A Busytown Mystery

The boys love to watch "Busytown Mysteries" on Saturday mornings, which is based off their favorite books by Richard Scarry. We had our own Busytown Mystery recently when we discovered a slight bruise on Max's upper arm. Max plays HARD, so he often has bruises, cuts and injuries, but we can always explain them. Rob and I could not figure out where this came from, which worried us.


Over the next few days, the bruise darkened and filled in, and we got a big break. The bruise looked like bite marks.


And one of the teeth imprints had a suspicious gap in the middle.


Hmmm. Who could possibly be responsible?





In Harry's defense, he is not a biter, but Max has had his issues with biting, so maybe he had his fill one day when Mom and Dad weren't looking?

Now some positive news about the boys, who bring us many smiles throughout the day, despite these recent postings about sleep and biting:


Harry is reading!


Max is going on the potty a couple times a day!


And...

Here is Big Brother looking out for little brother on the train. We were headed downtown and Harry held onto Max the whole time. He once got up to look out the window and said: "Mommy, will you hold onto Max while I look out the window?" Sure, buddy.

Oh, how I love when they do awesome, spontaneous, loving things like this.

Whack a Mole

So after Max's big surgery to correct his breathing at night, we thought "Finally! there will be a full night's sleep in our future!"

But as soon as his sleeping started to improve, the very next day, Max learned how to climb out of his crib without the help of any other furniture, which had already been removed from the room.

Soooo exhilarating and exciting for him. He would come bursting out of the bedroom squealing, and running. You'd pick him up to feel his heart beating so fast, and his skin sweaty, and obviously every time he climbed out, the adrenaline pushed him that much further away from sleep.

The first night, he climbed out of the crib approximately 75 times. It was ridiculous. Harry even appealed to him to GO TO SLEEP BROTHER!

Mom and Dad spent hours not engaging him, but carrying him back to the bed, just like the good doctors recommend.

The first night he went to bed at 12:45 a.m. in our bed.

Then he woke up six hours later. His brother, who was kept up late, was quite a piece of work the next day. Overtired Max then tried to resist the daytime nap, climbing out of the crib 46 times. He eventually passed out drooling on the couch.

Night Two. Max continues to climb out of his bed. Again, and again, and again, and again. Goes to bed about 10:45 p.m. this second night. But only after every toy has been taken out of the room, including the train table.

Night Three. Parents pull out every child safety trick they have to slow the child down, settling on a door knob contraption that is supposed to keep the child from opening the door. He opens it within 3 minutes, emerging even more gleeful than before.

Parents begin designing their own plans for wicked structures to contain the child. He eventually falls to sleep in the 10 o'clock hour.

Night Four. Parents cry. Please, child, please go to sleep, wonder if they have given birth to the Energizer bunny. Have a pep talk with each other after the first climbout about the strategy for the night ahead. Feel like the Worst Parents Ever. Feel like they will forever be returning the two-year-old to his bed. He falls asleep, two hours past bedtime.

Night Five. New approach: Remove the Challenge! Parents remove a side of the crib to transform it into a toddler bed. He stays in bed a bit better, but still runs out over and over and over again. Falls asleep at 10 p.m.

We are now plotting our strategy for tomorrow night, when we intend to emerge victorious! Wish us luck!

Aunt Sue's house!

We went to Indianapolis last weekend to visit Rob's family and stayed in Aunt Sue's fabulous new house.

The boys and Uncle Chris, newly married to Aunt Sue.

Max and Max. Uncle Chris also has a son named Max, pictured above with our Max. Our Max definitely took a liking to "Big Max."

Grammy and Daddy. They may be related.

Sigh. This photo fills my heart. The head on the left is Harry, pressed against the head of his cousin Sydney. How sweet is that?

Big Max reading a book to little Max. (Since our trip, he has asked "Where's Big Max? I'm small Max.")

Max refusing sleep so Mommy has styled his pool/sunscreen/dirty hair into this mohawk :)

Cousin Maggie works her magic at bedtime to put the boys to bed.

Heat Wave 2011

Sweet chubby cheeks like these get pink so fast, as this year's heat wave has proven once again! This is how they were after a 5-minute drive to the grocery store. We did have to wait outside a brief second so I could stalk a dad who was finishing up with this cool car/shopping cart, while the boys screamed "Get that car, Mommy!"


I think Harry looks like a teenager here.

I'm sure regular readers will not be surprised to read that Max continues to love to draw on himself and to run around without clothes on.

"Because that's how it works."

This is the refrain of my 2-year-old.

"Why did you climb out of your crib 36 times?"
"Because that's how it works."

"Why did you smack your brother in the face?"
"Because that's how it works."

"Why did you pour your milk on the table?"
"Because that's how it works."

The phrase is delivered as if he has the life experience of a 75-year-old, who has seen life's ups and downs. And we have no idea where he got it, or how he learned to use it in such a smart aleck way. Oh, Maxwell....You make life so interesting...

"Why did you steal that truck from your brother?"

"Because that's how it works."

Vacation!

Two little boys who could not be more ready for the waterpark!

Harry was a daredevil on the big waterslides, and went down time after time after time. Poor Max wanted to go sooooo bad, but wasn't big enough!

He made do in the toddler area.

We took a break from the water for a bit to do some bikeriding near Lake Geneva. Rob and his precious cargo.

Crabby passengers. They skipped naps so were both a bit whiny on the trip. They complained the whole way. ("Go faster!" "You're going too fast!" "It's hot." "There are bugs." Blah, blah, blah.) Then were mad when the ride was over because they wanted more!

Fake smiles. At least Rob and I had a good time!

All in all the trip to Timber Ridge in Lake Geneva was a blast, and we'll definitely be going back!

Snore..... But not the kind we want to hear.

If you've talked to us in the past two years, you may have learned that Max does not like to sleep. Like ever.

At first, we thought it was a normal infant behavioral thing and treated it as such. We tried Cry It Out, which worked beautifully with Harry (and apparently every other baby in Chicago). We tried a lot of things. But he rarely napped. He woke throughout the night. When we got to a year and he was still waking so often, we just blamed it on ourselves. We are obviously horrible parents! Our baby won't ever sleep!

People kept dishing up the solution to us "Just let him cry."

But oh lord, you have not met this child! He does not cry, he screams. And he can hold out longer than you can. ALWAYS. Like for hours. So we tried treating him for acid reflux. Maybe he had allergies? All of these things took awhile to sort out, before we had a sleep study and learned that poor little Max could not breathe properly when he slept so he was waking up alarmed because he could not breathe! Talk about guilt!

So last week, the little man had his adenoids removed, which were the world's most giant adenoids, apparently.

The docs got him ready by letting him pick the scent on his little anesthesia delivery mechanism. They gave him a giant list and he chose without hesitation "Bubble Gum." Which he has never had. But he was so certain.

And he loved the bubble gum scent.

Little pumpkin in his hospital gown and socks.

Max and Daddy during the hours we had to entertain him beforehand.

After the surgery, and after the morphine had kicked in.

Fully awake and not a happy camper.

Obviously fully recovered and embracing summer. Update: As of Friday he was still mouth-breathing and night-waking. This afternoon during naps, I noticed he was breathing through his nose! Hope to see some great sleeping soon!