New location...same old stuff

Alrighty, so I've moved the blog over to Wordpress at http://go2chicago.wordpress.com So pretty much the same thing, just different. :-)

Sorry...

Sorry for the lack to posts. For some reason, Blogger thought this was a spam blog. I have no idea why, but they blocked us for a while. I'm looking into moving this to Wordpress or maybe getting our own domain or something...

A hard day playing

So Max apparently had a hard day playing with bats and everything. He wore himself out and just passed out on his exercise mat.

Max today...

Our happy boy is finally back. Boy, Mommy hates shots. He had an eventful weekend too -- on Friday night we were back at Ravinia with our neighbors the Tomlins and O'Gordons for John Hiatt and Alice Peacock.

And it poured rain. Absolutely poured. The kids (other than Max, though I'm sure he'd like to do it someday) were using the tarps as slip n' slides. I had poor little Max with me under an umbrella. He didn't seem to mind, really, was just kind of checking everything out like "hey, what the heck is this stuff?"

And then Saturday night we went to Treva and Sebastian's for a bbq. That was Max's first time in the city -- they live in the Wrigley Park area. He did pretty good; pretty much just hung out and flirted with the ladies, as per usual.

So here's Max today. Daddy emailed and said he needed his Max fix.

Anybody want to play??!

Uh, what did you say?

Gracie was off to the side on this one and Max is trying to get her to play, I think.
Or maybe he's just showing her his bear.

Max and his little red convertible

Max needed a car just like mommy's. Well, not exactly alike, since his has racing stripes and the horn plays a few different tunes. But close enough. This is one of those things that's supposed to help them exercise their legs (it's a 3 in 1 walker doohickey). He definitely figured out the horn part right away.
Though he's also very keen on chewing on the steering wheel.

Max at Ravinia - Feist & Juana Molina Concert

So, Friday Max went to his second concert at Ravinia. This time it was Juana Molina and Feist (you might have heard the Feist song 1, 2, 3, 4 in that iPod nano commercial). We had a good time and Max, as always, was the perfect baby. He even got in some hang time with daddy.

Max's 4 Month Checkup

The poor boy. I hate it when they have to give him shots. Another four today. :-(

Other than that, everything is looking good. He's up to 25" tall (! over the two feet we measured him at with his wall chart [but hey, he doesn't exactly stand up straight yet]) and 13 lbs., 7 oz. So around the 25% on both of those things. His head is 41 cm now, which the doctor said is also right on track. Getting to be such a big boy!

He'll have his next appointment at 6 months. Who knows how big he'll be by then!

Max's first bite

Max's first bite of "real" food was yesterday. Just a little bit of oatmeal cereal mixed with breast milk, but he seemed to like it okay.

Tummy Time

I'm trying to remember to do more tummy time with Max so he can get used to being on his belly and maybe figure out the whole crawling thing. He's definitely much, much better at holding his head up now. :-)
Oh! And happy 4 month-day to Max today!

Look, I'm 2 Feet Tall Now!

So "big" Max has hit the big 2 foot mark (he was 19.5" when he was born). And within the next week he'll be a whopping 4 months old. I can hardly believe it! Time really does fly.
He's doing really well, though I'm starting to wonder if he's headed into another growth spurt or something because he's back to eating about every 2 hours (he was going anywhere between 2 - 4 for a while). And that's every two hours from when a feeding starts, not when it ends (sometimes it takes him 1/2 hour to eat, which means he's really eating again just an hour and a half after he last ate). He's a good boy though and I certainly can't complain. Happy baby = happy mommy.

Note Tony's farmer's tan in the above photo...hehe, just had to point that out, I'm sure he'll be oh-so-pleased.

Max Goes to Anaheim (and doesn't go to Disney)

Woot! We're back from L.A. (well, Anaheim, really. We just flew into LAX). The ALA (American Library Association) convention was great. Max was great (best baby ever, actually...even waiters said so). The book promo stuff went great (I'll have more about that up on my author blog soon.) Now, my eye, that wasn't so great. I got this infected ingrown eyelash thing on Thursday, right before we left. Lucky for me, one of our neighbors is a doctor and even luckier for me, he was nice enough to come over and take a look at it and tell me what to do. So I was able to get the swelling and whatnot under enough control that no one at ALA noticed. Yay! Who wants to be the author with the plague eye?

