Lots more firsts

Before we took Max on his first real family vacation last week, I took him for his first visit to the park on our first nice day here in the Chicago suburbs. He liked crawling around on the play structure.


But didn't know what to make of the slide...

Or the swings.

Then we headed off to Arizona for a week-long trip. Max and I travelled by ourselves down there and I felt pretty impressed with myself after navigating an 8-hour travel day - lunch at the airport, a delay on the tarmac, an in-flight diaper change, luggage pick-up, carseat installation, a closed highway and finally our arrival at the hotel where we had our first non-grandparent babysitter in a new city (a friend-of-a-friend who was fabulous!). The trip was relaxing, but not restful since Max was not able to get adjusted to the 2-hour time difference. So we were up around 4:30 am Arizona time each morning. It made for some long days, but good ones. We took Max on his first hike - a wonderful 3 1/2 mile trail up and down Pinnacle Peak.

He fell asleep about halfway through both days that we did the hike and had a good morning nap. I got a good workout with a 20-pound weight strapped to my back!

I wouldn't say that he enjoyed the first White Sox (spring training) game that we took him to, but he did have fun crawling around in the seats.

Max and daddy with matching hats:

We seem to be in the middle of a major learning spurt! Something has clicked for Max recently and he now understands and uses his sippy cup, understands the little basketball toy he has and puts the ball in the basket, is climbing up the landing steps from the family room to the kitchen with no problems, loves getting into cabinets and drawers (time to child proof this weekend!) understands several words (cracker, dance, bye bye, wave, hi) and points to what he wants. He loves being outside, and doesn't like being confined to his crib or the pack and play unless he is asleep. And, his second tooth has finally broken the surface. Tooth #1 is still barely sticking up on the bottom. No sign of the top teeth yet. I am definitely not complaining about him not having more teeth, but it is so funny to still see an almost-toothless grin at 10-months-plus.

I guess we are going to need a new box of tissues.

And all that shaggy hair is going away tonight. After being mistaken for a girl last weekend, Max is getting his first haircut tonight. Hopefully we'll get some before and after pictures to post here next time.