6 months old, Part 2

OK, I'm still up. So, here's some more photos. I'm actually getting caught up!

Delia holding Max up on a park bench in Nevada City. Note slobber stains on bench. Max was teething on this day, but additionally, as it has been written: "Nothing has been truly explored until it is in the mouth. " Actually, did anyone write that? No? Well, if babies could write poetry, someone would.


Again, we're getting blog-worthy photos far faster than I can write about them, so I'm continuing my photo dump to catch up. Basically, we're starting to do stuff again. Granted, Max factors in heavily, and currently he's only happy when he's on a blanket playing with stuff (more to the point, trying to get off the blanket), so now our activities are heavily, well, blanket-oriented stuff like picnics, outdoor concerts, etc. However, Max can be in a stroller for a limited amount of time, which leads us to....

My good friends from Los Angeles, Gordon and Ali, saw Max for the first time in Palo Alto.

We also went to California Worldfest - a gathering of eclectic group of bands and even more eclectic group of people (think hippies and Rastafarians) in the Nevada County Fairgrounds. Despite the name, it's a beautiful, tree-lined park that has one of the best outdoor music venues I've experienced. The Indigo Girls and Los Lobos headlined this concert. However, there were much better groups playing. Why? We are now very keenly aware of what it sounds like to be burned out after singing the same song jillions of times, and those two bands all the symptoms. How do we know this burned-out feeling? The answer in a moment.
Delia, Delia's mom, and Max listening to Fishtank Ensemble, a gypsy-style band.

And, since Delia's family was around, I didn't have to worry about Max and got a lot of sleep.Getting sleep at Worldfest. The gentleman behind me is Delia's brother, Dan.

Max and Delia. Max loves putting his hand into people's mouths.

The next night: Thanks to Delia, I now have photograhic evidence of Max falling asleep while I'm reading to him. I though this was theoretically impossible. Max hates going to sleep. We've watched Max start screaming mid-yawn. Instead of drifting to sleep while being read to, Max almost always gets restless, closes the book, and starts crying. We'll put him to bed and he'll generally attempt a 5-minute protest before drifting off.

Finally, Max has taken his hatred of shopping to a new level. The last two times we went to Sacramento, Max flew into such a rage that we could only calm him down by singing the "A-B-C" song. For 45 minutes straight. And never deviating. He would cry if we switched songs. He would cry if we improvised, "A-B-C-D-E-F-G, H-I-J-God I hate this stupid song." He would cry if we tried the A-B-C song in rap. Or opera. He was a bit more tolerant of Vegas-style ("A-B-C - thank you. You're a lovely audience. Great to be here. D-E-that's a lovely dress...") but not much. Remember, we had to do this on two separate trips. As a coworker said, Max has trained us very well. We are still getting over PTSD-type symptoms from the trips, although I think we'd be okay if we let Max play on a blanket for a while before putting him in the stroller to shop for, oh, 4 minutes.

Now then, I'm caught up. Actually, I'm not. Coming soon: A major change sends the Kaplan family into chaos. Wait, was that Jon & Kate + 8? Hmm...no, it's us. Stay tuned.