Show me your TEETH!

Oh kids are really fun. The two pictures above are what you get when you ask Maddox to "Show us your teeth". Rather than pointing to them like every other body part, he just orients his mouth in such a way to enable you to see them. Much like a grizzly or a great white. It's startling just the same. And much like a grizzly or a great white, he's slowly moving up the food chain. Right now his meals typically consist of graham-crackers, ritz crackers, gold fish or kix cereal. But we are working on him. I think the scientific term for this is cracker-sweets-a-vore. If he would just dabble in the herbivore laire for even a day, it'd be perfect. But alas, such is life... nothing is ever truly perfect, is it?

Other than this bit of fun, dada's turning 32 today. Where did the time go? I've resigned myself to the fact that I will always be stupefied about how quickly time goes by. It's the one thing in life I will never understand. Well, one of the many really. Others would be: 1.) How can food taste so dang good going down one minute and so shockingly bad coming back up a few minutes later? 2.) If we are really supposed to have evolved from monkeys, why are they so hairy everywhere except their butts? Wouldn't this be the exact opposite of us? Not to completely scoreboard anybody here, but: Cody 1, Darwin 0. )

So Maddox has been great lately. He still much prefers his mother over me. I'm kind of on the same level as any other random stranger that looks fun and slightly familiar. But that's okay. I've got one thing going for me. Nobody, and I mean Nobody, can chase him like I can. I'll gladly claim that title. I know you are thinking it's on odd title to claim. And well, you may be right, but then again, it's my birthday today, and I'm taking it. Being chased is really his favorite thing in life right now. Being chased while outside? That's the icing on the cake man. Sometimes the best things in life are the simplest.

Max has also been quite the charmer lately. I know Nicole disagrees with me here, but sometimes when he "gets in trouble" it's really him just trying to entertain and interact with us. Before I go any further, I'll be the first to admit he does push the limits a lot. But sometimes he's just trying to joke around. He does throw his share of fits though. A weird analogy popped into my head the other day. Most of his early fits really happened when he was with Nicole or Nana and Papa. I've really not had a fit thrown on me. At least not until a few days ago. It was really a lot like fishing. Other people on our boat would catch a fish (aka a fit) from Maddox, all while I was within watching distance. Nicole was catching a lot. Nana and papa caught a few. For the longest, I'd see them reel little Maddox in with him flopping around and freaking out. I would wonder, when's my turn going come. I've been out here for awhile now. What's it going to feel like? How am I going to know if it is one and not him just playing around? What's it going to be like and better yet, how big is it going to be? Well, I caught one this week. It was kind of cool. I was thinking to myself, and I swear it was similar to the feeling you get when you feel your line first tug with a fish... "Oh, what's this? Oh. Do I have one?" Then, as Max goes straight leg and the screaming starts low and grows louder with a quickness, I realize that I actually do have one. It was great!! He totally arched his back and started kicking. Legs kicking, back arched, but head, neck and arms completely limp. I've seen bigger, but this one was mine and I ate it up. Thanks pork-chop.

Likes:

1. Being chased.
2. Mama.
3. Outside.
4. Walking in the street.
5. Pushing shopping carts.
6. Graham Crackers.
7. Cars, dumptrucks, diggers.
8. Talking jibberish.
9. Shrek.
10. Making the elephant noise.
11. Slides.

Dislikes:

1. Bed time.
2. Green vegetables not named Pea.
3. Hunger.
4. Face plants while running away from dada.
5. Seeing the back door, grasping at the door knob, yet not being able to get across his intention to go outside to his mom and dad.
6. Not getting comfortable enough to sleep at night.
7. Leg cramps/growing pains.
8. A&M's losing football season.
9. Beef.
10. Bath-tub removal.

A Grizzly Halloween

From Grizzly Halloween

Wow, what happened to October? Holy moly. It felt like I had been falling down on the job lately, but apparently that is an understatement. Sorry guys. I'll try and make it up with some pictures and videos like usual. It's my equivalent to flowers for the bad husband. If you are left thinking "But, he loves me" at the end of this, then mission accomplished.

On to pork chop... He is learning more tricks by the day. In the past week he's learned to moo like a cow, trumpet/squeal like an elephant and that the "Beep, beep" noise means he needs to take his dump truck backwards. And the latest spin on this is that now while walking, he will actually start to walk backwards when you make the noise, before slamming it into drive and speed walking till he falls down. All of these things, obviously, require Max to quote - "feel like it" before it gets done. Kids these days.

