Names, Horses and Trucks

We have been so busy lately trying to get everything ready for Baby #2 (and right now, this is his name as we cannot settle on any one particular title to call him). Things are so different than the first time around when we were ready for Max's arrival months ahead of his delivery date--everything was ready, organized and awaiting his eventual (and late) appearance into our lives. In fact, Paul had his name picked out before he was even a glimmer in our eyes (lucky for him I liked it). But for some reason we are really having a hard time naming this new little kiddo. It's so funny how names really identify someone. I can't even imagine this cute little face belonging to someone called anything other than Max...

It is the perfect name for him--it just fits him so well. He is definitely a Max. How are we ever going to find something so perfect to individualize Baby #2?

Well, as we've been scrambling around to get everything ready, Max has been such a good boy. He's starting to play a lot more independently and really entertain himself. One of his favorite things to do is look at pictures on the computer. He loves to look at the photos from his Utah trip and all the ones from Koa's visits. It amazes me how he remembers everyone's name. We haven't seen the UT folks for well over a month but he recognizes everyone, points to them, and says their name (now you all need to come and visit so he definitely won't forget you). And of course he remembers Koa, Joey and Mimi--he still asks for Koa practically every day when he wakes up from his nap.

Despite the fact that mommy and daddy are always wearing them, Max has hated hats ever since he got big enough to rip them off of his own head. Lately, however, he has started to become a little more into them. My gardening hat, for instance, found a restful spot upon his head a few days ago. He was nonchalantly wearing it around the house until Paul noticed how funny it was and grabbed the camera. We tried to shoot some candid photos, but as soon as Max saw the camera we were good for one pose before the hat came off and the camera became his new focal point.

Max has had a fondness for tractors for quite some time now--I'm sure it has everything to do with Papa since whenever we see or talk about one Papa's name comes up. He can't quite say "tractor" yet--it sounds more like "truck", but we know what he definitely means. He has been sleeping with random things lately, sometimes he'll want a "choo-choo", sometimes a motorcycle (a "meem, meem"), and sometimes a horse ("hsee-seeh")--sometimes all three. But the other day he really wanted a "truck". I searched all over for the one little tractor that he has and when I presented it to him his frustration led me to quickly discover that this is not what he meant. I then brought him downstairs and we looked at all of his actual trucks and none of them were what he wanted either, but he kept telling me, "Mama, awahn truckkk!" I then remembered that I had bought him a yellow loader-tractor to award him at some point after the baby's arrival. I was desperate to get him to sleep at this point so I decided that now is as good a time as ever to give him this surprise. It worked like magic. He LOVES the thing. I was able to capture pictures of him from two different naps with his little hand around his new "truck". Not really the softest and most snuggly thing to cuddle, but whatever works...

It has been a rainy, rainy summer here in Pennsylvania. Everyone says that the amount of moisture we have gotten this year is very uncharacteristic. In fact, our neighbor told us that by this time of year the grass is usually quite brown and crispy, not even needing to be mowed until sometime in October. What we have witnessed since moving here has been quite the contrary. It rains like CRAZY! Every week there has been at least two days where it was so unbelievably soggy outside. Our grass isn't only green and lush (with no sprinklers ever having tossed a droplet of water onto it), but there are still tiny, wild strawberries growing within the blades. Uncle John spotted these when he was here in May--hard to believe that in August they are still present. On the downside, all of this rain has wreaked havoc on our poor garden. I was thinking of posting some pictures of how sad it looks, but the weeds are enormous (they like the rain) and the plants are too depressing--not something I want to remember. Apparently, every single tomato plant in our garden--all 28 of them--has a terminal disease: Late Blight. Uncle John (the best, most amazing gardener I know) sent me an article from the NY Times about the hardships that gardeners in the Northeast are experiencing with tomatoes and the characteristics of the culprit--Late Blight--describe my poor tomato plants to a tee. So, all of my beloved fruit is dying from a fungal infestation thanks to all of this rain, heat and humidity. It is depressing me beyond belief...(thankfully I hadn't planned on doing any bottling this year).

Anyway, with all of the rain we've been getting, I have had to get quite creative with finding outings for Max. He goes stir crazy (and then so do I) if we have to stay inside all day, but I am much to pregnant to chase him around the indoor-type playgrounds and bouncy-type places that they have around here. The solution: we head to a store and I let him run around. We went to the mall in Delaware the other day and he was being so good I decided to take him to the toy store. He instantly spotted this stick horse and decided that this is what he wanted to have so I bought it for him. He rode it all through the mall--it was the cutest scene. Everyone we passed was commenting on how adorable he was on his little horse.

