Max Isaac L's online diary (January 1997-)

What's new with me?! (9/14/00)

• Max's knock-knock joke: "Knock Knock. Who's there? Scoopy. Scoopy who? Scoopy Do." (Like the cartoon dog.)
• Max told me that the time is "6-7-0". I expressed disbelief, so he said, "Look at the clock!"
• I gave Max a bat cookie for Halloween. After taking a bite, he said, "Oh no, I'm eating a mammal!" (Max is a vegetarian and I eat meat, but no mammals).
• Max told me that one of his classmates is allergic to peanuts. Then, he told me, "I have an allergy problem. Bird is to feather as raccoon is to...". Me: "I think that's `analogy' problem, not `an alergy' problem."
• Max, opening a Chanukah present: "Oh! It's Pocochontos!" (Where the "ch" is pronounced like the "ch" in "Bach".
• Lisa put some Menthyl cream on her chest to help with congestion. She walked past Max, who turned to me and said, "May I have a tic tac?"
• Max's drawing and writing skills are improving. He drew a picture of Piglet screaming (because he's a very nervous animal). He then told me he drew the "uvula small because Piglet is so small."
• I was driving with Max and Molly in the back seat. Molly started to whine and Max sang to her sweetly to calm her down: "Little Molly, please don't cry. Please don't cry. Please don't cry. When you cry it hurts my ears. Hurts my ears. Hurts my ears." Later, he explained that it was to the tune of the sad song from Mulan.
• We were driving on a snow-covered road and Max said, "Molly thinks you are playing with her." We eventually figured out that every time I hit a bumpy patch, Max noticed that Molly hummed (to make vibratto).
• "Was that a goodbye kiss?" Max: "No, it was a good time kiss."
• Me: "How about I work on the computer for ten more minutes, and then we can play kickball?" Max: "Daddy, that's brilliant! Only make the ten minutes very very quick."
• Max spelled "peacock" "PKOKE". I asked him why he put on the silent "e" and he said, "Because P said its name." I guess the rule he learned in school was that silent e is used when one of the letters says its name (like "robe" where "o" sounds like "oh"). How logical!
• Max, reading a sign: "Yalmuka." Lisa: "No, Max, it says YMCA."
• We live near Basking Ridge, NJ and Max keeps thinking it's "Baskin Robins".
• Max was explaining his idea of vacation in which no one had to do any chores at all. Lisa said, "What about food preparation?" Max: " The only food preparation allowed is dessert."
• Max was being babysat by an attractive young woman named Renata at a party. When my dad asked him a question, he answered, "Boppy, I can't talk to you right now, Renata needs something from the bar."
• Lisa asked Max about the pizza he bought for lunch at school. He said it was "tasty and tantalizing".
• Molly: "teega awwa" (Please turn on the computer so my toy Tigger can play the Elmo program).
• Molly: "may-no hup" (Can I have my cup back so I can put some tomato in it?)
• Molly: "feek teek doll doll" (I'm feeding by doll a fish stick.)

What's new with me?! (5/29/99)

