Who knew?

Charles was reading to Max the other day and discovered that Max knows several words. We've known for a while that he knows spider because when we point to a picture of a spider in his book he puts his hands in the position to do itsy bitsy spider. But as Charles went across the room and said where is your pony? he pointed to it. Where is your crib, where are your feet, etc.
He knows his head, belly, feet, nose, etc. We wrote down the things he could point to when we asked him and the list was over 50. Makes us wonder what else he knows.

What is funny to us is that we found so many things out in one day. How long has he known these things? We're not sure.

He is napping right now but is squauking. Sleep is not Max's strong point right now and it makes it hard on all of us.

Max had a great visit with Grandma during Christmas. We think Max did a good job of opening up. He let Grandma Phyllis feed him and play with him and hold him without making a huge fuss. He was even good when he didn't have us in his sight.

We did a lot in the week she was here and it seemed to fly by. We went to the country village and looked at the roosters and ducks. We went to gymboree and grandma got to see Max climb around on the gymboree mats. Charles and I got to see our first movie in the theater since before Max was born. We saw No Country for Old Men. It was a good movie and it felt so good to get out together alone.

Yazmina is Born

It feels like so much has happened in the past couple of weeks. A week or so before Christmas my friend Andrea gave birth to a beautiful baby girl Yazmina. I met Andrea just before I had Max. She had just had her first child Malik and we became fast friends. We strolled the boys around Greenlake almost daily in the beginning and she has been so supportive and a great friend.

It was a dream of hers to have a natural childbirth and she did it! She gave birth in her own bed in her apartment in Greenwood with a midwife. I am so proud of her and so happy for the Belhousine family. Way to go!

Retrospect

Reflecting back on Saturday night Charles and I agree that the reason why Max had such a bad night was because of food. It was his first time eating pizza and we should have brought something with us to supplement it with. I didn't let him have any of the greasy meat so basically he ate bread and a small amount of veggies on the pizza. Not a very balanced meal especially considering what he's used to.

I think this happened because I had worked that day and was tired. I attempted a short nap when I got home (didn't work) and gave Max some Salmon before we left. Charles did mention they had a pretty busy day so he was probably x-tra hungry and just didn't get enough of what he needed at the right time.

We should have tried to feed him when we got home but we figured it was past his bedtime so we just tried to nurse and put him to sleep which isn't going to work when baby is hungry for solid food.

It seems so obvious now that we should have tried to feed him when he was so upset after we got home but we were so intent on trying to get him down since it was past his bedtime that we overlooked it.

So we learned our lesson. After Max slept most of Sunday morning he awoke in a very cheery mood and was back to his sweet ol' self again.

I made him some of his favorite cinnamon multigrain pancakes and he danced around the kitchen!

Again Daycare

On Friday the director of Max's daycare called me to tell me that Max isn't adjusting as well as he should be. We were obviously aware that Max was upset being dropped off and picked up but she informed us that on most days he is crying for most of the day and pointing out the window looking for us.

Her suggestion is that after the first of the year Max comes full time for a couple of weeks to see if that gets him over the hump. So we are going to try this and see if it helps.

It has to work! We don't have many other options. You can't switch daycare easily in Seattle because they are all full and you need to be on a waiting list for months. A nanny is too expensive and we both need to work.

Max also needs to socialize with people outside of us.

It's stressful times for the Beene's but we'll get through it.

Day is night and night is day

After a fun night of Pizza with friends Jen, JP and sweet little Jonas, Mas decided for some reason to stay up all night. We altered his routine a little bit. He normally has a bath at 7:15 then nurses for 15 min - 30 min and bed.

Last night I nursed him at 5:30 for 20 min, then he fell asleep for 10 min in the car on the way to meet our friends. We never thought this could lead to what it did. Max cried the entire way home and was inconsolable when we got home. It was only 8 o'clock not that far off but Max would not go down and didn't even want to nurse which was a first.

We didn't know if he was sick or ate something or what??? He didn't have a fever so we just kept trying to nurse for hours. I didn't think he could still be hungry for more food since he ate alot at the restaurant. But at midnight he ate 2 kiwi's, some melon and bread so he was hungry. Then he was happy and wanted to play. Dad was nice enough to get up and play with Max for about an hour while I relaxed in bed. I was too wound up to go right to sleep even though I was exhausted.

I was just so happy that it was just a sleep issue and that Max wasn't sick. Charles finally put Max down and he slept for about 2 hours before he woke up again and starting crying. After about an hour we couldn't take it anymore and put him in our bed. We tried to nurse for a couple of hours and Max was fitful and distraught. Finally he fell asleep at around 6am and slept till 8.
Then we got up and I made Max some pancakes. Last week Max ate 4 pancakes. We were astonished that a 14 month old could eat 4 good sized pancakes but obviously he likes pancakes. He was happy to have them and also ate some melon and a couple of bites of oatmeal.

After breakfast Max was acting sleepy and has now been sleeping for 2 hours.

We hope to not repeat this anytime soon. For now we will not try to veer off the bedtime routine. I am so glad we don't have to travel for Christmas. I can't imagine Max on a long car or plane ride at this point in his life. We have now learned that he is capable of 2 straight hours of inconsolable crying.