Here's a picture of me and my little vampire baby outside the Mirrorstone / Wizards of the Coast booth. See my book in the window?? They had one of the coolest booths at the show, actually. It looks like a shop from out of Harry Potter. Or, well, any fantasy, I suppose. Very, very cool.
Here's Max in his new Mickey Mouse hat. Not that he (obviously) even noticed. That was the only bummer about the trip -- here we were in Anaheim staying literally right next to Disney, and the boy was way too young to take to the park. But he did get a hat from Downtown Disney.
And here's what the boy was doing while Mommy was signing her book for the tons (more than a 100!) of awesome librarians that lined up for it. Daddy had him out there promoting my book with a sticker on his chest and my book by his sweet little head. People literally came back by the booth later just to see if the "cute baby" was still there. Seriously.

Note to self: be sure to bring Max to all book signings and other author appearances.

Goth Baby (no babies were harmed in the taking of this photo)

Okay, so before you look at the photo below, I would first like to state for the record that a) no babies were harmed in the taking of this photo and b) no, we didn't put any lipstick on him, there was just some weird lighting effect with the camera and c) I have no idea how the picture came out like it did. But it sure is funny. You actually should click through to the full size version to get the full effect.

Without further ado, here's Max, our little Goth Baby.
And, as you can see in this picture taken mere moments later, our boy really didn't have any black lipstick on. Honest Injun.
In other news...we tried Foldovers the other day. Had their thin crust, hand-rolled pizza (a multiple cheese & garlic one) and I also stopped in after a post office trip and had one of their chicago dogs (it's located in the strip mall by the post office, where a different pizza place used to be). The pizza wasn't bad at all and neither was the dog. We'll have to try their signature product: the foldover and see how that is. They sound intriguing. Well, as intriguing as delivery food can be.

Happy Boy

Max is a happy little guy pretty much all the time. He loves it when people talk to him and play with him.

He got to go to his very first concert on Friday -- Willie Nelson, of all people. :-) We went to Ravinia (a large outdoor venue) with him and he behaved SO well. Actually, way better behaved than the gaggle of ladies who were sitting next to us. Good thing, since we've got a few more Ravinia tickets for Feist and the Gipsy Kings. Ravinia is really awesome. Lots of fun and great shows. Last year we saw B.B. King and Joan Osborne.

Daddy's Home!

Tony is back from his quick trip to Germany, though the poor guy is really wiped. Max was happy to see him. Here they are in matching grey jammies.
And earlier I'd enlisted my neighbor's help to get a picture of him with the hood up...I know I'm biased, but he's just the cutest darn thing.

Father's Day (Pig Roast, Grandparents & the Big Lake)

So, I'm way behind in keeping up the blog. I've just been sick. I'm finally on the tail end of it (thank heavens; I don't know how many more Kleenex I could go through). Luckily, Max is still (cross fingers) healthy. Though I think he's teething, but that's another story (Overachiever! Babies aren't 'supposed' to teeth until another month or two!)

Royce and Janet (Pop-Pop and Mom-Mom) came to visit Max. Max loved to giggle with Mom-Mom and let out some really cute giggles.

And here's all the Pauley guys in one shot, though Max, as per usual, is chewing on his outfit (at this point, he's chewing on anything that goes near his mouth). For those keeping count, that's three Royce's in one picture.
We went to the Father's Day Pig Roast in the neighborhood and it was great fun. The weather even (amazingly) cooperated. Max hung out and took it all in as we all took in a bunch of good food.
We also took a drive down by Lake Michigan and went by the Waukegan Harbor. We had some ice cream at a nice little ice cream shop called Dockside Ice Cream (38 E Madison St, Waukegan, IL 60085 (847) 263-1846). Good banana splits and a nice little patio to hang out on.

And here's Max and Daddy by the lake.
All in all, it was a good Father's Day weekend. Now, if I can just shake this dratted cold...

Cough, cough, hack, hack

So Tony got sick and actually stayed home Monday, Tuesday and today (not that he didn't work...he just stayed home and worked from here). He had a bad fever for a while there and even went to see the doctor (nobody faint). Sadly, it is "just" a cold, so there wasn't anything they could give him. Of course, now he's sharing it with me. Max seems unaffected so far. Supposedly, the breastfeeding is protecting him, what with all the antibodies and what-not in it. I just don't understand why I get sick, if I've got all these germ-fighters pulsing through me? Eh, who knows.

We had a pretty quiet day today, all in all. I read him some books and he seemed to pay attention.
And he fell asleep on daddy.
And even got his groove on. Hair courtesy the bath he had last night. (Oh, who am I kidding, his hair is always all fluffed out. :-) It's just a little more fuzzy after a bath. Tony has started calling him Spike.).

In other news, it apparently takes 12 weeks plus 1 day to get a social security card these days. They'd said it would take 9 - 12 weeks. At any rate, Max is now official and we can open up his bank account.

I also weighed him on a neighbor's baby scale. He's over 11 1/2 pounds and closing in on 12. Don't know exactly since I didn't strip him naked and he kept wiggling around, but he's definitely somewhere around there. Gettin' bigger every day. And the poops to show for it.