• Max's baby sister was born. An assistant came to the waiting room to tell Max and his grandparents that everything went well. Max announced: "I just love happy endings."
• Lisa: "Max, who are you going to be in the Hanukah play?" Max: "Max." Lisa: "And the other children?" Max: "The audience."
• Max got locked in the car with the engine running. We called AAA, and they sent a police officer and a locksmith. Later, when I told Max that the door was unlocked by the locksmith, he said, ``It's called an `unlocksmith'.''
• When Max was asked why he couldn't move a house, ``It's enormous. It's almost bigger than Mommy's uterus. I'm just kidding.''
• Max wanted to help one the nurses taking care of Lisa when she was on bedrest. Max: "I know a lot about being a doctor. Can I be your assistant?"
• Max looks at a picture of a very pregnant lady: ``Is it April for her?'' (Molly was due in April.)
• Lisa, after an ultrasound to check on Molly's growth: ``Max, the baby is almost two pounds.'' Max: ``Wow, that's bery, bery big!''
• To his grandma, who forgot a thing or two while helping Max get ready for school: ``You're the forgetful queen!''
• I was pretending to be Max's teacher: ``Max, what did you bring to share with the class today?'' Max: ``No, it's May-eks.'' (his teacher has a Chicago accent, and he corrected me for failing to emulate it).
• Me: ``Why did the chicken cross the road?'' Max: ``Because she wanted to get to her chicks.''
• Max: "I'm going to drive my doll crazy?" Me: "Why?" Max: "Because dolls can't drive."
• Max in the hospital elevator, after a large man just got off: "That man has a big belly, but it's not a uterus." The medical residents on the elevator with us totally lost it.
• Max, complementing his pregnant teacher: "Julie, your uterus is getting much bigger."
• Max, to Lisa: "Mommy, how come Julie's not on bedrest?"
• Max, to Lisa, concerning his time in utero: "When you ate food I didn't like, did I eat it, too?"
• Max: "Everyone in my school calls me `Max (lastname)." Me: "What do you want them to call you?" Max: "Max Isaac (lastname)". Max, speaking for his toy Heimleich: "Everyone in `A Bug's Life' calls me Heimlick." Me: "What do you want them to call you?: Max: "Heimlish." (This is the pronunciation he learned from his German-speaking Nanny.)
• Max, to me on a trip, over the phone: "Tomorrow, is the phone going to be you?" Later: "I want to come in the phone with you."

What's new with me?! (8/21/99)

• Max: "You have a big belly. (sung) I made it out of clay. And when it's dry and ready, I'll put it on. Oh belly, belly, belly, I made it out of clay..."
• Max rarely wanders off, but he did it at a hotel in Orlando and walked from our room to the hotel restaurant. I caught up with him and told him that it's dangerous to wander off. He looked very hurt and said, "It's my day off!"
• Max: ``A car? I thought `Toyota' was an alien toy.''
• Max: "We have the same shirt." Grandpa David: "Who are you talking to?" Max: "I'm talking to my reflection."
• teacher: "Why won't you play in the water with the other kids?" Max: "I'm afraid I might get wet."
• Me: "This month you'll turn five. That's so old!" Max: "I'll have wrinkles."
• Lisa: "Max, we have no milk for your cereal.": Max: "Make some!"
• Max singing to Molly to soothe her: "Sing of happy not sad. Sing of milk from a bottle, or breast."
• Lisa, wondering whether Max is having a happy childhood: "Are you happy most days, sad most days, or "eh"?" Max: "Most of the days I'm happy. A little of the days I'm sad. And tomorrow I'm going to be "eh"."
• Daddy: "kangaroo is to pouch as person is to what?" Max: "Uterus." (I was expecting "pocket" or "arms".)
• Max, describing a stuffed animal with pursed lips and a smile: "He's happy-surprised, surprised-happy, surprisingly happy."
• Me, looking at a picture in "Outback Steakhouse": "Max, look how strong the kangaroo's arms are!" Max: "Where?" Me: "Right here," pointing. Max: "Oh, you mean the forelegs."
• Me: "What's the opposite of forelegs." Max: "Fivelegs."

What's new with me?! (11/25/98)

