Max | 16 months

Let’s take a moment to celebrate my sweet Max … 16 months is one of my favorite ages and he’s absolutely fulfilling all the fun I imagined. His personality is booming – he’s got the best mad face, a super pouty lip, belly laughs with the best of ’em and snuggles like no other. I adore having a little mister. Just adore it.

Max weighs somewhere around 31 pounds and on his own accord has learned how to “take down” his sister. Yes, already. He grabs her waist, buries his face into her back while laughing and just plops down, using his body weight to make her crash on top of him. Wrestling ensues and so. much. laughter. It’s my favorite thing to hear them giggling together. I once worried about a girl/boy sibling duo, but Jemma and Max, they’re something special. They splish splash during baths and Jemma washes his hair and Max lays on Jemma’s bed while she reads him stories. They take care of each other … like when Max fell down two stairs into the cement garage :/ Jemma came running to find me to get help rescuing him. And then she cried because she was so scared he was hurt. This prompted a big hug and kiss from Max to calm her. She takes care of him and then he takes care of her. I hope and pray it’s always like this.

Since Max transitioned to one nap shortly after his first birthday our daily routine has become much more peaceful. We’re up around 7am, nap time at 1pm, and bedtime around 7pm. As long as we stick to his sleep schedule he’s a pretty chipper little dude. Full of smiles and silly boy antics :)

When it comes to food, as I’m sure you can imagine, Max loves it! He consistently nurses every morning, before and after nap and again before bed. Some days he eats buckets and buckets of food and other days he seems to prefer nursing more and just snacking on table food. He loves using utensils and meat ranks pretty high on his list of favorites. Max loves it when Jemma feeds him from whatever snack plate she has – he kinda acts like her little puppy when she’s eating, following her around begging her for a bite or two.

He runs everywhere, dances to any beat and is learning new words everyday. I’ve totally slacked on teaching him signs, probably need to get on that! Jemma signs as she talks most days so perhaps Max will catch on to some of her cues. His most frequent words are mama, milk, daddy, mema (Jemma), water, no, yeah, bounce, moo and many other sound effects/growls/grunts/boy sounds :)

Favorites include Curious George, any book with animals, wearing his rain boots, baby dolls (he cradles and kisses them so sweetly), mama milk, building towers, cars/trains and all the sound effects, Franklin the Turtle, bananas, jumping on the floor mattress while chanting “bounce, bounce, bounce”, piggybacks, helping unload the dishwasher and going grocery shopping at Trader Joe’s. He truly loves just about everything as long as he’s boppin’ along with Jemma and I. The only thing he doesn’t really like is getting his ears cleaned and his hair cut. He has even moved past his fear of the vacuum recently. Although I’m sure he’ll dislike my mentioning it, he actually has quite a bit of fun playing My Little Pony with Jemma ever since Christmas when she got a pony castle and a number of ponies – they’ll spend a long time setting up the ponies and having them walk down the stairs :) I’m always surprised how well they play together.

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