Naked Time

Max has gotten into a terrible habit: after he's been put in his crib for the night, he strips off all his clothes and his diaper and lays in his crib naked. Now, it's easy to understand his behavior -- what man doesn't sleep better in the nude? -- but it's hard for us to allow this going forward. One, he's got horrible bladder control; although he has managed to get some of his "poopies" into the toilette, including a "bigh poopie" yesterday, he's never managed to control in any way his peeing. Second, his room has horrible climate control and becomes the coldest room in the house during the winter.

Any suggestions on how to correct this behavior?

(PS -- we will try and get photo evidence the next time this occurs.)

Vivi's 3rd Dr.'s Appointment

Vivi met with the Dr. again today and all indications are that she will quickly follow her brother into the realm of brilliance. She has gained more weight, now weighing in at 7 lbs. 6 ounces. She's also got a "really strong neck." She's otherwise very healthy. Of course, they gave Vivi a shot today and she about lost it. Saddest thing you'll ever see is a little baby cry like that.

We had a return visit from the Lollipop fairy, as the magic beans sprouted new lollipops. The lollipops barely made it however, because in the middle of the night -- after Jackson had "watered" the magic jelly beans -- the neighbors in whose garden the beans had been planted came home. Mr. Allen thought that Aida had planted the lollipops for him and so he swooped them up and took them inside, so when Aida and Max awoke there were no lollipops. Later that day, when Ms. Joanne, Mr. Allen's wife, was on her daily trip to Panera with Jackson, she told him about the cute little lollipops Aida had planted for Mr. Allen. Boy was Jackson upset. Ms. Joanne went straight home and replanted the lollipops. What a great neighborhood we live in.

Mount Vernon

Today the family took a mini-tour of the Commonwealth (of Virginia) by touring the estate of George Washington: Mount Vernon. It's 14 miles south of Washington, and the drive is scenic and the estate truly is worth fighting to the death for. The view is stunning.

Garrett had luxurious accommodations, as he drew the seat between Max and Aida in the back of our '92 Accord. He smiles as if he actually enjoyed the ride, but something tells me that between having to play hide and seek with Max for 15 minutes (yeah, Max loves to play, even if the only place to hid is the car seat in which he is stuck), Aviva crying for food on the other side, and his knees being lodged between the front seats in way that proved not all riders require seat belts.

Once we arrived, Max loved the statutes of George and his family. Again, we failed to capture appropriate Max's parting kiss to George's grandson, but you'll see he blended in perfectly with American royalty.

It was a nice visit, but relatively short. Luckily, Kristin got a yearly pass and Max is free, so Max and Kristin should be going back pretty regularly.

Max Update

I fully forgot to give stats on Max as of his 2-year appointment. He's 75% for both height and weight and this trends accurately with prior results. We haven't run an IQ test yet, but anecdotally he's brilliant. Clearly a prodigy.

Nilo Table

Max loves to play with tools and help me build things. Sadly for Max, we don't do a lot of building in our house. I learned a long time ago to leave the wood building to Spencer Brinton.

But, Max had a special surprise over the weekend as Max received a delayed birthday present, a nilo table. Max spent the majority of our time singing, "turning, turning" and putting his tool in any hole he could find and rotating it. Then, after a few verses, he would exclaim, "fixed it, daddy, fixed it!" and he would raise his hands in exclamation.

Then, once he had put together the nilo table, with a little help from me, he scampered to the top of the table and proceeded to scream at the top of his lungs the various colors of the legos we had placed on the table for him to play with. He appeared to be playing some game where the colored legos were germs and he was doing his best to rid the table of infection. He did this for some time until all the legos were on the ground and then he asked for "notherone." He did this several times.

Very cute.

Lollipop Forest

Not much happened today in Aviva news. She seems to have issues with bottles, as we try and do one bottle a day so she'll be used to it in case of emergency. It gives her some serious indigestion. But, that's not really good news. In any case, attached is a photo of the effects of said indigestion.

Max had a fantastic day. First, he reaped the harvest of his lollipop forest. A neighbor of ours, Jackson -- who is married to Aviva's fair god mother -- helped Max and Aida plant "magic" jelly beans in his garden last night, so when Max and Aida woke up they had a lollipop garden awaiting. It was extremely cute. Jackson learned this trick from his dad, who used the magic jelly beans on Jackson's kids and now, as Jackson says, "Grandpa lives forever."

Baby Love

As you can tell from this picture, Max loves his baby sister. Sometimes he loves her a little too much. The other day he was at the table eating and Vivi was on the couch. I ran upstairs to get something and when I came back down, Max was standing by her, obviously pleased with himself. He saw me and exclaimed, "Juice! Bee!" (Bee is how he says baby). I looked at Aviva and half of her head was covered in orange juice. And this is what he does to show he loves her. I can only imagine what tricks he's got up his sleeve for when he starts resenting her.