• We took Max to the urologist. Doctor: ``Hi Max, I'm Dr. Rowland.'' Max: ``Dr. Rowland, are you going to talk to me about my body? ''
• Max spontaneously gave a cheer: ``Give me an `o'! Give me another `o'! Give me an `e'! Give me a `b'! Give me a `5'! Give me a `4'! Give me a `7'! What's that spell? `Family'!''
• Adult: ``Where did you come from? Your Daddy?'' Max: ``He built me out of vitamins and protein.''
• Lisa's getting ready to cook Max some dinner: ``Let me find a recipe I like.'' Max: ``I like the recipe ice cream and chocolate chip cookies. What recipe do you like?''
• Sadly: ``I'm trying to sound like Chewbacka the Wookiee, but I can't.''
• Max: ``I want a c-k-m-i-x. That spells peanut butter and jelly sandwich.''
• We always have trouble getting Max to wear a warm-weather clothes. One morning we asked what he wanted to wear. Max: ``I will wear my shorts, and if it gets too cold, I will put on my costume.'' (Background: We had just bought him a very cozy fleece Simba the lion outfit for Halloween.)
• One night I was trying to judge whether he was awake enough for a quick bath before bed. Me: ``How tired are you?''. Max: ``I am one tired.''
• We were taking Max to the Smithsonian and he told people: ``I'm going to Washington, NBC.''
• Max to the owner of a house he was visiting: ``You should move to a new house. One without dogs.''
• Max to a woman stranger who was talking to him and overstaying her welcome: ``Run along. Run along.''
• Max: ``When I grow up will I have a low voice?''. Me: ``Yes.'' Max, whining: ``I don't want a low voice! I want a voice like I have now.''
• Ma to Lisa: ``Where's Matt?'' Lisa: ``Matt who?''. Max: ``Matt my baby.'' (Background: We're expecting in April and Max wanted to name the baby ``The Other Max''. Failing that, he has unilaterally decided on ``Matt'', probably because it sounds like Max.)
• We were out to dinner at a fancy restaurant in Disney World. The highly professional waiter asked if we had any question, that we should be sure to ask. Max chimes in: ``I have a question.'' Server: ``Yes?'' Max: ``How do snakes grow?'' Server, thinking about it: ``I don't know, how?.'' Max: ``They peel their skin off.''
• Max's Grandma is discussing what will happen when the new baby is born (``safta'' is Hebrew for ``grandmother''): ``I will be a safta again...'' Max, pointing to Lisa's belly: ``...when it hatches.''
• Max the songwriter: ``If you're happy and you know it, say `pregnant'.''

What's new with me?! (9/98)

• Max, in another attempt to delay bedtime: "I want to play all night. I just want to play for a little hour."
• Max and I were pretending to be falcons and we had some fruit we were going to snack on. Max asked: "Can I have some strawbirdies?" The night before, we were pretending to be Timon and Simbda from the Lion King and I had asked for "strawbuggies".
• Max doesn't like it when I sleep without a shirt on, so when I wake up in the morning, he pesters me to go and put it on. Recently, he came up with a creative way of asking me. He told me to wrap a blanket around myself so I would be a caterpillar in a cocoon. Then, he told me to become a butterfly, fly out of bed, and get my shirt on.
• When I was away on a recent conference trip, Max was missing me and we had our first real serious phone conversation (he doesn't usually talk to people on the phone). After a while, he said, "Daddy? Are you in the phone?"
• On vacation, we were trying to teach Max how to say "Mother" and "Father" in several languages. He knows the German names and recently learned the Hebrew names. I told him Spanish. Then, I asked Lisa if we knew it in any other languages. Max suggested "Wu". I was shocked. Wu, sometimes called Shanghaiese, came up over breakfast that day in a conversation among the adults. Max didn't look like he was paying attention to the conversation at all, but I guess he was!
• This morning, Max told me that the Little Mermaid doesn't really need legs. She could walk on her tail if she wanted to. An example of this, he explained, is the pink fish in ``The Cat in the Hat''. Too bad mermaids don't read Seuss!
• Max: ``Oh, it's Daddy's birthday party! I'm so essited!''
• Another bedtime staller. Me: "Max it's time for bed." Max: "No! It's not nighttime. It's dusk."
• Max's name for the Round Table of Camelot: "The Knight Table".
• This isn't particularly funny, but I think it's neat. Max's nanny plays a game with him now where she asks him how to say particular German words in Hebrew. Not that any of us can tell if he's right!
• Max: "And its name is certainly "Bladebeak"!"
• Max's Grandmother: "And we got married 35 years ago." Max: "Was it sadly temporary?"
• Max recently decided to name his stuffed elephant "Uterus". Only the child of a obstetrician!
• Adult: "Is that toy from Hercules?" Max: "No, but close. Anastasia".
• Us: "Do you want a brother or a sister?". Max: "I need both."

