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.