It took six months and two weeks, but Max has done it!

He’s tied his sister for weight.

Zoe, at 2 years and five months is 24 pounds.

So is Max.

I think she’ll still always be the boss of him.

We got their official weights at the doctor’s office this week, when Max had his six month appointment and Zoe had her 2 1/2 year appointment.  The doctor says both Zoe and Max are doing great developmentally, just on the opposite end of the weight spectrum. Max is off the charts and she’s in the 7th percentile. They’re both about the 65th percentile in height. I expect Maxie will thin out once he starts chasing his sister around, which he desperately wants to do! Go Max!

The one y’all should be feeling sorry for here is me. No wonder my back hurts at the end of the day, lugging these two around. The biggest problem though is not their weight — it’s the fact that Max is so round that he’s hard to keep a good grip on for very long. Zoe, being 2, is constantly moving and so she’s hard to keep a grip on. Trying to carry them both at the same time should be an Olympic sport.

In other news, it’s Friday! It’s supposed to be gorgeous here this weekend! Hope you get out to enjoy.

For 30-plus years when I went on vacation it was vacation. It was nonstop reading, leisurely beach time whenever I wanted, searching out the best local restaurants, frequenting the local bars, sleeping in until whenever I wanted…you know. VACATION.

Now, well. Now is different. Vacation seems like an awful lot of work these days. Just getting through airport security with two little kids is enough to give you heart palpitations. But some things are still the same: I still got lots of quiet beach time, for instance. It was just at sunrise, on the days when Max decided that 5:30 a.m. was a good time to get up and we went for long walks on the beach.

But oh, woe is me, as you see. We had a fantastic time during our week on Sanibel Island.

Whassup mama? I’m the coolest kid on the beach.

No, no. I don’t want my investments there. That’s just a shell company.

Naptime in their chariot.

Seriously. Give these two shovels and pails and the next thing you know they’ve dug halfway to China. Those hole digging crazy kids.

Cool stuff we found:

Working hard for the perfect shot:

I made so much fun of him for this. There were all these guys with these massive cameras and lenses all over the place taking bird pictures, and here’s Mark all stretched out with his iPhone. But then, I saw his picture. You can call him Ansel:

I snuck over to the pool one day when the kids were napping and this was my view from my chair. Oh, happy.

This was my normal pool time:

And that’s all! We have thousands more pictures but I haven’t gone through even half of them. Many thanks to Grandma and Grandpa Westodes who played endlessly with the kids, didn’t fuss once about the huge mess we left every day, gave us several nights out on our own, and cooked for us on the nights we stayed home. Just make sure you ask Sallie about how to make that asparagus and feta dish. She would love to tell you.

While we were on vacation, my pudgy sweet baby boy became a man.

Well, OK. That’s ridiculous. But he turned six months old anyway. And he learned to roll over. And he had ice cream. And his first plane ride. Big week for baby.

I swore to Mark when we named Max that I wouldn’t call him “Maxie” because of well, you know. Third grade boys and all that.

But I call him Maxie so much that Zoe also calls him Maxie. And Mark? He calls him Maxie too.

Let me tell you a little about Maxie:

He sat up on his own super early and now could sit all day long if his sister didn’t bowl him over with a big hug every now and again.

But while he sat up super early, he rolled over super late. He rolled from back to front on vacation for the first time, and now he does it all the time. Even in bed. Where he gets stuck and then gets mad. Mad like this:

But usually he’s super happy. Grins like a fool at everyone who gives him a goochie goo. He’s quite the charmer.

 When he’s tired he tries to eat my face. He tries to pull my hair out by its roots, and then latch onto my chin, nose or whatever else is handy. And if all else fails, he tries to rip off my cheeks with his fingers. When I haven’t cut his fingernails lately this can be very painful for me.

He loves food. He has yet to reject anything we’ve offered. He’s chowed down on bananas, edamame, squash, sweet potatoes, oranges, ice cream and a strawberry that gave him a bellyache. He’s like the Very Hungry Caterpillar. If you don’t feed him fast enough and he really likes what he’s eating he breaks out in full-on drama. As witnessed by about a dozen people at Pinocchio’s ice cream shop in Sanibel:

Max and his sister adore each other. My favorite is when she sings “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” to him to try to calm him down when he’s crying.
She also crouches down, gets right in his face and says “Aaaah…goochie goochie goo” which is guaranteed baby belly laughs every time. I can’t say enough about what a good big sister she is to him. We will see how that changes when he gets old enough to move around and take her toys.

 Max and his daddy look so much alike that strangers comment on it wherever we go. Mark adores him and now that we’re out of the newborn phase where only mommy will do, it’s lovely to see them spending so much happy time together.

