Favorite New Game

Don't mind my disaster-area of the kitchen - Hurricane Max wreaked havoc throughout the house yesterday.

Early Summer

In just a couple of days you will be 13 months old! Where has the last month gone?? We've been running all over creation, seeing friends and family, visiting grandparents, reunion-ing with high school friends and enjoying the summer - especially our wonderful garden. We even harvested our first vegetables this week - a big bowl of beautiful and delicious lettuce for Father's Day Dinner. We have visited the pool, which you can't get enough of - especially when you have a tiny little watering can to fill and dump over and over (and over and over and over) for two hours at a time (no joke).

We started off the summer on Memorial Day Monday by throwing you a first birthday party. You ate more pie.

In the pouring rain.

Despite the bad weather, more than 60 friends and family came out to celebrate you! You were such a good boy and had fun chasing the older kids around, trying to do what they were doing.

You have exploded in the last month in your understanding of what we say to you and trying to communicate with us, or at least mimicking the sounds that we make. You can tell us what a doggie says (though you've been able to do that for months) and what a pig says and you are trying to say car and ball and bubbles and blueberry and you definitely know how to say banana. Before you were even calling me mama you were calling the dog across the street by name. You look for Coco every time we leave the house. You amaze me every day with something new that I didn't know that you knew. A couple days ago you signed "more" to me after I said it in conversation to someone else. You stubborn little thing - you won't do it when I ask you if you want more of something, but you know what it is! (I wonder where you get that stubborn streak from. It can't be from me, that's for sure.)

You are so affectionate. I love your kisses and hugs and cuddles. Just tonight while I was making dinner for just the two of us, you came up and hugged my leg, just a little at first then tighter, then you started patting my leg like I pat your back. Sweet sweet boy.

You are solidly walking too, after taking your first steps the day before your party, on May 28. You toddle after everything like Frankenstein, but you get where you want to go. And you love your climber and sandbox in the back yard. You are an outdoor kid for sure.

Cool kid.

Birthday Boy

Dear Max,

One year ago at 4:48 in the afternoon, you appeared in our lives like this:

Beautiful as can be! Crying and snorting (you still do that) and waving your arms. And everything changed - for the better. This is your huge self today:

Our first year together (not counting the 9 months we spent together before I could tell how much you look like your daddy) has been amazing. You are such a good boy and have such a big personality. I have the best job in the world right now - chasing after you and taking care of my baby boy. I couldn't ask for anything more.

Grandma Alyse and Grandpa Vic helped us celebrate your first birthday by going to lunch at the Arboretum.

Your two bachans were there too.

It was hot outside - unlike last year. Last May 25 was cool and rainy. I remember fogging up the back window of the car when we were sailing down Lakeshore Drive on our way to the hospital - I wondered (in the back of my head somewhere) if anyone could tell that I was not buckled in, kneeling on the back seat trying not to have a baby in the car. After making us wait so long (10 days late!), you were in a big hurry! We barely made it to the hospital before you were born.

Today you got to try Bachan Sumie's famous apple pie for the first time:

You LOVED it.

We love you. Happy birthday baby boy!

More travels

Max and I have been doing some gardening around our house and at our vegetable-garden plot down the street... We have a LOT of weeds at our garden plot, but we also have lots of lettuce sprouts coming up, which is very exciting! Hopefully all our other experiments will go as well. Though we have a lot of work ahead of us to get there!

He loves riding in his wagon! Especially when there are gardening tools to play with.

We took our last airplane ride for a while and went to Maine with Grandma and Grandpa Purdy. Max took his first boat ride. It was too early for whales, but we saw a Bald Eagle and porpoises and Harbor Seals.

Max LOVES macaroni and cheese (Annie's organic, of course!) and loved rubbing it all in his hair just as much as eating it.

We did some hiking at Acadia National Park:

And played in the sand.

And on the playground at the condo complex.

Max was super in the car. We spent a lot of time driving around exploring, and he was very patient. He even took a couple naps in the car.

We rode on a teeny-tiny turbo prop to and from Boston up to Maine. It was a crazy experience. This is a picture from the last row of the plane, where we were seated. The "main terminal" of the airport was a double-wide trailer and the baggage claim was a hole in the fence. It is a different world between Rockland Maine and Chicago's O'Hare Airport.

We have almost nothing planned this week so that I can get myself re-organized, do some vegetable gardening and get some spring cleaning done (finally!). We need it before our busy-busy weeks coming up with Max's first birthday party, visits from grandparents, CK 15-year reunion, Soldier Field 10-mile race, camping, and a trip to South Haven over the next six weeks. Lots of fun - but a lot of work to get there!

Travels

We have had a fabulous couple months with lots of travels and visiting friends. First we visited two of my boyfriends. My VERY first boyfriend:

And his little brother, my 6th (-ish - I've lost track!) boyfriend:

Then we went to Boston to visit friends and Max and I watched the Boston Marathon. For once it didn't make me want to run one. We watched from mile 24, and people were really hurting at that point. But we did have a perfectly lovely lunch with Jo and Makoto that afternoon.

Then we had a great, though short, visit with some friends in San Antonio on our way to Mike's conference. They have two little adorable kiddos.

Mike and Tom got wagon duty.

So fun!

Then Grandma Alyse and Grandpa Vic met us there for the rest of our Texas trip and we went on Max's first visit to a National Park - the San Antonio Missions.

We all had a great time.

Now Max and I are off to Maine soon, and his second National Park (all in his first year on the earth!). What a lucky boy. That will be all of our airplane-travel for a while. He is getting TOO active to be restrained to one seat!

He is super fun these days - he is repeating a lot of what we say (mama, dada, gaga, t-t-t, etc.) he barks (squeaks) when you ask him what a doggie says, he points to what he wants, he tries to snap his fingers when Mike does, he claps all the time (especially when cheering for himself climbing the stairs), and gives lots of kisses. What could be better?

Haircut

Max had his first haircut last week. Daddy thought it was time, and mama finally agreed.

Bye-bye baby comb-over.

How do I look?

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.