The picture below is of Max and his two friends from our playgroup--they are right around his age. I don't think they really enjoy each others company as much as we moms like to visit with each other, but they get to interact and practice sharing nonetheless. It seems like we moms spend a majority of the playdate refereeing them as they try to rip toys out of each other's hands. However, Max did protest when it was time to leave, so he must have had some fun.

Max was invited to another birthday party this weekend. This little motorcycle is just one of probably 20 ride-on toys that his little friend has--going to his house is better than going to a toy store. This motorcycle caught Max's eye right away, but there were a lot of big kids at the party who were monopolizing it. Max would wait and wait, watching for one of the big boys to get off, then he would run for it but was never fast enough. Someone would always beat him onto the seat. Finally, he got his turn, and of course made his loud "MEEEM, MEEEM" noises while riding it.

The one, the only, lovable, furry red monster from Sesame Street made an appearance at this birthday party. Paul and I were prepared for Max to run frightened into our arms again like he did during his last encounter with a life-sized Elmo when he was only around 15 months old. We were pleasantly surprised when he seemed more than delighted to see this personified character, he even ran up to him shouting, "Elmo, Elmo!"

When Elmo picked him up, however, it was a different story--it pretty much freaked him out. He recovered quickly, though, and joined the other kids in dancing with Elmo and later playing tag with him. It was a lot of fun.

Paul and I finally got one room in our house painted and decorated to the point of being very happy with it altogether--Max's room...

It looks so good. We got a new bedroom set for Max (that poor Paul had to assemble) so that we could use his old stuff for the baby's room since it all matches the crib. We are NOT buying another crib, so Max is going to graduate into his big-boy bed right around his 2nd birthday.

Imagine it without the rocking chair and crib--which will soon go away. We are very pleased with the outcome. Now, if only we could get the rest of the rooms in the house painted and looking fab...

Moving clear across the country has been so frustrating in so many ways. One way in particular is that most of the furniture we brought with us just doesn't fit in this house the way it did in Farmington. We have moved things around from room to room, upstairs and down, and rearranged so many times, we can barely remember what we have and haven't tried. In hindsight, we should have unloaded everything in UT and not even bothered moving any of it. Everything just happened so fast. Maybe if our house took 6 months to sell like I was hoping instead of 3 weeks then I could have thought about selling some of the furniture...

Instead, we are slowly moving everything into the basement and getting new stuff (as if we weren't already hemorrhaging $$$ with this move). We now have an official "couch room" in our unfinished basement, complete with wall-to-wall sofas and loveseats. We did find this gorgeous red sectional to replace the perfectly fine, nearly new couches that we moved with us all the way across the country. On the positive side, it is VERY comfortable, and works great in our odd-shaped family room. Now we just need to paint the walls, get rid of the ugly brass fireplace, make curtains, and put some pictures up and we just might have another fabulous room.

And finally, the ever-growing baby bump (which really isn't a bump anymore, it's actually more like an enormous beachball)...

This is 38 weeks pregnant, and feeling every single day of it. I am so ready to not be pregnant anymore. I know so many lucky moms who had their babies at 38 weeks, and with this comes the knowledge that I am destined to be pregnant forever--just like with Max. I just know that I will go over my due date again. Talk about frustrating. But, I guess that it is better than going into labor before Maggie gets here to look after Max so we don't have to drag him to the hospital with us. This is one of the worst things about moving so far from family--we really have no support network to lean on. We have made some friends and we have neighbors who have given us their numbers and offered to help out, but I have such a hard time inconveniencing people I barely know. At least Maggie is fairly close; it takes her a little over 6 hours to get here and she has informed us that her bags are packed and she is ready for a phone call in the wee hours of the morning if I happen to go into labor before she arrives this Saturday. (Joey jokes that she even sleeps with her running shoes on, just in case).

I don't know how my blog entries always end up so long, but I thought I would end this one with a video of my cute little dancing machine. Max is really into dancing lately. He will say, "Mama, Daddy....danh!" and move his arms around to better articulate his desire. It is so cute to watch him "move it and shake it", but of course when we try to get it on camera it's never quite the same. This video is a little shaky because Paul was dancing around with the camera in his hand to try and get Max to show off his moves.