Halloween was a blast. We travelled to Keller to trick-or-treat with the cousins, Jack and Molly. Jack was Optimus Prime from the Transformers and Molly was Gabriella from High School Musical. Max went as a grizzly bear. It was a great time. Surprisingly, even though Max is only 15 months, he really caught on to the whole, "here's my bucket, give me candy" idea. So much so that towards the end, he didn't really even show his bucket to the people so much as just grab for their candy. For the last few houses, he even started taking off his costume. The paws and hat went overboard. He was really awesome. The people were so awe-inspired by his cuteness as a bear cub that when we shamefully apologized for his big paws grabbing more than one piece of candy, one lady said "Oh no, he can have as much as he wants!!" Then, when finished rummaging through their candy and dispensing of his fake feelings for them, he would hustle back to the wagon we pulled him in and he'd point to the next house for us to go. It was a great Halloween.

So, without further a-do... here's a quick list of likes and dis-likes followed by some pictures of Max at the State Fair of Texas (petting zoo), Halloween and him wearing his bear feet tonight.

Likes:

1. Bread. All kinds.
2. Nana and Papa, equally.
3. Momma.
4. Trucks and cars. All kinds.
5. Leaf blowers.
6. Making his feet dance.
7. Wearing bear feet in the days after Halloween.
8. M&M's (chocolate only).
9. Slides and trampolines, equally.
10. Falling asleep to his dada singing "My little buttercup" from the 3 Amigos.
11. Making tight turns while walking. (Both to the left and right.)
12. Fruit.
13. Sitting down on steps... after backing up to them.

Dis-Likes:

1. Never-ending presidential election coverage.
2. Sleeping, still his long time nemesis.
3. Chicken or any kind of protein.
4. Shots.
5. Not having his mom rock him to sleep.
6. Holding hands with parents while walking.
7. Not being allowed to walk off the curb and into the street.
8. Not being allowed to walk while holding a screw driver.
9. Diaper changes.
10. Vegetables.
11. Sitting in a shopping cart, rather than standing.
12. Unexpectedly hard falls.

Here's the slide show:

Max 100

Hey everybody! Well, it's been a little while between posts... and what do you know. MADDOX IS WALKING!!! WTF? I miss some posts because of work/life/whatever and in the mean time, my son finds it convenient to start walking. Him and I will need to discuss this once he can formulate words a little better. Our talks are currently a little one-sided. He doesn't speak much English and I don't speak much man-baby. We'll work it out though.

So, yes, he is walking. You have to coax him a little sometimes. Sure, you have to downright hold him above the ground enough so that he can't physically crawl, and has no choice but to walk, but he does do it. He also makes all the turns, and can even turn around and go in the complete opposite direction. A couple of observations from watching not only Max walk, but watching a lot of kids his age walk:

1. The walks are really much more of a march, with the way they stomp their feet.
2. All babies walk a little top heavy, and with the appearance of drunkeness.
3. Every baby is just as surprised they are walking as you are.

So other than walking, baby Maddox also suffered his first bloody nose 2 Sundays ago. He's got this hippo piano (don't we all) with ears that stick up on the back. He was standing, leaning over with his hands down on the ears... sure 'nough... the whole piano flipped over backwards and baby face planted onto the floor. And by face plant, I mean still on his feet with his face buried in the floor. He wasn't so much hurt as he was pissed! He was real mad! And, after some consoling, while pushing around another toy, we noticed some blood coming from his nose. Poor little tough guy. He took it like a champ though.

Something I've noticed in the blogs around the family is something called a bucket list, which is a list of things you want to accomplish in your life. I know Maddox would want to get involved, so here's some of his "Pre-Toddler" 100 things to do. We may not make it to 100, actually, I feel pretty confident we won't make it to 25, but here's a start.

0 - 10:

1. Keep choking hazards in mouth for longer periods of time.
2. Graham crackers and Vanilla wafers for lunch and dinner.
3. Keep convenience of diaper without losing play time to change said diaper.
4. Replace dada with another mama.
5. Be completely independent by this time next week.
6. Feel as good as when you wake up from a nap, without actually taking a nap.
7. Make snow angels in the ivy garden in our driveway.
8. Eat all dinners from "food" found on the floor.
9. Learn to communicate by just pointing.
10. Become pen-pals with either the Cookie Monster or Elmo.

That's all for now everybody. I'll try to get some video of Maddox's march. I also will try to capture a little something we call "The Billy Goat". I won't say anything other than that... just keep an eye out for it. Love you guys.

That's Max-tastic

Man it's been fun to be a dad lately. Max is really at a fun age. I know Nicole has been keeping you guys posted while I get slammed with work, but I'm back now, and I'm ready to set the record straight... just incase there were any lies out there.

First of all, Maddox can definitely walk upwards of 8 feet. It's not necessarily fundamentally sound, (given that he has a serious left foot-out-front-lean to him), but that's okay. It gets him there. Plus, in the event he always walks by putting his left foot out front, this can fall into the growing catagory of things that his future significant-other will find endearing. Others on the list are as follows:

• He still throws his food/drink to the floor when done, rather than putting it back on the table. And really, he does this with everything that he is "done" with. Red ball plus 5 seconds... floor. Blue car plus 5 seconds... floor. Dada's glasses plus 1 second... floor!
• He does still poop his pants, but most endearing is that when he does, he prefers it to stay in there rather than deal with the diaper change. Can't say I blame him though... it is kind of a drag.
• He's great at pointing out ne'er-d0-wells (i.e. the homeless). Especially on the subway, when they are in close proximity. So close you can smell them, some might say.

