Max lately

image by damiengaudet.com

We are quickly approaching 22 months which is quickly approaching 2 years old.  We have been having a lot of awesome moments mixed in with a few challenges.  Let's start with the positives:

Max has such a great personality.  He is happy, polite, concerned and just so darn sweet.  He laughs a lot.  He says please, thank-you, excuse me without prompting.  If he thinks he has hurt someone or something, he immediately grabs you, kisses you and says sorry, all while making this little motion with his hand that to him, must mean sorry.  He loves other people, especially all of his little friends either from daycare or our friends' little ones.  We've also realized what an outgoing little man we have.  He walks into new situations with new people most often with a very inquisitive personality.  He likes to interact with others.

He has a very good vocabulary.  Well, we don't have all that much to compare it to, but he is talking a ton.  He also does his ABCs and has counted up to 14.  He will never, ever do these on command but we catch him singing or counting all of the time.  He is learning many new words quickly.  Sometimes though, we can't understand him and he gets super frustrated when he can't communicate with us.  For the most part, we generally understand him.  He loves pointing things out, like motorbikes (his favorite) or planes, cars, houses, you name it.  It's funny because he is still rear-facing in his car seat yet he names the vehicles as we pass them.

Max is constantly developing his motor skills, from playing his new drum set, to putting together puzzles, stacking blocks or putting his train tracks together on his train table.  It's a lot of fun watching him figure out how things work and how they go together.

He wants to be a part of everything.  You name it, he wants in.  If I am in a conversation and he wants to be a part of if, he'll grab my face and turn it towards him. If I am showing Damien something on the phone or computer, he says "I see" and I have to show him.  He will usually laugh or say "ooooooohhhhh" as if it's the most interesting thing he has ever heard or seen.  It seriously cracks us up.

Max is overall, just a lot of fun.  I know that this comes with a. me being his mom and b. his age, but man, what a blast he is.  He is constantly coming out with new things, stringing words together and acting silly, running around the house getting into anything and everything he can.  He is a little daredevil; I've caught him twice putting things on top of his toy box that would result in a big boo-boo (one was his drum set stool which he was then trying to stand on and the other was his Little People motorcycle which he was trying to drive off of the toy box).  I do enjoy his adventurous personality and we are careful to keep him as safe as we can while still allowing him to explore and try things out (I do draw the line at motorcycle stunts though, at least for now).


With all of the good, there is certainly some bad:

We are really struggling with getting Max to eat right now.  I keep telling myself he will eat when he is hungry and as long as we are offering him healthy options, he will be fine.  But that doesn't always help, especially when he has taken 2 bites for lunch and then at dinner time, wants only 2 bites once again.  Breakfast is usually his best meal.  He loves Weetabix.  He'll have one with some milk and we can usually mix yogurt right in with it.  He is good at feeding himself and will generally finish the fairly large bowl of it.  He'll eat fruit, cereal bars, french toast, toast and peanut butter and a few other things come breakfast time.   After that, it's a crapshoot.  He'll usually eat a PB&J but lately, that's not even guaranteed.  Dinner time is definitely the most stressful.  Thank god for Happy Tot packets because most times he will at least eat one of those.  Other than that, crapshoot.

Everything is now "mine".  I know that this is normal. He does end up sharing but he needs to let you and everyone else know that first it is "mine".

Max can be stubborn.  If he has a certain pair of shoes in mind (he only has 2 pairs right now, thank god) or a certain shirt, all hell breaks loose if he can't wear them.

Max hates taking a bath.  This is new and honestly, we are a little stumped with this one.  He used to love being in the bath, playing.  Now, it's a complete freakout when he gets in.  He immediately stands up, says "out" or "hold you (me)" or "all done" and cries and cries and cries.  We are hoping he grows out of this one soon.

There are other challenges, for sure, but usually they are more fleeting and we have learned to deal with them.  We have temper tantrums, time-outs and once in a while, all around bad days.  But honestly, those are few and far between.  Overall, we have a healthy, happy little boy.  Life is good.