uploaded any of their images to my professional blog (http://aubreyhopephotography.blogspot.com), but I will soon! Max got dinner while we were there, and we could tell he was tired after a long day by the time he was finished!
Yesterday, Max had his nine month check up. Here are his stats:
Length: 29.1 inches (74.08 percentile)
Head Circumference: 17.9 inches (52.33 percentile)
Healthy and well proportioned, our little guy is! His growth has slowed down, though--he’s not in the 80th and 90th percentiles anymore!
The nurse pricked one of Max’s toes first thing to check his iron level. After she left and the doctor came in, we talked about Max’s food allergies. The doctor recommended reintroducing the foods Max reacts to again during the next three months and noting whether he was still having reactions or not to each food. If his list is as long as it was this time, Dr. Gibson said he’d set us up to do some allergy testing. He checked Max’s head, which is still a little misshapen, but he said it looks good. He also checked on the hydrocele and said that it’s not completely gone yet, but that it has shrunken in size. I hope it’s gone by the next appointment when Max is 12 months… Otherwise, he may need surgery. Ryan also told the doctor about Max’s accidents in the crib, and he thought maybe we should test him for diabetes. He changed that “maybe” to a “definitely” when I reminded him that I have diabetes. So the nurse came in and pricked Max’s toe again. His blood sugar was 106. The doctor said that if I wanted to test him at home from time to time, his blood sugars should be between 60 and 115, or 120 if he’d recently eaten. 106 was pretty good, though, an hour and a half after Max had eaten! So the iron levels came back okay, and Max doesn’t have diabetes. He had to get two immunizations, though--the hepatitis B shot he didn’t get last time and his second flu shot. Poor baby… :’-( I of course forgot to ask the doctor all the questions I had for him, but Max seems to be doing well, so I guess we’re doing all right!
My mom came over later that day to pick up the pictures I’d finished for her. I think Max is trying to learn how to pull up on things… He hasn’t had a lot of opportunity to try until he started sleeping in his crib, but I can tell he really wants to now! While my mom was at our house, our cat, Gavin, jumped up on the couch behind my mom and Max tried to use her to pull up!
We gave Max bananas with his dinner last night. I forgot to look for a reaction afterwards, but he has no bumps on his eyes today! So hopefully these foods that he’s reacted to were just temporary allergies… I’m excited for his to be able to eat some of these foods!!
So, these things are other things that have been going on, but I don’t have any particular days to tie them to…
First, Ryan’s glasses… We went to the eye doctor last month, but Sears won’t replace the lenses in your glasses unless you pay them $100. So, Target had told us they’d do it for free, and since we got Ryan’s frames there in the first place, we went there. Ryan talked to a woman about the process and told her we’d bring the frames back in later. We brought them in the next week and some really stupid girl was working. She was the only one there… Ryan kept trying to ask her things, like how much extra it would cost for transition lenses. She couldn’t tell us a price and basically told us that if he wanted them, he should just get them next time… Ryan asked her if he was getting a certain type of lens, and the girl said, “Don’t worry about it, we’ll take care of everything.” So, we left his glasses there and went on our way. Ryan went back in when they called to tell him his glasses were ready, but they looked terrible. So he asked them to fix them. They called the next day and said they couldn’t do anything for us. So we went in again and talked to the original lady we’d talked to, who got snippy with Ryan for wanting his glasses the way he’d ordered them. We ended up paying more money to have the correct lenses put into the glasses (that stupid girl put in the order for the most basic and simplest of lenses, so we didn’t even get the right ones!). So we left the glasses again to have them redone. Then, that stupid girl called us again last night. We got there and she asked for the frames… Which we’d left there… So, she told us she’d figure out what the heck was going on and let us know as soon as possible. So who even knows if Ryan will end up getting his glasses back?! Stupid Target…
Max is getting good at finger foods! We’ve been giving him Gerber Puffs and Yogurt Melts, and he has finally figured out how to pick them up and get them into his mouth! We are very proud of our little guy!
Along with that separation anxiety I mentioned earlier… A week or so ago, Max was in his room playing on the floor. I was on the floor, too, but his back was to me and I needed something from our bedroom, so I left for a minute. As soon as Max realized I was gone, he started bawling and had crawled from the far end of his bedroom to halfway down the hall looking for me! It was so sad, but so cute!!
Max also has this sudden love of rolling like a mad man! He rolls and rolls and rolls! He’ll be laying on our bed with us, and he’ll roll into a pillow and can’t go any farther, but he’ll continue rolling in place! He rolls and crawls and tries to escape us as we tickle him like crazy! It’s been so much fun!
Anyway, that’s it for now… Thanks for reading! Hope everyone is doing well!!