Mark can make Max laugh and laugh. They played ball for the first time in Florida, and Max was in hysterics every time he “caught” the ball.

 It’s been a whirlwind six months. We wondered what the heck we were thinking when we found out we were pregnant for a second time, even though we’d been trying. Then we wondered if we could possibly love him as much as we loved Zoe. But now that Max has been part of our lives for six months, we can’t imagine life without him. He’s a joy.

 Happy six months, Maxie!

We are on vacation this week and I’m finding little computer time between entertaining two kids  and choosing between beach and pool time.

Tough life we got.

We’ll be back next week!

We didn’t start Zoe on solids until she hit exactly six months, the recommended age of the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Here’s Zoe trying her first bananas:

Doesn’t look like she’s enjoying them much, eh? She wasn’t.

But Max was a different story. We’d noticed he was watching us anytime we ate. Actually, watching isn’t really an accurate descriptor. He would stare at us with such intensity and desire that we felt downright rude eating in front of him. He grabbed our plates and silverware. He drooled (though it’s hard to say if that was related to wanting food).

So one night a few weeks ago we finally gave in and offered the poor little guy a smashed up banana. He liked it. So much that he tried to eat the table to get more banana.

What’s funny about this is that my brother also loved bananas so much he chased one around the table 26 years ago:

In the days since his first banana, Max — who turns six months next week — has enjoyed tastes of avocado, grapes, hamburger, cauliflower, edamame and more banana. He’s turned his nose up at nothing. He seems to know how to use a spoon. On occasion he’s screamed and cried big crocodile tears when we decide he’s had enough. Meanwhile I’m lucky to get a bite or two of dinner down his older sister. But I think soon enough Max will be happy enough to clear his plate. And hers.

I mentioned a while back that Mark and I are trying to change how we eat. I’m trying to avoid the DIET word, because I know for the weight to stay off, we need to make permanent changes.

It’s been hard — much harder some days than others — but we’re doing great. As of today, I’m down 18 pounds and have flirted with that 20 pound mark. Mark’s down about eight pounds, and is hoping to hit the 10 pound mark very soon. We’ve been going strong since the beginning of March.

Here are three keys to our success:

• Portion control. We measure everything. I was shocked to see how big some of the portions we were eating. Store-bought chicken breasts measure 14 to 16 ounces each. A serving is 3 ounces. I’ve pared us down to 6 or 7 ounces a serving now and fill up the rest of our plate with lots of veggies. I cut the breasts up as soon as I get home from the store and freeze them in the portion sizes we will eat. Bonus: Saving money on groceries because we’re not eating as much meat.

• Keeping a food diary. We write down everything we put in our mouths and how much we’ve consumed, whether it be a cookie, alcohol or a meal. We both use the MyNetDiary app to keep track. Along with acting as a food diary, the app keeps track of how many calories, fat grams, etc. a day we can have, how much we’ve lost, how close we are to our goal, and analyzes our day’s tally to tell us how we’re doing. It also has a scan bar, extensive food database and charts your progress. All this AND IT’S FREE! I can’t say enough good things about it.

• Support. We’re both on this journey cheering each other on and urging each other not to give up. Mark has struggled because he has Type 1 diabetes (also known as juvenile diabetes), which means he’s insulin dependent and has to regulate his blood sugar levels. If he doesn’t get enough sugar into his system he can have a sugar low. Because his body was so used to eating one way, making it adjust to eating another has been difficult and he has suffered through a lot of sugar lows as we work to find a good balance for him. When he has a sugar low he has to consume something with carbs or sugar in it to bring him back up. But having a sugar low also makes him feel like he needs to devour everything in sight, so it’s a battle. He’s doing great though — he relies on glucose tablets, yogurt and berries, or a banana instead of eating up half the fridge like I think I would do. His commitment to this has definitely made me more committed because if he can do it, I certainly have no excuse. I’m proud of him.

Sunday started rainy and cold. Then, post-naps, we stepped outside to a gorgeous late afternoon. Zoe and I played by our corner crabapple tree, which was in the zenith of its flowering that day. What I didn’t realize until we were directly underneath it was the tree was alive with butterflies. And they seemed to be multiplying by the minute. There were hundreds of them flitting through the air, feeding on the flowers and even coming to land briefly on Zoe’s shirt.

We ate dinner out on our patio that night and butterflies were everywhere around us, chasing each other, dive bombing us and exploring all the trees and flowers in the yard. It was fantastic. I found out later they were migrating Red Admiral butterflies. Some experts are speculating the warm winter is to credit for their huge numbers this year. We weren’t the only ones to experience the butterfly explosion. Read about Red Admirals taking over Chicago here, and parts of Ohio and Presque Isle here.

