3 months old

Apparently winter came and went.

Max just had his 3-month birthday. As of this writing, here's a summary of our accomplishments.


1) Max is still alive. Given the parents' incompetence and his 2:30 AM crying fits, this is a significant accomplishment.

2) Delia is still alive.

3) Max is much bigger. I look at his height and weight charts, and he really isn't that far off average, but for some reason he seems to be bigger than any of the other babies around here. Delia goes to a weekly mom's group meeting held by a nurse, and everyone puts their baby on a scale seeing if baby added a few ounces. Then Max comes in. The nurse calls him "the fat one" and puts his big butt on the scale. He usually gains anywhere from half a pound to a pound. His appetite has been ridiculous - he'll feed fully and get hungry again in an hour.

4) Max is a different baby now, and his changes are amazing. Sometimes it feels like he goes to sleep and wakes up with a software upgrade.

I won't bore you with the milestones he's supposed to hit, but I will say this: When we say he hits his milestone depends a lot on how alert the we are in catching the behavior, and also how, I guess, generous we are in saying he hit the milestone. And I think I'm a pretty generous grader.

The reason is I believe Max's actions are a lot less random than they look. Some time ago, when we put toys near Max's arms, his arms would move around wildly. Dan (Delia's brother) thought his arm movements were random, and to show this, he took a toy away and watched Max's arms. Max still flailed around (Dan was right) but started crying (Hmmmm...) So the next day, we put the toy up and Max's arms flailed around again. But we moved the toy this time and noticed his arm movements recentering themselves around the toy. Then, amazingly, one of us noticed him grabbing the toy. This is the Max equivalent of me grabbing a fly in midair with chopsticks. A few weeks later, the toys bring out well-positioned swipes.

So with that in mind, here are some other random movements we've noticed in the last few days:

I wanted Max to laugh (the baby book says he should have a laugh around now), so when he was smiling, I told him a humorous antecdote of Kafka and Gandhi discussing struggle. Max didn't respond very well (perhaps I didn't describe the insect succinctly) so I decided to make some fart noises with my lips. No, I did not include a video. So Max's mouth opened into a wide smile and he started making sounds like he was breathing hard: Hehhhh......Hehhhhh...Hehhhhh....Delia thinks it was a laugh. I think it probably was too, but it was very cute anyway.

Max likes to kick out with his legs when he's sitting. So I held him under his arms and lifted him to standing. When I do this, he likes to push down on his legs. Now for a while he cried when I did this, but about a week ago he started loving it. Then, a couple days later, while I did this, he lifted up his left leg. Then he gently put it down in front of his right leg. What...? Then Max lifted up his right leg and put it in front of his left, the whole time with a huge grin.

Just a second, buddy! He can't even push from his tummy yet. But I looked up this behavior and found it was a reflex - some babies have it at birth. Reflex or not, I took this kid out on the town last night (mom was sick) and before I knew it, Max was on a table trying to walk while throngs of women were adoring him.

5) It's never too early to get embarrassing photos of Max! We will need them when we meet Max's first girlfriend. Umm, Max, will you ever let us see who you're dating? Please? Max?

Embarrassing photo #1: Max in blue Panda Bear outfit. Note to Max: I would never, never, never, have put this on you. I was not around when this tragedy happened. There was no male in the room to protect you. But the photo is still useful nonetheless.

Embarrassing photo #2: Max's mullet.

Finally, it's April 5 and I finally finished his 3-month old thing. We've been much busier than we planned. Maybe we'll talk about this later.

Jay Cutler Face

Max impersonating Bronco Quarterback Jay Cutler.

Max is becoming more fun to be around - when he's happy he'll smile at everyone he sees - and he communicates better (or maybe we listen better) so we can differentiate between his moods. And when we do something wrong - feed him when he wants a diaper change, put him to bed when he wants to play - he gives us Jay Cutler Face.

Some background here: Jay Cutler is the quarterback for my hometown football team, the Denver Broncos. (Note to Romanian readers: This is American football, not the strange one where you bounce balls on your head.) Jay Cutler wants to be traded, and he wants every media outlet that exists to know. Perhaps you've read the story in Romania. He has said he felt betrayed after learning his coach discussed trading him, and was not happy when the coach said no one is untradeable. So, to summarize, he wants a trade because he's afraid he'll be traded. If that logic isn't watertight enough, we'll go further. He's afraid that his coach will blindside him with a trade that will send him packing to another city. However, the football team that will acquire his services will have to give the Broncos their own players, thereby blindsiding these players in a trade that will send them packing to Denver. Apparently Jay Cutler will then will trust his new team more than his current one.

Back to Max: Every day gives us plenty of opportunities to photograph Max's Jay Cutler face. But why is his face cut off in the headline photo? The answer is that Jay Cutler face is harder to capture than the Yeti.

He was not happy when we put him to bed last night - he rarely is - which gives us plenty of opportunities to capture Jay Cutler face. But here's how a few of them turned out:

3 failed attempts to capture Jay Cutler face.

To me, he looks more like he's about to be sucked into a flying saucer. Where did his fussiness go? That's when I tried pointing the camera at me and activating it. At this moment, a brilliant high-wattage orange spotlight shot from the camera, temporarily hypnotizing me. I think it's some red eye reduction thingie. Now I know why I can't get Jay Cutler Face on camera, and for that matter, why I can't get any expression except a "What the @#$ is that light?" look.

BTW, in all fairness to Max, he is now adorable as much as he is angry. Here's a photo I just shot as I'm typing the blog. I even captured a smile. Let's see Jay Cutler try this face!

Max was in the middle of a very difficult thumb sucking attempt. His right arm wasn't cooperating, so he used his left hand to force his right hand in his mouth. Smiling was accomplished by rubbing his head.

Max is awake on a hike!

Max as seen by Todd while hiking.

Delia and I have been able to hike almost every week - it's nice to have a hobby that Max didn't interrupt. However, I was always a bit disappointed that Max slept through his hikes. He's missing out on such good scenery...

Max in typical hike pose.

Then, one magical hike near Bridgeport (reputed to be the longest single-span wooden covered bridge in the United States) Max woke up!


And quickly degenerated.

Nothing soothed the kid. I spent the last hour of the hike carrying him on his side (it was the only position out of the 112 I tried that worked), singing "Sounds of Silence" while his back was completely arched backwards so his dinner-plate-sized eyes could be overloaded with images.




The coda to this hike was I got the worst neck kink in my life. I spent the next day on the couch frozen and staring up at the ceiling.

BTW, I finally started uploading photos. On the left side of the blog, look at "MAX PHOTOS" and click on the links below. I'm too lazy to organize them by theme so they're grouped by the month they were taken. Continuing with the laziness theme, I also didn't label any of them. Feel free to make up whatever story you wish about them.