I've read that it isn't good to do more than one big change at once for a child and I think that we have to focus all of our energy into getting Max adjusted to daycare (which isn't happening so far) He just can't handle anything else right now.

Max's Week

This was a pretty normal week for Max. For the most part the daycare routine is the same. He cries for the drop-off and the pick-up. Charles did look in the window one night before Max saw him and saw that Max was playing with a toy and not crying! As soon as he saw daddy though he started to cry. It's weird, you would think he would be so happy to see him he would smile but instead he cries. What is also weird is that on his daycare nights he is really quiet. He is still running around the house but he doesn't do all of his babbling. On his days off from daycare he is babbling and vocalizing all day long.

His sleeping is still erratic. We may have a few good nights then like last night he woke up about 4 and cried for an hour before we finally brought him in our bed.

I'm working on weaning Max more. I say "I" because Max would still be feeding 10x a day if he could. When people say you should stop at 6mo. or 12mo. or whatever time, in my experience it doesn't work like that. I was wanting to stop at 12mo. but you can't just shut it off like that. Physically your body doesn't just stop making milk and you risk infections if you don't express when your engorged. Your baby is also totally addicted to the comfort of feeding and the taste of your milk.

I'm not at all upset that we are still nursing. In a way I'm still addicted to the experience myself. I just think it is easier on Max at daycare if he is not used to getting my milk during the day since he doesn't get it there.

This week I stuck to my plan of only 2 feedings a day. Morning and just before bed and even through the meltdowns and obvious signs (to a mommy)that he wanted to latch on I held out for only these times. It isn't easy at all but overall I think he's doing great!

A new development for Max this week is that he learned to twirl around in a full circle. He always starts to dance instantly when he hears music. It's the cutest thing ever. So far it's only been bending his knees and waving his arms. But now after a while he starts moving his arms from side to side and eventually makes his way to a full circle. And yes he made himself dizzy a couple of times. This reminds me of one other thing he does now. He tries to do the "itsy bitsy spider" with his fingers! I think that is his favorite song right now.

Today is snowing again in Seattle or at least up here in Bothell where we live right now. Charles and Max are out playing in it. We are starting to check out banks and brokers this week to begin the process of buying another house. We can't wait to get closer to the city again!

The plan is to go to the Imagine museum this afternoon after Max's nap. We'll get some pictures and video and hopefully tonight I'll post some.

One nice mommy development is that I joined a gym and started to work out again. It feels so good. Tomorrow I'm going to try and put Max in the gym daycare for an hour. We'll see how that goes.........

Taking advantage of a nap

I'm taking advantage of Max's naptime and posting these pictures we have taken in the past couple of days. It has been snowing here in Seattle this weekend. This is Max's first time out in it. The other picture is of Max running down 5th Avenue on Friday, the day we met daddy for lunch. The other picture is Max in a bean bag playing with a football at Daddy's work. Then Max playing with some of his transformer thingamagigs.

Max is hugging me and Charles mostly whenever we ask for them. He is starting to show more of a personality all the time. He is very sweet. He is getting better on his feet and starting to run more especially in the house. He loves to be chased and play hide and seek. He laughs so hard when he finds us. It's very cute!

I hear him......

Max's Big Day

On Friday Max and I went to a Benefit for Treehouse. This is a local organization for foster children in our area. It was fun to see Max interacting more with the other children. Daycare is helping with that I can tell. At Max's age they don't interact all that much but he seems less afraid of the other kids anyway.
After about 45 minutes Max did start to melt down and in a moment of weakness I gave in and gave him a little bit of a cookie. I haven't given him any sugar at home yet. I do know, however, that he gets sweets at daycare and for now I'm letting it slide but I think I'm going to start bringing his own snacks. I put the picture of him going for the cookies up because after I gave him that little bit of cookie he would do nothing else but keep going back to the cookies. It was cute but we basically had to leave after that.
It's not that I want him to live in a bubble and I know he'll eventually eat loads of crap when I'm not around but I just want to start with a good foundation while I'm still in control of what he eats. I can make him cookies with whole wheat flour and alternative limited sugar. So far his only sweets are fruits at home and he doesn't know the difference.

The benefit was close to where Daddy works so we met him for lunch at Chutney's Indian Restaurant on Queen Anne. We had the buffet and Max did well. He made a mess but he ate well and was very happy. He had lentil soup and a dish with chick peas and rice. I feed him loads of lentils and he loves them!

Next we went to Daddy's office. It was my first time there. It's really big and colorful with cutouts of Superman and Spiderman in the marketing department. There is an amazing view of Puget Sound from the back windows. The big hit was Codey the office dog. He is a 2 year old beautiful golden retriever. Max absolutely loved him. Max was pulling on his tie and his leash and Codey didn't mind at all. He licked Max and chased him around and Max chased Codey too! Codey was wagging his tail in Max's face and Max thought that was the funniest thing ever. Some dogs are just too cool for words, Codey is definately one of those dogs.

That was our big day. All of that was enough to make Max instantly fall asleep in the car. He was really good the rest of the day. Max loves a day that is spent with Mom or Dad, has a good amount of stimulation (especially new places he's never seen before) not too much though. We try to make his days this way but it doesn't always work out.