Sunday, September 27th, 1998

Wednesday, August 26th, 1998

Max does better at school when I don't drop him off. Then, by the time I get home, he's usually too tired to give me a report. The other adults say he's doing well, though. He's singing lots of kid songs with Hebrew words, which is interesting.

Monday, August 17th, 1998

Today, I have that ``back to school'' feeling in the pit of my stomach. This is because it's actually Max's first day of (pre) school. I dropped him off at 8am and I was a bit of a wreck. He got comfortable very quickly, so I think it'll be ok. Outside the school building, the administration had set up a little table with juice and bagels for the parents to console themselves. Cute!

Here's a picture of Max and Molly, his good friend from Rhode Island, posing at a mall in Delaware (July 31st). One of my favorite things from back then was carrying Max and Molly (or Max and Jonah or Molly and Jonah), one in each arm.

What's new with me?! (6/15/98)

• Max: "Have you ever seen an elephant with one leg?" Me: "No, how do they walk?" Max: "They don't. They hop."
• Expressing his reluctance to get dressed in the morning: "I want to wear my pajamas for ever!"
• "I didn't want to go in. I wasn't sure about it." (I don't remember the context anymore.)
• "Storks bring babies... and pickles."
• Me: "Max would you like a banana?" Max: "No thank you, but thanks for offering."
• Max wakes me up in the morning: "I'm hungry. I want to eat something. I want... pudding."
• Max to a job candidate we were having dinner with: "Uh, John? Do pteranodon's have teeth?" John: "Yes, I believe they do." Max: "No, they don't, they have jaws."
• Max upon sitting down to dinner: "Pasta wheels! I love them. I thought I'd never see them again."
• Max notices a set of toy dinosaurs mingling with a bunch of historically inaccurate cave people: "Are they palentoligists?"
• Max's idea of dinner conversation: "So, Mommy, how was your day at the hos-pit-al?"
• Max notices a young couple at a restaurant: "Look, there is a mommy and a daddy sitting there all alone. They don't have any kids with them."
• After going to see Iolanthe (Gilbert and Sullivan light opera), Max was listening to the orchestra music and recognizes the theme: "Hey, that's the fairy music!"
• "I hope (wish) Mr. Ice Cream Cone is (were) here. This is Ms. Ice Cream Cone." (I don't remember the context.)
• Me: "What flavor is it?" Max: "It's chocolate---it rhymes with Chuck E. Cheese." Me: "No. it doesn't." Max: "It's simlar."
• Max, trying to convince us not to feed him anything other than fruit: "Protein is not a very nice word to say. Protein makes me sick."
• This is an odd one. He heard the real version of a song that was spoofed by Alan Sherman. He recognized the tune. Me: "Where have you heard that?" Max: "Yale." (The spoofed version goes "When I was a lad, I went to Yale...")
• To my sister about her boyfriend: "Tom loves you." Also, when she put on bib pants: "You look so cute, like my friend Nina."
• To Lisa: "If you don't get me my snake right away, you're fired."
• We told him it was time to go to dinner and we are having Chinese good: "Are we going to a buffet?"
• When asked what he wants to be when he grows up: "Paleontologist at Little Gym." I think this is because I talk about working at school and that's the old school he's been to.
• Asking to see a video: "If we watch Bambi, I'll be so delighted."
• I told him it was bath time and that he could watch a video afterwards. His response: "I don't like this deal." He tried to make a new deal: "Put the television in the bathroom." We eventually compromised and he listed to a cassette tape while bathing.
• Max: "This is dragon scat. Scat means poop." Me: "Are you sure? Where did you hear that?" Max: "The producer of Magic School Bus, In The City." So I set up the video real fast to check. He was right, I was wrong.

