Max does!


And apparently, he also digs being coy.

behind the scenes of yesterday's baby attack:

When we went down to Maryland a few weeks ago, we also were able to visit some friends who live in the DC area.

Rebecca (aka Spiels) and Eric have 3 year old twins, Sydney and Jason. Sydney and Max got along like gangbusters, and Jason played us his music (which sadly, I don't have any photos of!)


Until... the baby attack








Luckily, all was forgiven.

It's spring! (Kinda. The weather's been alternately dreary and gorgeous.)

And on one of the gorgeous days, we busted out the short sleeves.



Aww, who's a little preppy! And very excited by it!

A few weekends ago, we took Max over to our friends Amy and Jon's apartment to introduce Jeeves, their very awesomely huge and floppy cat, and baby.





They were fast friends, partly because they share a love of foods.



And in addition, there was drinking! Jon made some delicious Old Fashioneds. And now that I'm not pregnant anymore, I can drink them!





Max wanted to help. He likes helping. But no booze for babies. Just booze for mommies.

because, as shown by this picture, Max is a dead ringer for my dad and/or my brother:


or Phil from the Amazing Race

A perennial favorite.

This outfit was for a friend's bridal shower. He's such a natty dresser, if I do say so myself.



(also, I so need a pedicure)

When I was on extra paternity leave I got to take Max to the American Museum of Natural History. It's one of my favorite places, not least because it is one of my Dad's favorite places and both he and my grandfather took me there a ton of times when I was growing up. (The only museum I might know better is the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh, where I was born, and where I got yelled at by a security guard for touching the tail of the diplodocus.)

Anyway, we had a great time -- Max enjoyed looking at the fish and the blue whale, we took a quick tour of the Discovery Room, where Max enjoyed touching some nature stuff, and of course we visited the dinosaurs.

Here is a great photo courtesy of a nice woman visitor, who clearly has excellent photo composition skills. Thanks, anonymous stranger!



And another in front of a big mean tortoise. Max seemed to like the turtles better than the other fossils.



And as I probably should have expected, he was passed out before we even got halfway through. Here he is passed out next to the duckbills:



I am sure he'll stay awake when we return, hopefully often.

I think the monkey has a little problem. Too many bananas and he's all, "let's go play peekaboo. come on, it'll be AWESOME. Man, I love you man. no REALLY. I love you man!"







right after this shot, he totally passed out. luckily, he was already in the bouncy seat.

Max is continuing to grow well according to our friendly neighborhood pediatrician. (Let's not talk about how I keep accidentally saying I am taking Max to the vet.) He's not a huge baby according to the percentiles, but interestingly his head has risen from a low percentile to about mid-range even while the rest of him has stayed proportional. At this rate, I guess it means when he's a grown-up he really is going to look like MODOK.

Believe it or not, Max is not cute 100% of the time. In fact sometimes he can be kinda creepy looking. Like this outtake from the cup series, for example:


Or this old, blurry photo from a month or so ago that looks like a shot too drunk and embarassing even for TMZ to post:

Our poor UPS guy. We order stuff, because we are lazy, and he delivers stuff. Sometimes the stuff is heavy and/or cute. But hey, we got a great deal.



Apparently the shipping was a little rough.


But hey, a caterpillar that jingles makes everything better.

Max has gotten fascinated by anything we are holding. He is also into the grabbing and chewing, and kind of has gotten the hang of the not dropping things immediately. That led to an afternoon where Cup was his favorite friend.

Holy crap! Max is huge now. I mean, not technically huge, but compared to a few months ago? HUGE.

Max and friends at 16 weeks:


And now he's sitting (with help), cooing, and is extremely easily distracted by things like his curtains (they have lots of cool stuff printed on them), and the cats.

These are not the pacis your are looking for. Move along.


No, really! Come on guys! Not the pacis you are looking for!



(and what you can't see here, is that this hoodie has a monkey face on it. the monkey strikes back!)

I kind of love the bumpo, and Max does too. Of course, like all good things, it's also a little not-good for him--not really not good, per se, just that he could fling himself over once he gets big enough (and figures out how to lever himself out of the thingie). But at the moment, it's awesome cause he can sit up and play.

As we see here:

Max really likes the cool rattle from Eugenia and Jamie, especially when he can whack it on the plastic tray before nomming




or, you know, flinging:

Here's a cute sequence of Jen hanging out with Max.