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.