What's new with me?! (2/4/98)

• I brought Max to my undergraduate class one day. His response, on looking out and seeing all the students: "They are so big..." (In his experience, "students" are older kids, not grown-up looking college students).
• Max was asked to name the color of an object by a patronizing woman in a store. His response: "Blue. In German it's blau."
• Out of the blue: "Piglet is insane."
• Upon recognizing some background music playing: "Hey, that's Peter's melody!" (Peter and the Wolf)
• To a nice woman who wished him a merry Christmas: "We don't celebrate Christmas, we celebrate Hanukah."
• Sometimes when he is frustrated when trying to use the potty: "It's no use!"
• I pointed out a disembodied Santa Claus head that was playing music: "Where are his claws?"
• He has an interesting misinterpretation of "100 acre woods" from the Pooh books: "Hunny-Maker Woods."
• From the Wallce and Grommit videos, he has picked up some interesting Britishisms. Sometimes, when he is surprised, he says, "Never!"
• Out of the blue, he sometimes likes to enumerate his vocabulary: "I can say `stekoscope', I can say `window', I can say..."
• To my mom during a recent visit: "Grammy, you're delightful."
• One day he walked around with a tape measure and announced his findings: "63 M years ago" (the size of Grammy's face), "48" (Daddy's arm), "6 o'clock" (Mommy's body).
• Some words are still hard to pronounce: "bastic ball".
• To his Nanny: "My daddy looks my own son."
• While listening to one of Lisa's exercise tapes: "Hey, she called me a hippo." (The instructor said to raise your hipbone).

Tuesday, February 3rd, 1998

Still not rapid progress on the reading front, although he is now a computer whiz. He played a game yesterday in which you have to answer trivia questions about dinosaurs (``Which dinosaur has a name that means `roofed lizard'?'') and then, once you've accumulated a sufficient number of points, you can watch little video clips of animated dinosaurs. It was hysterical listening to him move through the program, hopping from menu to menu effortlessly and then sitting back and watching the dinosaurs perform for him.

We're in our new house now, and both Lisa and Max (and I) like that very much. Max is working on toilet training and computer use now (not at the same time, of course!). Max took the move very well, I thought. He hasn't really mentioned the old apartment, except for one or two times. Once, he was looking for a toy that I had decided to throw away during the move. I told him that we didn't have the toy anymore, and he started to cry, saying that he wanted to go the apartment to look for it (that was the last place he had seen it).

What's new with me?! (12/14/97)

• Me: "I'm having a party for my robots on Friday." Max: "Will they eat it?" Me: "Eat what?" Max: "The cake."
• Max: "You are a troodon and I am a baby troodon. Got it?"
• Lisa: "Why did you throw your cup on the floor?" Max: "I wouldn't do that."
• Loudly, during Yom Kippur services: "The triceratops cannot sing." (I think this was Max's way of telling me that he didn't recognize the prayer songs.)
• Max: "nemanem" (M-and-M), "Mc Old Donald's" (McDonald's, the restaurant)
• Max at bedtime, tears welling up in his eyes: "I just want to play.... for a minute."
• I handed Max a piece of bread on a plate. His response: "Nicely done."
• Max to me on the phone, holding up a dinosaur, "What is it?" Me: "I don't know, I can't see it." Max: "Why not?"
• Lisa: "Do you want a baby brother or sister?" Max: "Ummm, a sister."
• Max, looking at a picture of Roo in one of his books wearing a red shirt: "Roo wears a blue shirt." I had to take out the video and watch it to verify that this, in fact, is true.
• Max, at his toybox: "I don't have a wolf. I'll buy one from the store. Then it will be my own."
• Me: "It's a beautiful day and we're stuck inside the house." Max: "We're not stuck. We should move a little."
• Max, unsatisfied with my sideways tower building: "No, like this, atop ah day tuzher" (on top of each other).
• Max: "We don't have cranberry juice." Lisa shows him a bottle of juice. Max: "Suddenly there is cranberry juice!"
• Max to a stranger: "I'm Max and this is my mommy; my daddy calls her `Lisa'".
• Max to me coming home from work when my in-laws were visiting: "Daddy, these are my friends, Grandma and Grandpa."
• Lisa changes Max's current favorite story into a tale about proper bathroom habits. Max: "No! I don't want to hear about Peter and the Tinkle. I want to hear about Peter and the Wolf!"

