Pariseaults come to Seattle

We had an awesome week with Dick and April and the kids when they came to visit Seattle last week. It was great to have some RI family out here and to show them some of our favorite spots in the city. They stayed pretty busy, visiting the Woodland Park Zoo, Pacific Science Center, Museum of Flight, Children's Museum, assorted parks, beaches, festivals and other places. Uncle Charles played lots of basketball with Andrew and Hannah, while Max and Angela ran around playing games. The highlight of the week for the boys was when Uncle Charles got free tickets to Safeco's suite at the Seahawks pre-season game, along with field passes. We ate like kings (especially Andrew), got to stand right next to the huge football players and had a great time in prime seats. The girls had fun too, painting Max's toes. We're looking forward to them coming again ... or anybody else that wants to come out to the Great Northwest!

Old men and roller coasters

A couple more notable Max quotes from lately:

• Sometimes when he sees an older man, he says "That's another Paw-Paw." (That's what he calls his grandpa.) Well, the other day he was in the store with mommy and he saw a short old man and he said "That's a little Paw-Paw!"

• He was at the park the other day and a man who had a long beard rode up on a bike. He said a very friendly "hi" to Max, who said "hi" back. As he was walking away, Max looked up and said "That's a Santa, mommy!"

• Max put this little pose together. He grabbed the scarecrow and put on his helmet and said "Go get the camera and take a picture, Daddy! It sure will be cute." He was right.
  

And here's some from a recent trip to the Fun Forest at Seattle Center. Max rode the little roller coaster with mommy and loved it!

Mr. Manners

Max said something the other day that made mom and dad's head spin. I asked him if he wanted a bite of my sandwhich, and he replied "Ummmm, no thank you daddy ... but thanks for asking." First, what great manners for a two-year-old, and second, Max turning down food? No way!

Last weekend, we randomly ran across a yard sale benefit for an animal shelter, and they had pony rides. So Max got a short ride on Toby (he called him Togy); he loved it!

Who's really in charge here?

Max (modeling his new faux-hawk at the barber shop, right) is really flexing his independence these days, in cute (and slightly disconcerting) ways. Hopefully, it's just a phase he's going through and it doesn't get too out of control:

• The other day, he and I were wrestling around a little in the living room, and he got bumped and fell down. He got up and hollered "Daddy, you don't need to push me. You need to go to your room!"
• We were driving home from daycare today, and he had a little container of cereal he was picking at. I asked him to share some with me and he gave me a couple pieces. When I asked for a few more, he said "That's enough for right now, Daddy. You need to wait until we get home and then you can have some more."
• This doesn't have anything to do with independence, but one thing he's been saying lately that's really funny is "keep saving" ... as in "I need to put these toys in this bag for keep saving."

"Hey guys, what's going on?"

Most days when dad comes home from work, Max asks if he can put on my company ID badge, so I help him attach it to his waistband, and he gets a big kick out of the pull cord, and he says "Now I can go to work at Safeco!" and runs off.

The cool part is this ... on a few occasions, I've forgotten to get it back from him and put it in my bag so I have it for the next day. So a couple times, I've gotten off the bus downtown the next morning and thought "Uh-oh, I never got my badge back from Max." But each time, I've unzipped the pocket in my bag where I keep it and there it is. Without me telling him to, Max goes and puts it there when he's done.

He loves stuff like that right now, the process stuff, like stirring a pot of oatmeal, getting himself dressed, putting my trumpet back in its case. He's adamant (sometimes stubbornly so) about doing things for himself; he'll exclaim "I want to do some!" And it's nice to be able to say to Max "Go get some shorts on and get your baseball glove" and he'll run off giggling and come back a couple minutes later with the task completed. The stage at which your kid can do most things for themselves is quite a relief for mom and dad, especially going to the bathroom, which he does completely independently now. Mostly, it's gratifying to see him grow into this little free-thinking person, wanting to take some control of his life instead of having mom and dad do everything for him.

But somehow, this hasn't translated so well into getting him to pick up his toys at night ... oh well, a work in progress.

A couple other things to note that Max has been saying/doing lately:

• He prefaces almost everything with "maybe" or "because" as in "Maybe we can have some snacks!" or "Because we need to have some snacks!" (One thing we've never had issues with is getting Max to eat. He consumes as much food as I do, his 210-lb dad ... no exageration.)
• Lately, he'll stroll into a room where Joi and I are and very matter-of-factly say "Hey guys, what's going on?" ... that cracks me up everytime. He also often says "What are we going to do next?" whenever we leave somewhere or stop playing something. For Max, life is a non-stop adventure.
• He's also saying his ABCs in Spanish, and he'll just randomly drop a Spanish word in here or there, like as we're walking out the door, he'll say "Let's go ... vaminos." We have to thank his daycare ELDC for most of this, with an appreciative nod to Dora and Diego.
• One of his favorite things lately is to have a parade through the house. He says "Should we get the trumpet out?" So he gets it out from under the bed, puts the mouthpiece in and hands the horn to me and we march through the house, me playing some march-like ditty and him humming into the mute as if its some kind of horn-like instrument. We have to get some video of this.

As we approach his 3rd birthday in a few months, his old Dad's heart swells when I think about what a perceptive, sweet and charming little dude we have for a son. Raising a two-year-old isn't easy, but Joi and I often talk to each other about how, overall, Max is well-behaved, very rarely throws tantrums and a real pleasure to be around.

For now ... stay tuned.

Trip to the Oregon coast

Here's a video of our recent trip to Nehalem Bay ... a fabulous time had by all, gorgeous beaches and mountains, good weather, Max loved it, we'll be going back for sure next summer. Maybe in a yurt this time!

Max the Busker

All we need now is a harmonica and a dancing monkey, and we can put him out on the corner downtown playing for tips ...