Max has also lately discovered how to shake his head no. It's really funny, although he doesn't quite understand it completely. He may shake his head no, when really he means, yes, I would like some milk. It's a bit confusing for us all, but he'll get it down soon. Maybe I'll get some video of this for you guys.

Other than these tid-bits, he's talking a lot and pointing a lot. Lately, this is my favorite thing he does. He's really good at spotting lights, trucks, cars, the aforementioned ne'er-do-well, ducks and dogs. If there happens to be a lot of lights, he's also been known to wave his pointer finger around to signify "look at all that". It's priceless. I really love that he's asking us what things are. While we were in NYC, and while Nicole was shopping, Maddox and I passed the time by him pushing his own stroller around the store, down all the isles. He'd stop occasionally to grab a low hanging price-tag or shirt sleeve, point at it, look at me, make a noise and move on. He really looked like he was shopping. We did this for hours and it was really fun. I've never had more fun shopping in my life. Maddox is my new shopping buddy.

Here's a revised list of Maddox's likes/dis-likes:

Likes:

1. Riding the subway in NYC with all the people close-by. It's better for him if they are within grabbing distance.
2. His new shoes... which he prefers to wear all the time now.
3. Reading books, preferably in somebody's lap.
4. Pointing at things and having mom and dad answer what it is.
5. Cars/trains of all kinds.
6. Construction equipment of all kinds.
7. He's in love with his momma lately.
8. Papa.
9. Stair climbing.
10. Grandpappy's cane.
11. Drake and Gordon (Aunt Jessi's dogs)

Dislikes:

1. Sleep, this will be number 1 for awhile, if not forever.
2. Diaper changes.
3. Hunger.
4. Falls resulting in head trama.
5. Working as hard as possible to find a choking hazard, only to have it taken away before he really knew what it was all about.
6. Not enough time in the bath-tub.
7. Waking up alone at night.
8. Having someone other than Papa (my dad), momma, or Miss Jackie (his daycare worker) hold him.
9. Mom and dad trying to make him walk when he'd really rather crawl, if that's okay with everyone.
10. Over-cooked pasta in his mouth.

Hope everybody is doing well. Here's an updated slideshow for those interested:

Frosted

Back-to-back videos? Somebody is trying to win back your love. (wink - sup Mrs. B).

Really, I've just rediscovered one of life's greatest lessons... it is, what it feels like it is. It goes like this, for those interested. If it feels like you are always getting the short end of the stick, it's because you are always getting the short end of the stick. If it feels like you are an idiot, its probably because you are an idiot. And in my case, it felt like posting videos to the internets was the equivalent to receiving a kung-fu kick to my doo-dads... because it was a kung-fu kick to my doo-dads. I was making it way harder than it should have been. Man, I really feel like an idiot. Life is too simple sometimes. As it turns out, all video doesn't necessarily have to be 300MB. (Insert geek laughter here). So I sacrificed some video quality for smaller file size and easier upload time. Yeah for me, bad for you (kind of).

So to celebrate my rediscovery, here's another video for everybody. This is Max's first chocolate Frosty experience. Nicole and I still laugh pretty hard at it. Enjoy.

Nicole-A-Pillar

Here's the aforementioned "Nicole-A-Pillar" video. Here's the low down: We bought a tunnel for Max to crawl through for his first birthday, because, well, it's a freaking TUNNEL. How cool is that, right? Well, we found out exactly how cool it is once we got home and started playing with it. We knew Max would love it because he loved it at Ikea. We; however, didn't lower ourselves enough to try it out at Ikea, so when it came home, mayhem insued. Please keep in mind, that while the video is funny, it appears that Max obviously wants to crawl through the tunnel, only the problem is that it's all clogged up with a momma. Max, this is your mother. She means well. She loves you a lot.

A Max Video

No explaination for the lapse in time between posts other than life can really be busy sometimes. As a simple man that enjoys just sitting somewhere and just "being", I generally take issue with busy-ness. Oh well... after washing the smell of work off me, I realized it's been a while since I posted any videos. Below is a video I uploaded last night. It's a video of Max talking while eating a little and discovering some corn kernels in his bib. Also, I think if you watch the video, you will also understand why I think Max is about to choke everytime he eats. Just an FYI... this video took somewhere in excess of 4 hours to upload. I started uploading it, then just went to bed. And it's only about 2 minutes long. If you say that maybe I should have done a little more research before buying our video camera, you'd probably be right, but you'd probably also be a "know-it-all", and we don't really like those people. K? Hope you enjoy the video. Also, stay tuned as I try to upload another video titled "Nicole-A-Piller". It promises to entertain.