Tuesday, November 4th

Saturday, November 1st

Max had a nice Halloween, although he didn't stay dressed up for long. At about 1pm, Lisa put Max in an adorable tiger costume that she made for him last year (but he refused to wear on Halloween). He was all excited to wear it this year, and when Lisa put it on him, he started hopping around Tigger style and even requested some face makeup to complete the job. We got in the car at 1:30pm to head to Duke for my department's Halloween party, and he demanded that the costume be removed. Never did get it back on him. He had a great time at the party anyway, and he liked seeing other people dressed up. But, for some reason, he was not at all interested in being dressed up himself for Halloween (only leading up to Halloween).

Yes, made it back in time for Halloween. Brought Max to my department's Halloween party, but he didn't want to wear his costume. Then, ultimately, he didn't really want to go out trick-or-treating either. So we hung out a bit at school and then at the hospital with Lisa. He saw the Charlie Brown special, which was fun. He seems pretty ok about the whole thing, but I was hoping for more of an ``event.'' Lisa said she got a couple of photos, but the costume only stayed on for about 30 minutes!

Monday, October 6th

What's new with me?! (9/12/97)

• Max was talking to his great grandmother on the phone: ``I got... wait, let me show you something. Look, here it is.'' He picks up a little plastic canteen that he got that day. We asked him, ``What do you have?'' and he replied, ``Rotini.''
• Max often stalls around bedtime. His Grandma was putting him to bed and said, ``And then all over the world, it was time for all the boys and girls to go to sleep.'' Max: ``What are their names?''
• Michael to Max: ``How would you like to play with the computer tonight?'' Max: ``Like this,'' as he pretends to type on an imaginary keyboard.
• Max making conversation to a woman swimming nearby in the pool: ``I have nipples.'' Points with both hands.
• Max: ``I want to have a little conversation with Breg.'' (Greg, that is.)
• Max to attractive medical resident: ``I want you to hold me at my bed.''
• Max to Michael, trying to get him to sleep in his room with him: ``You get Tickle-Me Elmo and sleep downstairs.'' (Keep in mind that Max sleeps with a little stuffed Elmo and the Tickle-Me Elmo is a large-scale Elmo for a large-scale person.)
• Max: ``What do we eat? Maybe Zazu will remind me what do we eat.''
• Max corrects his native-German-speaking Nanny: ``No, Nina, watch my lips.''
• Overheard by Nina while Max was going to sleep: ``Be quiet Elmo, don't want to wake up Nina.''
• Max recently to his parents: ``No, I make the rules.''

Tuesday, August 26th

Sunday, August 17th

Monday, June 30th

For a while, he used the word ``Hah-klee'' for Hercules, and I kept getting it mixed up with ``Hakalee'' (one of the made up names he uses sometimes). Now he's pronouncing it a bit better.

Sunday, June 22nd

This week the weather's been so great that we've taken him swimming a bunch of times. The first few times that just meant standing with him in the baby pool and splashing around, or holding him while I stand in the big pool. Then he started to do things like lay down semi-floating in the baby pool with just his hands on the ground, and semi-treading in the big pool by jumping up and down with some help from his arms while in water up to his neck. Finally, with some urging by Nanny Nina, we got him into a swim tube and he actually was able to propel himself around in the deep end! He could steer and go forward---it was great! I told him how excited his Aunt Jill and (Uncle) Marc would be, since swimming is such a great form of family entertainment for us. I was so psyched. We're hoping to take him out again today (weather report says hazy 71--94 degrees).

