This Week at Hello Harry to the Max

I'm ready for the real stuff, Mom!


"Give me a break, Harry...You so do not care about me eating solids, you're just playing it up for the camera!"
Actually Harry gagged when I showed him the pureed carrots I intended to serve to Max. "No like them!" he said.


"Hmm..maybe I like them?"

"No, definitely not. In fact come here and let me give you a good smack."

A few days later, he loves the rice cereal.

Aha! Now try resisting this, Max! You non-sleep-through-the-nighter!
After six months of middle-of-the-night feedings, we were desperate to get this baby to sleep through the night, and willing to try anything -- including entering back into the reswaddling phase with the miracle blanket. But he busted out of it within minutes. Sigh.

We get a surprising amount of traffic for a side street. Here is an example of the lanes of traffic that develop in our hallway during rush hour.

"Look at me! You put me down way over THERE, Mom, and now I'm way over HERE! I can move now! And I can get to all of brother's toys!"

Max is mobile! Not crawling yet, but he manages to get where he wants with a quick roll, stretch and a heave in just a few seconds. I am frightened.

Who is watching these children? Is Harry biting Max? (No, just showing his love, I assure you.)

Brothers

"We love sharing apples!"

Here is a rare photo of this crew of two-year-olds sharing. In this case, apples that were divided up for them, without their consent. Often any two members of this posse can be found wrestling over a toy that one didn't even know he or she wanted until another picked it up. They're so cute though!

Who's Got Your Nose?

(BTW, I am not pregnant again. Apparently seeing this ultrasound photo pop up startles some people like my Mom. But, we here at Hello Harry are not sleeping through the night yet, let alone thinking about adding more babies to our brood!)

We knew two things about Max before he was born. One, he was very active (lots and lots of kicking and flips). And two, he had a cute upturned nose, which we saw on this ultrasound photo at 20 weeks. (We actually didn't even know that he was a he until we met him on May 4th.)



And we wondered: where did that upturned nose come from? It's adorable, but it didn't appear to look like any noses in either of our families.




See...here's Max with that adorable little nose.
Then....I took a closer look at the photo below, of Rob as a baby, and Max, I think I've found your nose! Take a look...

Boo! More Halloween!

A good photo of Max from Aunt Angie's camera. Shows off his big, happy eyes!

The cousins. All three seem to be thinking "Why do we have to do this?"

Trick or Treating

Our camera gave out on us in the middle of Halloween, so I don't have as many photos to choose from as I would like. Here, you may be able to tell from the cheeks peeking out that this is Max as a green dinosaur. He was very laid back about wearing the costume, smiling and shaking his big green tail.


Harry the firefighter.


We practiced trick or treating for a couple weeks ahead of time. (Harry is in a solid I-am-2-and-I -don't-like-anything-outside-of-my-normal-routine phase) When the time came, he was actually way into it, which was a nice surprise. "I go more trick or treating?" he asked. We were very proud that he actually said "Trick or treat?" and said "Thank you."

These two must have pulled a double or something, because they're not looking so happy to be firefighters.

Look Harry! There's the cutest Kermit the frog I've seen.

Trick or treating for the first time. You will also get a glimpse of James in his very appropriate Yoda costume. As a new walker, he walked exactly like the old Jedi master. Oh, and don't be frightened by the very large Viking. That's just Uncle Aaron.

The real angry bunny

I was premature in my posting of the angry bunny video. The previous post doesn't quite capture it, while in this new clip, baby Max has fully embraced the character of Angry Bunny. So ladies and gentlemen, I give you....Angry Bunny...

Pumpkin Patch

Along with most of Chicagoland, we headed out to the pumpkin farm on Sunday. Seriously, they had to have cops directing traffic to the...pumpkin patch! Your tax dollars at work -- heading off road rage incidents in the pumpkin patch parking lot.
Anyway, Harry loved the hayride, straw tunnel, apple cider donuts and of course, the hundreds of pumpkins everywhere.


Disgusted after he realizes this is in fact not a real car.
"I'm outta here..."

Our pumpkin in pumpkinland

Harry trying to lift the pumpkin he has picked out. "Grrrrrrrrrrr......." While this boy has quite a will, he is not as strong as he thinks.

I'll just sit on it instead.

No way! A tractor ride too!

(Daddy's looking a little tired after several 4-5 a.m. Harry wakeup calls this week. But still he gets up early for the Sunday morning trip out to the exurbs of Chicago. That's why we keep him around.)

The Angry Bunny

Rob says this video accurately portrays our life these days. You have Harry trying to control the camera (and everything else). Harry deciding that he will sit on his baby brother's lap, all the while trying to disguise his bad behavior by speaking to Max in a high voice ("I know! If I talk in this sweet voice, they'll never notice me smack Max!"). Mom in the background with a constant refrain of "no, no, no," trying to act as the referee between the two of them. Harry sneaking in a swipe at Max. And then there's little Max. He has started this adorable snort thing that I like to call "the angry bunny." He uses it when he's excited, happy, mad, hungry or to vent out his frustrations, often brought on by older brother stealing toys.

And here's Harry doing his current version of Wheels on the Bus :)