::working::

I love this picture of the two guys working hard to learn.
Even though I do have to force both of them to do their learning at least 75% of the time and I definitely had to do some pushing (to put it lightly) to get this to happen.
It doesn't matter, as long as it gets done, and we hopefully have fun doing it.

It's fun to look at this picture and realize how we are all at such different levels in our learning and how playing can be learning and hard work all at the same time.

Cute cute boys.

::so far so good::

So I took Rachel's advice. She said that if Sultan slept with Max it would seal the deal and they'd be friends forever.
I asked Max if he wanted to have Sul sleep in his room. Max was a little worried about the carpet getting hairy, but once I promised him that carpets can be vacuumed he was excited and went and pulled Sultan's bed into his room.
Sultan thought it was weird. He wasn't sure he wanted to sleep there. I gave Max some dog treats to try to smooth things over, and it helped a bit.
But he didn't want to sleep there when night fell. He usually sleeps on his bed all night, but last night he kind of wandered the house.
I think he ended up on the bed though.

Anyway, the whole point of this story is that I went into Max's room this morning after my shower. Max was supposed to be getting dressed, which is always an ultra long process.
Here's what I saw:

Does he have that kind of put upon look in his eye, or is that just my imagination?
Max was letting him read. He'd gotten out his dog books. McDuff, and Martha Speaks. They're open to specific favorite parts.
I thought it was so cute. How nice of Max to help Sultan read! And to find the books he might be interested in.

So far so good I say. I like that Max has to think about somebody else besides himself once in a while. It can't be a bad thing. Now if we can just get Sultan on board we'll be set.

::he's crazy::

I have proof:

::interminable::

The other day Max's room was messy. Really messy. And for about the last 6 months I've been trying to teach and encourage him to clean his own room. Sometimes it works out great, and sometimes it's a failure. I usually have to help him by coming in and giving instructions no matter what. I try to avoid coming in and cleaning though, because then he sits down and watches and I clean everything up before I realize what happened.

Anyway, after breakfast I sent him in to clean up. And truthfully it wasn't really that messy. There were toys and clothes all over the floor, but we have a very nice organization system for things like that. Lots of drawers where all and toys may go, places for stuffed animals and then a dirty laundry basket for clothes.

By lunchtime he was still in his room. He'd come out to bring me a laundry basket full of clothes. I let him take a break for lunch and then sent him back in.

Look at him! Working hard, right? What's he doing here, maybe making his bed? Or folding something?

OK, maybe not. Looks like he got out toys that haven't seen the light of day for quite a while.
He never plays like this by himself. Never. Unless I tell him to go get dressed or clean his room.

He was so focused he didn't even notice me taking pictures.

Until then.
See how messy his room is? But see all the drawers? They're just calling to have toys dumped in.
The funny thing is that most of the toys out there on the floor actually weren't there when I sent him in to clean. He spent way way more time getting stuff out than putting it away.

He had his dance class in the afternoon at 3, so I gave him a little break for that. Then when he was back I sent him back into his room. He didn't even complain. It probably didn't hurt he was listening to Scripture Scouts. They kept him very entertained.

Anyway, Kris came home from work and Max was still "cleaning." He went in and gave him some nice verbal instructions and got it all taken care of by dinner time somehow.

It was just amazing how long it took. And actually it was a very nice peaceful day for me. I got some work done, I got to read a little in peace and basically it was just nice and low key, and he wasn't trouble for me all day. Weird, huh? I'm thinking I should do this more often. Maybe I'll start messing up his room myself.
Naw, he does a good enough job on his own, the little stinker.

.::Big Haircut(s)::.

Pre:


Post:


We have a barbershop one door down from our house. It's a father son place and they've been there for 30 years. Kris needed a haircut, and Max was starting be blinded by his bangs, so Saturday morning we thought we'd give the barber(s) a try. Max was done by the dad and Kris was done by the son. The dad is probably like 80 and the son is probably around 60.

They give old school barber type haircuts, obviously!!
It was fun, they were super nice and Max was SO good. They used the clippers on him, and the vacumn and he hardly even flinched. He got a tootsie pop afterwards too, which made everything worth it.

Actually, the haircuts look good when they're not combed in quite such an extreme way. If I could've gotten a picture today or yesterday of the two boys I would've. They both look cute.

Kris looks super cranky in the first picture because the brake sensor switch or something like that decided to wear out in our only car. Which means it wouldn't shift out of park. He ordered the new part on thursday night--overnight, but of course turns out it wasn't going to be delivered until monday (today). We wanted to go have fun on saturday, but were stuck home. No beach. Bummer.
But luckily we live within walking distance of lots of stuff. So we still had a fun day. We walked a whole bunch around our area and got some lunch and did a little grocery shopping at a local market (not really local to us, but local to the area).

We got the part for the car today and Kris fixed the problem in about 10 minutes. It was amazing. It's nice to have something small and fixable go wrong once in a while. Hopefully I don't speak too soon!

.::Visual Proof::.

I just think these are so cute that I can't resist posting them!

