happy 2nd birthday max attack!

at two max weighs 

25.13 pounds (16%ile)

and measures

34.5 inches tall (63%ile)

the dr. says he's looking to be tall and lean!  we laughed at how he was such a butterball (he's gained all of 7 pounds since he was 3 months old!), and now he's leaned out.  still thicker than pace, though.  max adores pace, and mimics every things pace does--from running to giggling to jumping up and down and waving his arms and shouting gibberish, if that's what pace is doing.  if pace is going somewhere, max will follow and call out to me, " 'mon, mommy."  while waving his arm.  or if he's going somewhere and wants pace to go along, he'll wave his arm and say, "hace, 'mon.  'mon hace."  it really gets quite amusing.  they are pretty good at playing with each other, but max nearly always ends up yelling "nine!"  (mine), because pace has taken something from him, and i still have to calm things down at the end of most adventures.

max is still very cuddly, and is very much a mama's boy--and i'm not complaining!  he often walks right over if i'm sitting on the floor, leans over until he is eye to eye with me and say, "mama?"  with a high inflection at the end.  then he'll lean closer and closer until our foreheads are nuzzling, and he giggles, because it's sooooo funny.  

he still says just the last syllable of most words, which is hilarious.  if he is handing me something, he'll say, "eh doh" (here you go).  hog = hot dog; ham = jam; ake  = pancake; yerk = yogurt; ay-ohs = sandals.  he points at everything and calls it "dat", until i tell him what it is, then he repeats it and says, "yeah."  example:  "uh.  uh.  dat."  (the uh. uh. is high pitched like a question).  "you want a drink?"  "ink.  yeah."  he's starting to put two-three words together for mini max sentences:  daddy. work. ;  mama.  home. ; drink. reach; hunk.  yeyyoh.  ide.  he'll also say "too" if he wants to do something, too--if he sees pace playing eating a treat, max says, "treat!  too!", or playing with trucks, he'll say, "huck, too."  

the other day we were all outside playing and a spider crawled across our porch.  i pointed it out to the boys, as i always do for curiosity's sake--to look at, to follow, to learn about--the second i pointed out that poor spider max ran over, quick as a flash, shouted "aush!" (squash), and squashed the spider under his shoe so fast i couldn't have stopped him if i'd wanted to.  he then proceeded to squash it 3-4 more times, saying "aush" each time, just to be sure. 

on saturday we started telling max it was his birthday tomorrow (sunday) and he would be turning two.  we would ask him to hold up two fingers and say "two"...he just gave us a blank stare instead.  the morning of his birthday, i was most excited for the birthday glasses, because i think they are stinking adorable.  max had forgotten how much he loved them at his last birthday--he was a little unsure until i showed him his baby book and he saw himself wearing the glasses last year.  then he was on board!

and then on to the birthday bounty!  pace was very excited to help max open his presents!

we have some blues players in our family now!

cookies for breakfast anyone?  evidence that little ones come pre-packaged with their own personalities and preferences:  i think this is the first time max has been exposed to oreos (or the trader joe's equivalent...), and he automatically twisted it, licked nearly all the chocolate frosting, stuck it back together, and took maybe one or two more bites, then he lost interest.  pace, on the other hand, scarfed his cookie down just as fast as he could, and stuffed as many cookies in his mouth as he could handle, resulting in a chocolate cookie goatee.  ha ha!

got milk?...

this boy loves his puzzles, and loves shapes!  we're pretty sure max is going to be our little lefty--ever since a baby, max has always dominantly used his left hand, even passing everything over to his left hand to use. 

growling like a dinosaur...

helping daddy build his bike from uncle jon erik

not sure why this meltdown happened...overload maybe.  pace sure liked his turn on the bike, though.

after church we broke out the birthday cake and had some more birthday fun!  pace loved singing to max.