Max at this moment

A good thing Sam was wrong with his prediction of when I would be having our baby because I too grossly miscalculated my level of exhaustion and what I would be capable of at night during the final days of my pregnancy. I'm trying to look for all the positives of Sam missing the mark and certainly one of them is that I will be able to finish writing something about my two boys before my life is swallowed up for a little while with our new baby girl.

Each one of my kids have very distinct personalities...truly a testimony to me that their strong spirits were developing long before they ever came to me. Max is no exception to this rule and has a strong personality that has been evident since he was a baby. When Max is good, he is golden, but when Max is upset--watch out. Thankfully, we see much more of the golden than the latter and even his most stubborn moments never last too long.

Here are some things about Max at this moment.

1. He's a do-it-yourselfer. If Max wants to do something, he just does it. The other day Max played basketball at P.E. and when he got home he wanted to practice what he learned. Without saying a thing to me, he finished his homework, went into the garage and pulled the basketball hoop out to the street to start practicing his lay ups.

He had the same attitude with his science fair project. He jumped right in and started setting up his experiment all on his own as soon as he had decided what his topic would be. He was pretty happy with the finished product too.

2. He loves and finds joy in the success of others. As the younger brother, Max has spent a fair amount of time on the sidelines. He has never complained about this and is always quick to cheer for and compliment his brother on his success. This might be one of the things I love best about this boy.

3. He's not afraid of hard work. He will often voluntarily do jobs around the house or at least not complain when I assign him something. Here he is ironing Ruby's old clothes for our new baby. He begged me (actually both boys did) to let him help iron them.

 

 On another day while playing outside he just got the hose out and started washing the truck and then after I helped him finish up I found him inside vaccuming. What!? 

 

4. He's a goal setter. Last summer he made huge progress with his swimming. He was so determined to be able to swim all the way across the pool without stopping. By the end of the summer he could do it. I was very proud of him, although I don't know if I've ever seen anyone use so much muscle to get through the water. His technique isn't quite there, but his heart is.

5. He "notices" people and things. It is not unusual for him to comment or compliment someone in our family on something new or different. When Sam wore a new shirt to work the other day Max was quick to say, "Is that a new shirt dad? I like it." Or my most recent favorite was when the kids were playing outside and I was inside trying to do some deeper cleaning in the kitchen, Max walked in and said, "Wow..it looks great in here!" It totally made my day. He's good at that.

6. He's a math ninja. Math/numbers has always been Max's thing, so we call him a math ninja because everything is better when you add ninja on the end. Yesterday, Max came home with an addition page he had done at school. I had to laugh when I turned the page around and saw that he had made up his own problems on the back. I tried to scan it in, but it didn't come through very well. On the back he had written mulitplication problems all with correct answers and most of them with backwards numbers as well. That's my Max--he understands and loves to apply more advanced math concepts, but writing his numbers in the correct direction is still a struggle sometimes.

7. He's my first runner up when it comes to being a willing model for my camera practice.

 

8. He loves to dance. During our after-dinner jobs, everyone gets to pick a song to listen to while we work. I thought it was working out pretty well until Max told me one day, "Mom, don't put my music on while I'm still doing my job because I just can't help it, I have to dance and I wont be able to work."

9. He's got faces, faces, faces. He's got such an expressive face that it's not hard to know what he's feeling. Sometimes when I see this mopy face, I ask him what is wrong and he tries to tell me this is his "regular face". Nice try Max. You maybe able to fool me with some things, but never with your face--you're an open book.

Baseball is not the most exciting thing to watch...watching Max watch baseball is much more enjoyable. Check out Max in the background of the 2nd photo.

10. He's very "punny". Max has a great and somewhat advanced sense of humor for a 6-year-old. He is king of literal and pun humor. On the way to school on the first day of kindergarten I was encouraging him to not be shy and to try to make a friend. Without missing a beat he said, "Sure...as long as my teacher gives me some clay...I can make as many friends as you want me to!"
I am often surprised at how quickly he comes up with a humerous response to what I say. We hear a lot of jokes at the dinner table too. I guess I have Sam to thank for my family full of jokers.

11. He likes to have "Lego hair." I love Max's hair--when he lets me do it, which is almost never. Whenever I even try to comb it to the side he imediately pushes it straight down to what we call "lego hair."

 

I should have been happier for the two days he wanted to have a mohawk.

12. He's an awesome playmate. He will play pretty much any game that his siblings come up with. He's always happily gone along with Reed's made up games, filled lots of characters and even more rules, but I am even more impressed when he goes out of his comfort zone to play "Mom and Dad" with Ruby. (Her favorite game...definitely not his!) I love it when I hear him trying to appease her "mom and dad" request by saying something like, "OK, let's be mom and dad playing hexbugs."

Reed and Max playing some kind of ninja master game which I'm sure has many rules including how you can cut off your opponent's arm. I think the third picture was taken after Reed "lost an arm".

I'm really glad I got to finish this. Recording these things about Max was totally worth being pregnant for a few more days.  Let's just hope baby girl will be patient enough for me to get to Reed too.