Here's the page where he wrote his name for the first time. You can see down at the bottom the one where I wrote the first line in black and he finished in blue. Above that is his second successful attempt. (yeah, I realize now it looks a little like he's writing MAT, but keep in mind his Xs are on a bit of an upwards curve....)

Here's another page we did right then. You can see all the different words we worked on. I had to remind him what a lot of the letters were shaped like, but I didn't help him any more than that. I especially love how the word fish looks, and the E with like 7 legs. My letters are at the top, all the rest are his.

And then here's a letter to Parker he wrote last week. I helped him spell and reminded him what letters looked like on a separate piece of paper. It's so cute!

Now that I have it scanned maybe I'll actually mail it one of these days. We'll see...
Here's a picture that went with the letter. This is the first thing I've ever seen him draw that wasn't just scribbles. I told him to draw a face and he just did. I couldn't believe it. There's a guy, a couple of hearts, a tree, grass and the sun in this picture.

I'm just thrilled to have a child that actually drew something!!! (as you can probably tell). Yay for Max!

::He can WRITE! Who knew??::

A little background here. Up until this point Max has hated to color, and didn't ever care to draw. I got all sorts of fun coloring books to try to tempt him and would always offer to draw with him, but no dice. He's been doing better with coloring at school lately (he was terrible when he first started), but it's still much more of a chore than a pleasure.
Alright, on to the news.
A couple of days ago Max decided he wanted to write his name on some paper. Which really meant he wanted ME to write his name. So I did. A couple of times. Then I asked him if he could do it. He said he couldn't, and that it was just too hard.
I made the first line for the M and then had to go and answer the phone or something. When I came back, he had written his whole name, starting off the line that I had made.
I was basically flabbergasted. He was so proud he looked like he could've floated away. Then he wrote his name again right away. Just as well. Then again.

He proceeded to write his name a zillion times, for about the next two hours. (and yes, his paper was upside down for this picture, because he was making Ws, otherwise known as upside-down Ms!)

I helped him write a few other words, you know, dad, mom, fish, mama, love. He did really well.
It was a little tough to get him to take a break for dinner.

I knew he could do it. Sometimes it's so funny that all it takes is finding out you can actually do something to do it! He's such a smart guy, he's reading a lot and has known his alphabet backwards and forwards for a couple of years. So I'm not surprised he can write like a champ--I'm just surprised at the suddenness of it. It's so funny.

He's very serious about it. Obviously. When I picked him up from school the next day his coloring page was covered with cute little MAXes. Oh yeah, and AXM and XAM. He's experimental.
We're proud of him and his adorable chubby little arms!

.::The Things Grandpas do for their Boys Pt 2::.

Wonderful Grandpas that love their little ones might play cars for hours. Whether they feel like it or not. They might also put up with being constantly bossed, and told that "cars don't talk". Funny since a few months ago they seemed to talk a lot.

Patience is important.

Max loved it.

A Grandpa also might lie down on the floor and let heavy heavy four year olds jump on them (it's called Hop on Pop. We used to get to do it when we were little. It was the best)
Then he might pretend to be a horse.


Or maybe more of a bucking bronco.


This one good way to get a workout. I don't think I'm going to try it anytime soon.

Does it looks like Max is having fun? I think SO!
Then that same Grandpa, since he is already on the floor, might just let his very heavy four year old grand boy fly like an airplane (this is also something we used to get to do when we were little. It was so fun.)

That one took a little while to figure out though.

I think the front flip exit was a little intimidating. That was all of the floor activities for the day.
Keep in mind, these Grandpa activities were besides making breakfast every morning, teaching Max (and his mom) how to make bread, helping clean up night time pukes, doing laundry, reading bed-time stories, baby sitting, going to the park for hours... I could go on and on. Max is lucky to have such a fabulous grandpa! Grandpa Guy, you can come back and visit anytime.

.::I did it MYSELF::.

You may recall that I posted a couple of times at the beginning of the year about trying to find things to occupy Max in order to keep him from getting bored, and as a result of being bored going crazy and being bad.
This is still often a problem, but we started with small tasks, and we've got some improvement.
He can now button his own pants (usually). He zips and buttons, and actually pulls his pants up which is a huge improvement--if you recall the whole reason why he had to have stitches in his chin is because he used to walk around the house with his pants around his ankles after using the facilities. I'm glad we seem to have moved past that.


Please excuse the nekkedness. It's just such a cute belly. He was very very proud of himself when he first figured it out. Snapping pants is really tougher than it looks, let me tell you. And there was only one pair of pants he could button for a long time, so he had to wear those pants every day for a while. Luckily we've moved past that. Now there are like 3 pair he can wear.
One of the other things we've been working on his having him put on his own seatbelt. Ok, I know that this is just exposing our slackerness--we probably should've had him doing this for like the last two years. I'm sure you all with multiple kids had your first strapping themselves in at 18 months. But Max is lucky enough right now to fill the roles of both oldest kid and the baby of the family, so he gets certain benefits I guess. (Not sure if they're really benefits, but whatever!) Mostly we're just always in a hurry when we go anywhere.
So now he's pretty darn good at strapping himself in! It's nice. Except we probably still strap him in more than we should--he's just so darn slow.
He's proud of this skill too and so are we.


