Max's 1 year photos...only a little late!

We were so crazy at the holidays we just didn't get pics taken of Max at his first birthday. We had an appointment, then everyone got sick, we cancelled, and kept putting it off... When we finally rescheduled, the photographer told us they've had folks come in for "1 year" pics...at 18 months+! so I guess we aren't that late, lol.

We got a couple of family pics, plus a bunch of Max by himself. the boys were so giggly and funny. We bribed them to sit still with lots of M&Ms, and they got to play legos in the lobby, so it was a pretty fun morning for them. Max may be the most photogenic one - he was often the only one of the three looking directly at the camera for group shots. Here's a few of our favorites from the session:

That's our family!

Gabe

Boys

Max

Ben Eating M&Ms

M's are yummy!

Gabe

Ben

Max

Best Buddies

Thumbs up for age 1!

 

We are Queens!

Today we made paper crowns, at the behest of Take Five Highlights magazine (Thanks, Grandma Debby!). Gabe really wanted to make the chocolate ice cream project, but as we didn't have any chocolate milk...or chocolate in general..or ice, I deferred that activity to another day. I do believe Gae will hold me to that...

I gave up a couple sheets of my Zippidee scrapbooking paper for the cause, which made Gabe's day. He does like a nice, fine quality paper! They decorated the crowns with leftover free stickers and helped me cut the fringe in the top, which explains why Gabe's crown is nicely curled and Ben's is, well, kind of chewed up. Once the crowns were completed Gabe proclaimed,"I am never taking this hat off. We are Queens!"

A conversation ensued about how Boys are generally referred to as Kings, while Girls are Queens. Gabe wasn't buying it, however, and Ben almost always sides with Gabe. So all morning shouts of "We are Queens!" could be heard emanating from our home.

Unfortunately, Gabe was dethroned and de-crowned when it was time to go to school. Ben had broken his crown much earlier, trying to put a fireman's hat on top - I almost think he forgot he was wearing the crown. It's got alot of lovely decorate scotch tape on it now. Gabe's crown is safely stowed up high, "So Max can't eat it while I'm at school". So I'm sure the queens will reign supreme again this afternoon. Long live the Queens!

Max's Scrunchie Face

 For about a week now Max has been making the elusive schrunchie face. It cracks up both of his brothers and his mommy, but it comes and goes so fast I've been struggling to get a picture of it. It's sort of mischevious, with his little nose all scrunched up combined with a big toothy grin.

He does it whenever he thinks he's done or seen something funny, like making the spider motions for Itsy Bitsy Spider, or Gabe falling down and screaming "Oooof!" for Max's benefit. It's always a quick, fleeting expression, but now when he's doing it Gabe starts exclaiming, "He's making the face again! There's that scrunchie face we love!" It's a real crowd pleaser around here!

Tossed in a bonus pic of Gabe and Ben being nice to each other - so long as we're looking at hard to take pics!

Our Ben, brave and bold!

Ben is such a funny guy. We've been having a hard time lately with his tendency to run head first into everything. While an occasionally frustrating trait in a 2 year old, someday I know we'll enjoy the fact that Ben jumps into everything head first, brave and bold. Right now, we sometimes wish for a permanently attached helmet to protect his poor little skull.

Lately it's the kitchen counter he's bonking his head on repeatedly. It's at just the right height that when he's running headlong through the kitchen area he can't quite see that it's coming. So he runs square into the counter with his forehead all the time. John joked that Ben must have a steel plate in his head and the counter is secretly a magnet. He just can't seem to run past the counter without bonking his head.

Of course, the counter is the tip of the iceberg. He climbed out of the van a couple days ago and ran headfirst into the (closed) garage door. He ran away out into the parking lot at Gabe's school, following lord knows who outside to play. It's mostly a matter of Ben never stopping to look before he leaps. He takes that carefree attitude into everything he does. Every new child he encounters is his new best buddy. He never met a surface that he didn't want to climb. He can do anything and seems scared of nothing...except for dogs, of course. Dogs of all sizes terrify him to tears - we aren't sure why. New foods are always his new favorite thing to eat.

I can't help but admire his attitude and ability to approach everyone and everything with such an open and friendly nature. That's our Ben...and we wouldn't change him. Attach him to us with the puppy pack to prevent him going home with a new family, but we wouldn't change a thing!

Max's 1 Year Checkup Drama

So I'm trying really hard to take a photo every day this year - not a gob, just one, even on my cell for this Project 365 album I want to make. Tuesday was Max's one year checkup - no thanks to his slacker mom who forget to make an appointment. The office called to gently remind us that we needed to bring him in at the first available appointment, so the next morning we were off to the doctor's office!

Nothing went as planned that day. John met us there so he could take Gabe and Ben to play while Max got his doctorin' done...Ben fell asleep on the way to the office (a 15 minute ride) and Gabe fell asleep shortly thereafter, so John spent 2 HOURS sitting in the car with them.

That's right-  Max's appointment took 2 hours. He was such a peach - so patient with all the waiting around and not touching anything. The pic I snapped is of him using the doctor's stool as a walker - he did dozens of laps of the room. I think he was just happy to be running around (mostly) naked!

The problem was that Max has apparently not grown a smidge since his 9 month appointment. Now...when we went to his 9 mo appointment, Max has just barely started wearing his 9 month clothes...and now he's well into 12 months and starting to wear a few 18 month shirts. So I find this statistic very hard to believe...maybe the not gaining weight, because he started crawling and he's a lot more active now, but no height growth at all? Really?

I totally think that maybe they just measured wrong at his nine month, but in any case he's dropped to the 10th percentile for height and 25th for weight. Combined with his penchant for sleeping an average of 10 to 11 hours a day, the doctor wanted a blood test for his thyroid activity. Super!

We trot down to the lab...and wait...and wait...and wait. Turns out there's only one room in the lab set up for babies, and someone passed out in it right before we got there...and there was a big bloody mess, so the room was unavailable...for 30 minutes! Finally they sent someone down to peds to set up a blood draw for Max there. While I didn't mind waiting, it's a long time for a little guy, and he was just about done with that waiting room. If only he knew what was coming....

We go back to peds and they draw his blood (insert blood curdling screams and crying here). Then he gets not one but three shots in his legs to complete his fabulous doctor's visit. I swear he was giving me the evil eye - how could you, Mom? We nursed, calmed down, and jette3d back out to let Daddy head back to work and drop Gabe off at school after spending the entire morning sitting in the car. Awesome!

Turns out Max's thyroid is fine - but he's super anemic. So now we've got vitamin drops with iron and yummy metallic orange iron drops to take each day. You might remember that Ben had an anemia scare as well - this time with our new doctor the anemia was handled as an important condition to correct but not a full blown panic attack complete with accusations of brain damage. What a difference a change in doctors can make! Chicken is going to be Max's new food of choice.

Max actually doesn't seem to mind the drops at all. I think they taste a bit like Flintstones vitamins, if you were licking them off a rusty old pole. John gagged big time when he tasted them. Max just drinks them up no problem, so I assume he'll be back to full pink soon! And though he may be a bit anemic, he's otherwise perfectly healthy and determined to walk any day now...we'll try to grab a video for y'all!