Another thing that's been a big deal around here lately is Grammar Rock. We've been playing the CDs for him and also rented the collection on video. Now he goes around the sound singing ``Lolly, lolly, lolly,'' ``It was a hairy bear, it was a scary bear.'' and ``So when you're happy, horray! Or sad, aww...'' Usually he takes turns, with one of us singing the actual interjections (correcting us if we mess up). He tries to sing the ``Hallelujah!'' ending from that song, but it comes out something like ``How-yua.'' (Un hunhuh!) Sometimes he ends with ``Indubitably!'' which is actually the ending of the adverb song. Now Lisa thinks he's going to be a linguist or something.

One not-so-funny thing happened about a week ago. Lisa and I put Max in his bed to go to sleep and he put up a big fuss. We went back upstairs to watch TV. In retrospect, I think Max might have been crying for us, but the dishwasher was on and the TV was loud to be heard over the dishwasher, so we didn't hear him. Until the power went out, that is. Then we could hear Max really losing it. He must have been awake when the power went out and suddenly it was dark outside and his nightlight went off and all the standard sounds shut down. It really freaked him out. It took quite a while for us to calm him down (coming into his room with flashlights didn't help). He kept saying that ``The dark went on my face,'' which is an apt description of the feeling you get when suddenly you can't see or hear anything; almost like something is on your face blocking your view. The upshot of all this is that he refuses to sleep in his bed now. We've put a sheet on the couch and he's been sleeping there. He's fine with it, but it worries us a little that he's afraid of his bed. I'm sure it will pass.

Wednesday, May 28th

The other car hit our car in the front left quadrant, just a foot or so from Lisa's door. It could have been so much worse.

I'm trying not to think of this as an ``old driver'' issue, but it's rough. People really need their independence and freedom, but it is important to use good judgment. I'm thinking of it like a ``drunken driver'' sort of thing---no one (regardless of age or whatever) should drive when they are unable to do so safely.

Sigh.

Lisa sounds like she's gotten most things back to normal: we have a new car seat, and a rental car. Max's new nanny started working today and that definitely helped Lisa get everything done. I think things are going to work out well.

Tuesday, May 13th

Wednesday, April 9th (Mom)

Everything here is going really well. Max is awesome. He is so much fun, now. He's fascinated by dinosaurs and identifies tons of the common ones (stegosaurus, triceratops) and not so common ones (parasaurolophus, deinonychus, etc) and is constantly asking, ``What's that? Who's that? What happened to..?'' He's really a joy. His big news is that he's in a bed now. This was started after I caught him using his crib like a trampoline!

What's new with me?! (4/9/97)

• In respose to ``What did the doctor do at your checkup?'', I said, ``took my temperature and my shoes.''
• While outside playing with Daddy, I saw mommy appear in the doorway and called ``Mommy, come join us.''
• My standard response to ``Bedtime!'' is ``I not tired. I'm happy.''
• My uncle Justin put some new pictures of my on the web: at home , in front of a lemur, the lemurs.
• More quotes (4/23/97): ``My green hat, it not fit anymore.'' I was sitting with my dad and an 8-year-old girl rollerskated by. I said ``Hi,'' quietly and shyly, but the girl skated on by without responding. I turned to my dad and said, "She too busy to talk."

Thursday, April 3rd

Wednesday, April 2nd

Friday, March 28th

Saturday, March 15th (Mom)

Oy vey! I wanted to tell you that he has several dinasaur books and whenever he sees a picture of a female paleontologist he asks what her name is and when we say we don't know, Max says ``Lady's name is Reyna.'' So, he remembers the excellent time we had at the museum!

Tuesday, March 11th

Tuesday, February 25th

Thursday, February 20th

I was sure that some of it would sound familiar to him, and since he is so much more verbal now than he was back then, I thought he might be able to tell me something about what he remembered. Well, he enjoyed hearing about all this stuff and he thought it sounded like great fun, but there was no sign that he remembered any of it; he was hearing about it all for the very first time. It made me very sad to think that, as far as he'll ever remember, I never stayed home with him at all. And even worse, in some way, I felt like there is no one to share all those memories with---Lisa wasn't there and Max wasn't really there either.