Nearly Always Happy Boy

Here's Max hanging out with Daddy and wearing his Cub's hat. Note the overalls...it was a day spent partly out at the farm (picking up the 1/4 cow we bought and making a worm bin), so we had to get him all "Farmer Brown" ready.
And here's Max and mommy.
And to prove that the boy does periodically get really, really ticked off, here's Mad Max:

Smile for the Day

According to Tony, this is Max going: 'Sup? (that's Wassup or What's Up for those of you slang-challenged viewers).

And here's a big smile.

Max in the Labyrinth

Here's our boy this morning doing his impression of Toby from Labyrinth (okay, the outfit is the wrong color, but it still reminds me of the movie).
And, apparently, little Toby Froud grew up pretty handsome.
And, bonus picture...here's Daddy playing with Max.

The little guy is doing well and starting to become more regular in his sleeping habits, at least at night. He's still pretty random during the day.

In sibling news, Gracie has fully accepted him as a part of her family. :-) It was really cute, actually. We had him on the floor (well-cushioned, of course) getting ready to take his bath and Gracie happened to be in the bathroom with us (she's nosy). She goes over to him and starts rubbing her head on his hand, trying to get him to pet her. It was really cute. She doesn't do that with just anyone, not like that. Harley still gets really concerned when he cries, running over to us going "Do something! For heaven's sake, do something!"

Mommy and Max

You know, Pam is right...I don't have many pictures of me and Max together. I guess it's because I'm usually the one with the camera...Tony says it's the Asian side of me...but I'll have to get on him to get more pictures of the two of us...or use the timer for the three of us. We have barely any with all three of us. Anyway, by request, here are two pictures from this month of me and Max.

The little man...

He's getting bigger every day and keeping us busy, busy, busy. He really likes the activity gym.
And he just inherited a bunch of clothes from our neighbors, including some cute hats.
And doesn't he look like a little dapper dan man in this sweater? Though perhaps his cheeks are a bit too chubby for that. :-)

Daddy, you might have noticed, seems to be wearing the same white t-shirt in every picture. It's actually a different t-shirt every day, I promise. He's just started taking preventative spit-up measures...so he takes off his work shirt and just leaves on the t-shirt once he comes home. Daddy-know-how.

Little man, big head

So, one of the other things they measure each time is the circumfrence of Max's little head. And guess what? He's in the 95th percentile there! The rest of him is slowly catching up. :-) Daddy says it is his big brain.

Of course, as you can see in this picture, Daddy is very partial to his little boy and his little boy is very partial to him.

Max has also started kicking around a lot -- so I posted to the PsyCHO email list and asked if anyone had a baby gym they wanted to get rid of. One lady did (sans toys) and dropped it by for free. Isn't this a great neighborhood? I added some hang-y toys we had and I have to say, Max really loves it. Gurgles and coos and kicks all over. I'll have to get some more toys for it.
Of course, not all was well yesterday. The poor little guy was upset after the four shots he got and really wanted to be held all night long. He was super-sleepy but also quite upset. That's lasted a bit into today (Mommy is very, very sleepy right now), so we'll both be happy when Daddy gets home today...as you can see from this picture last night, Max takes a lot of comfort from Daddy's warm chest.
Not to mention his big furry brother Harley, who braved the diaper end to lay his head and purr on Max's "injured" leg. Harley actually takes pretty well to Max and will even give us really dirty looks if he's crying and he doesn't think we're moving fast enough to comfort the little guy. He takes his big brother duties seriously. Gracie is a good big sister too -- she guards the door whenever Mommy is nursing Max.

Max's 2 Month Check Up

Can you believe it has been 2 months already? Actually, 2 months and a few days. Max had his checkup today and was very unhappy about it -- he had to get 4 shots + some drops. But everything is checking out okay...he's now up to a bouncing 10 lbs. and 8 ounces (up from 7 lbs. 15 oz. at his last checkup) and 23 inches. He's gone from under the 5th percentile in weight to the 25th, so that's good. And he's at the 50th percentile for height. He's growing by leaps and bounds!

Walking with Daddy

Max likes to practice walking and standing with Daddy. Here we are on Mother's Day with the cutie-pie.
It was pretty cold out and Tony was kind enough (read: he sucked it up and went) to take me to the antique market at the Fairgrounds. So we bundled Max up. He's outgrown his little dinosaur jacket and he's not quite big enough for this cool motorcycle jacket. But it kept him warm and that's the important thing...that, and he was stylin'.

The many faces of Max...

Maybe our boy will grow up to be a famous actor one day...this morning I told him I needed him to make some faces so I could take a picture or two for Daddy.