Now just imagine his little voice saying, "I DID it!!"

His latest trick? He's figuring out how to zip up his own jacket. Now that's hard. He's only been able to it a couple of times, but he's still trying.

Kris and I just have to try to be more patient, and take the time to let him do these things himself. It's good for him to feel like he's capable, and has responsibilities of his own. We're proud of him. He sure is growing up.

And like I keep saying I do have more grandpa guy posts coming. I am just so behind on everything right now because of school. Only one more month!

::Sicky::

As you know, poor little Max has been sick for the last few days. He's started to feel better on saturday and sunday, but now seems to have had some sort of relapse. It's sad! He hasn't been this sick for a while.
I have mixed feelings about him being sick. Of course I don't want him to feel ill and terrible and to be hurt, but man when he's sick with a fever or something he is SO snuggly. I love that he just lets me hang onto him. It's pretty relaxing. Well, it would be if he wasn't so hot that he burned my lap after sitting on it for 10 minutes.
The first day he was sick, thursday, he was like that. Just really cuddly, tired and sweet. He even said he needed his bed in the afternoon and went straight to sleep when I put him in it.
You may remember this picture from a few days ago. I'm putting it back up here because I think it's so adorable.

Poor little cute snoozer. The best part about this picture is that you can't smell him. OK, that was probably too much information, but it's true, he was a little stinky.
Here he is thursday morning, resting in his chair.

Here he is taking a much protested "nap" on his bed.

yes, he's on his bed, AND in a tent. That's another story for another day.
Anyway, when we got sick when we were little my mom would often make "sick eggs" for us to eat. Ok, it sounds gross now that I'm writing the name down, but it's supposed to mean eggs for when you're sick, not gross eggs.
They consisted of a couple of warm hard boiled eggs sliced up with a little bit of butter and salt and pepper mixed in. To a sick little one it was like heaven.
So I made Max some sick eggs. He appreciated them quite a bit. He was an instant fan.

Have somebody you love make these for you the next time you're sick. I tell you, they're like magic.
So Friday morning we thought he was doing better, although he still wasn't 100% himself by any means.
Max was lying on the couch when Kris left for school. About two minutes after Kris walked out of the door he puked all over everything. Nice timing, huh?
So he earned himself a bath, which took care of the stinkiness I alluded to earlier.
After that he thought he was back to normal, but when I came into the room and found him lying on the floor on top of his sock monkey blanket I knew better.

Here he is trying to pretend he's not the palest thing that ever walked the face of the earth. He didn't fool me. Notice the towel on the couch, strategically placed to catch anything nasty. The couch cushions had to spend some time airing out...yick.

After the cute sweet snuggly sick stage comes the horrible cranky cranky whiny sick stage. This is where he thinks he's well enough to do stuff, but everything he does either hurts him or makes him mad and frustrated. This stage makes up for all the pleasantness in the first stage and is what keeps me from wishing he was sick more often!
Here are some examples of this from sunday:





See what I mean? It's no fun for anybody. This was even after he'd taken a nap.
Today we thought he was feeling better and so he went to school, but when I went to pick him up he was all warm and feverish and looking smushed. So he's doing a little bit more recuperation. Wish us luck getting him better. I know we can do it.
We'll have more happy photos to post here before you know it.

::Friends?::

In this picture they certainly look like friends, don't they?
In reality between boy and dog there's a pretty healthy case of what I like to call sibling rivalry.
Max will sometimes get upset if Sultan comes in his room when we're reading bedtime stories.
He's also had a really hard time forgetting the few times that Sultan has "borrowed" some of his food, like the last time he put his cheeseburger down. That hasn't gone over well.
Max likes to boss Sultan. In fact he loves to boss Sultan. He issues commands, sometimes in german or russian as well as english. But no matter the language it does no good. Sultan completely ignores him. Basically that's how Sultan deals with Max. The few times Max actually tries to play with Sultan he's ignored (probably because he "plays" by bopping Sultan with stuff, and annoying him as much as possible)
I did get Max to help me brush Sultan the other day, but it took some work to get him to be gentle. It's really funny. I don't know why they're that way with each other. I really expect them to like each other.
I'm thinking that when Max gets a little older their relationship will change. I guess we'll see.
It was funny last night, Sultan went on a ride in the car with us. When we got home instead of running up to the porch as he's been trained he took off down the street and Kris had to go get him. Max was very upset, and took a lot of relish in commanding Sultan to go into the basement for "time out." He told me later it was bad Sultan ran away because he could get lost. I'm just glad he remembers one thing I've told him.
He probably only remembers that because on Sunday after sacrament meeting and unbeknownst to me went up to the stand to do something mischievous. As a result of this I was running around the church for about 10 minutes trying to find him and of course ultimately ended up freaking out. I had all the ladies in the ward looking for him.
I was very glad to find him, but rather ANNOYED to have been put in that situation--and of course embarrassed that I had told everyone about it.
Oh well. So anyway, do you think that Max and Sultan will ever be friends?