The butterflies were back again the next night, though not nearly as many. Zoe loved them and chased them all over the yard. She came nose-to-nose with a few:

They seem to have moved on for the most part now, but they made for two memorable nights. As Zoe said, “come back bu’fly!” Come back anytime!

My dad and Sallie sent me Omaha steaks for my birthday, which Mark really appreciated. And I did too. But when I got the package, I was most excited about the dry ice inside.

Oh, this will be a fun thing for Zoe to see, I thought.

But where could I put it?

I had just cleaned the downstairs bathroom that morning. Perfect, I decided. I’d put it in the toilet. Because, you know. That made sense. In my head.

After telling this story a few times, I’ve found every guy gasps in understanding of where this story is going at this point. While all the women say something along the lines of: “So?”

So. It was great. Here’s proof:

OK. It’s a boring picture. Of my daughter looking at a toilet. But there’s dry ice in there.

Anyway, Zoe enjoyed watching the dry ice create pillows of steam and I showed her how it billowed up when you poured more water in it. Etc. You know, 10 minutes of keeping her occupied. Success.

But then. But then I realized that what had been water in the toilet bowl had turned to solid ice. Oops. I thought, hope that doesn’t cause a problem.

But I poured hot water over it and it melted. No issues.

Mark got home and I told him about the steaks and the dry ice fun we had. He gasped. He told me I was lucky the toilet hadn’t cracked. Oh geez, I said. I wondered about that when the water froze. He rolled his eyes, the equivalent of telling me that I don’t deserve to eat his my Omaha steaks.

A few days later Mark used the downstairs toilet. When he came out, he said water was leaking from underneath. “I wonder what happened?” he said. The thing is is HE WAS SERIOUS. HE FORGOT. I DIDNT HAVE TO ‘FESS UP.

But I did.

I called the plumber. I explained on the phone what I did. The person on the other end didn’t react, but I’m sure as soon as we got off there was lots of guffaws around the plumber office about dumb non-plumbers of the female persuasion. Whatever. Get a belt.

Anyway, the toilet was leaking out the bottom where a seal had been ruined, the plumber explained to me in exhaustive detail. Well, that’s good, I thought as he kept talking about seals and glue and even floors and God knows what else. At least we won’t need a new toilet.

While he talked I took a picture of his work for Mark to see. “This doesn’t look good,” I wrote in the text.

An hour later the plumber, when trying to put the toilet back together, found a hairline crack all the way down the basin that was wet when he put water in the bowl. So it was leaking. We’d need a whole new toilet, he said. This conversation has been condensed. It took him 15 minutes to tell me that.

So we got a new toilet. Works just the same as the old one. And those steaks? They were great, even considering they turned out to be the most expensive steaks I’ve ever had.

I learned my lesson. Next time I’ll save the dry ice for the punch bowl. And next time I’ll hire a less talkative plumber. One who wears a belt.

Check out this sale if you have a chance — they’ve got four times the consignors they did at the last sale so there should be more selection. And they are at the Bayfront Convention Center this time around, so it shouldn’t be as crowded as the fall sale. I put about 100 (!) items in, ranging from baby sleepers to a double stroller. It was kind of sad folding up Zoe’s old newborn sleepers. Can’t believe she ever fit in those cute little things. Anyway, hope to see you there! It’s free entry and cash only sales.

Part two of March:

March 16: Clean baby.

March 18: Playground!

This was Max’s first time in a swing — he loved it. The next time he was in a swing, he fell asleep which was super cute.

March 20: Beach Day

Oh, those warm days were so nice. They’ll be back.

March 21: Sunset at Presque Isle

This was that perfect 80 degree day. Mark got the day off work and we spent the entire day outside  – we went to the zoo, our patio, the beach for a sunset picnic. It was glorious. I have a ton of pictures from that day. I meant to do a blog entry, hopefully I’ll get to it one of these days. But this was my favorite picture of that day, though it has a funny story. Originally it looks like I have a very large penis in this photo. It was actually my belt. I edited it out. But it’s pretty funny.

March 24: Sesame Street Live

We got a sitter for Max this day so that it would be a special day out for Zoe. After the show we agreed that next year we’d get a sitter to take the kids. Please don’t make me go again.

March 29: My babies

I’ve got an 8×10 of this picture ordered and it’s my new screensaver on all my devices. This is my favorite from the whole month. My sweeties.

As usual, all the pictures were taken with my iPhone4. Most took a run through Instagram and the ones that include multiple photos were done with an app called Diptic. Project 365 is an app in which you record one picture a day for a year. To see January and February’s pictures go here and here.