Max is THREE years old!

Max had his third birthday last Tuesday! It's both easy and impossible to believe he has been in our lives for 3 years!

Max is both the sweetest boy in the world and a stubborn three year old tyrant all at the same time. He is incredibly caring; hates for anyone to be sad or hurt. He'll say, "Mama, you ok?" or "Dada, you ok?" Upon hearing Eric's dad was hurt, "oh no! what are we going to do? I have to get GPa a band aid!" Sometimes when Jack cries he will just go over and pat him on the tummy trying to make him feel better. If it takes me an extra minute to come into his room in the morning, he will say "Mama, I was so worried about you!" Often Eric will say to Max "I missed you today!" when he was at work. We thought Max knew what that meant until this weekend when Eric was with Max every single second of the day and then Max said, "Dada, I missed you today!" Ha ha! When I'm feeding Jack, he often asks if he can "sit with me" and then he will sit right next to me or practically on top of me and say "we are sitting together!"

Max loves routine. He has been this way since he was a baby. Some routines he loves include watching a show on his iPad at breakfast (he lines up his monster machines to watch it with him), reading 3 stories at night before bed and having us stand at the door while he takes a sip of his water and hugs his doggies. Then, we say, "see you when the light turns green!" and he likes to say "tomorrow is a HOME day!" He says this regardless of whether it actually IS a home day or not.

Though it can sometimes be a huge challenge to get Max out the door, he does have an adventurous spirit! He loves being outside, whether it's going to the park, going on a hike, going to the beach etc. His recent favorite adventure is hiking up to Watch Tower in Medford which he calls "the castle!" When we were at the Cape over December vacation, he loved going down the boardwalk at Grey's Beach and going to the Museum of Natural History. This time there was a giant whale you could walk through, so I think his favorite part of the whole museum was RUNNING through it.


Max continues to love taking walks to the park, something he has been doing since he was just a few months old. He still likes his old favorites at the park including the slide and the swing (where he likes to get "underdogs" and "super pulls"). His more recent obsession at the park is actually the woods behind the park. He likes to take the toy lawnmower from the park and push it down the path in the woods. Don't even try to make him turn around until he has gone just as far as HE wants to go into the woods. Max found this toy camera (pictured above) at the park a few weeks ago. He decided he wanted to be like his best friend Aunt Caroline. "I take a picture of you! Cheese! Cheese! Cheese!"


Max continues to love watching TV shows, mostly Blaze and the Monster Machines and Paw Patrol. Occasionally he likes to watch Daniel Tiger, especially the birthday episode, and Curious George Flies a Kite or the donut episode. He gets very into his TV shows. His favorite Christmas presents were his monster machines from Blaze and a fire truck with Marshall from Paw Patrol. He can spend literally hours just making up/reenacting things that happen on the shows.
His other favorite form of entertainment is books! He has also loved books since he was a baby. He is really into holiday books with absolutely no awareness of what holidays we should be reading about. Earlier tonight he wanted me to read "Little Blue Truck's Halloween." He loves Pete the Cat, Sesame Street books (Elmo Gets Lost, Bert and the Missing Mop Mix Up...), his many truck books, Llama Llama Red Pajama, The Hungry Caterpillar (which he says "calapittah!"), Ten Apples Up on Top, Where is the Green Sheep, Carl's Snowy Day and so much more. He memorizes books and loves to "read" them with us.

With 2 parents who are teachers, it's probably not surprising Max has a little bit of a teacher in him. He loves telling people what to do, for one thing! When they don't do it (for whatever reason) he often yells irrationally... so I guess he needs to work on his classroom management a bit! He likes to ask us to say things, "Mama, can you say blue?" Then when I say it, "good job!" In fact, he loves to compliment us on the most basic of tasks: "good job turning on the light Mama!" "good job getting me milk Dada!"

The things he gets irrationally upset about include when the iPad isn't working to his exact specifications, getting his diaper changed (yes, we've explained if he'd like to use the toilet this would no longer be an issue!), putting on clothes especially socks, when the "wrong" person helps him or offers to help, when we say no to something he wants or wants to do, when his routine or what he "usually" does changes unexpectedly... probably more if I thought about it. He continues to be a terrible eater. I know "all" toddlers are bad eaters but everyone says that but trust me my toddler is worse. He literally with not eat ONE SINGLE fruit or vegetable. We continue to put them on his plate, and his friends at school eat fruit every day... but no luck with him trying anything. He used to sometimes eat what we ate (turkey pasta, tacos etc), but it's been months since he even did that. He essentially eats Trader Joes fruit bars (all of which he calls "blueberry bars"), chocolate chip granola bars, waffles with peanut butter, pb or sunbutter sandwiches on wheat bread, and most snack foods like Goldfish crackers, Inner Peas, etc. He will also conveniently eat/try almost ANY candy, cake, cookies and ice cream. I'm just praying that Jack will be a better eater so I won't think this is all my fault.


We are obviously a little biased, but we think Max is the coolest three year old out there. He is incredibly enthusiastic about things (loves to jump up and down in excitement) and creative. He's an amazing big brother and can play independently for hours. He LOVES his cars and trucks- he has a million and plays with all of them. It's so much fun to watch him start to really play and have conversations with kids his own age. Plus, there is just nothing better than when he randomly says, "I love you SO much!"