When I told Lisa what happened later that evening, she pointed out that I share a lot of those memories with my playgroup friends, and that, even though they aren't nearby anymore, the memories aren't completely gone. That made me feel a little better, and also made me want to send email to a playgroup friend. So I did. :-)

Anyhow, I'd better get to bed---hope things are going well in Providence. The weather here just got very nice (we actually took Max to the pool today---too cold for us, but Max walked around in the baby pool with no complaints). We got tickets to Barnum and Bailey for this weekend; that should be fun. Oh, also, Lisa accepted a terrific job! So things are falling into place rather nicely.

Tuesday, February 17th

Tuesday, February 1st

Max's big thing at the moment is dinosaurs. He calls himself dinosaur names; ``Name is... baby stegosaurus,'' he likes to play with the dinosaur encyclopedia I bought him on CD-ROM, he plays with little plastic dinosaurs, we watch animated dinosaur movies on the VCR, and we read dinosaur books together. We even visited a dinosaur image web site together the other day, and he loved it, asking me to name every single dinosaur that came up (thank goodness I can read!). His favorite dinosaur is Brachiosaurus, but he loves Tyrannosaurus, Apatosaurus, Stegosaurus, Pteranodon, and Triceratops. He also likes Quetalcoatalus, Deinonychus, and Pachycephalosaurus, and he absolutely massacres the names. It's hysterical.

Tuesday, January 28th

hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhwwwwwwwkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo jjjjjjjjjjjjjjj444444444444aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaammmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

(I asked him to type ``hello jenn,'' by telling him the letters to type one at a time while he sat in front of the keyboard. This is what came out. He actually got a few letters correct, and many of the other mistaken letters are very close to the target! But I couldn't get him to let go of the key quickly enough.)

Sunday, January 19th

Friday, January 17th

What's new with me?! (1/14/97)

• I'm learning to recognize dinosaurs and letters.
• I made my first request for information: ``Daddy, who's that?'' (about a toy Parasaurolophus I have---Daddy had to look up the name).
• I made my first analogy: ``Stegosaurus have spines like Dazzle'' (Dazzle is a fictional spined dinosaur from one of my books).

Saturday, January 11th

Max changed his pronunciation of ``water'' from ``lalu'' to ``latoo.'' He also changed to ``Jasmine'' from ``Bobin.''

He has begun to recognize letters over a very short period of time.

He loves play acting. Here are some of the characters he assigns:

• Baby Bear (Max), Momma Bear (Lisa), Papa Bear (Michael) [Now "Rex", too]
• Simba (Max), Sirabi (Lisa), Mufasa (Michael), Nala (Jill), Rafiki (Jenn), Uncle Scar (Marc) [hyenas, senzi, ed]
• Tweety Bird (Max), Tazmanian Devil "dubul" (Lisa), Bugs Bunny (Michael)
• Timon (Max), Zazu (Lisa), Pumbaa (Michael)
• Kermit (Max), Miss Piggy (Lisa), Fozzie (Michael)
• Woody (Max), Buzz Lightyear (Michael)
• Aladin (Max), Jasmine (Lisa), Blue Big Genie (Michael)
• Snuffy (Max), Alice (Lisa)
• Telly (Max), Prarie Dawn (Lisa), Count (Michael)
• Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, Donald Duck ??
• Goofy (Max), Pluto (Michael)
• Reader Rabbit (Max), Chuckie Cheese (Michael)

His dinosaur knowledge has been exploding. He also is learning a lot about skeletons (which he pronounces ``gahkelen'' and originally seemed to perceive as a separate species).

Two interesting sentences: ``Daddy, who's that?'' (wanting to know the name of one of his dinosaurs, Parasaurolophus (I had to look it up)), and ``Stegosaurus have spines like Dazzle.'' I think these are his first requests for information and analogy, respectively.

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