July Traditions

The first week of July is always a joy for M.A.X. as it is kicked off with our annual apricot picking at the Packard Orchard and bike ride to Shoreline Park for Fourth of July fireworks.

This year's July traditions were especially meaningful as they were a welcomed break from the renovation of two kitchens, three bathrooms and a whole lot of floors and recessed lights. But, more on that later. For now, we're still enjoying the sweetness of this year's harvest.

February: Naked Trees and Sunburned Cheeks

For Valentine's Day this year, we visited Gong Gong (XW's dad) in Blacksburg and were happily joined by Mei-Lun (+family) and Michael (+kids). We just wished we could have also seen Jimo, Vincent, Janie and the Chicago kids.

Max had a blast with his cousins and it was quite special to be in Blacksburg for Valentine's Day. He met many of Gong Gong's friends (of all ages) and also sat through his first college-level lecture given by....Daddy! Alan was invited to give a presentation to the Industrial Design students at Virginia Tech.

Following our visit in the mountains of Virginia, we head down to the sunny beaches of Amelia Island, Florida. We were totally spoiled and pampered at the Ritz-Carlton and Max had a blast with his sweet "Texas cousin," London.

We realized on this trip that need to keep up our travel routine so that Max continues to experience different climates and seasons. While we were in Blacksburg, he commented several times, "the trees are naked!" And, on Amelia Island, it was the first time Max was exposed to a warm beach and able to dip his toes in the ocean. The downside were the very strong and sneaky sunrays. Fortunately, with the world's largest sandbox at his disposal, he hardly noticed his sunburned cheeks.

Number Theory

Now that Max has the alphabet down, we've been working on our numbers. We have a number poster on our refridgerator and we'll call out the number (in Chinese) and ask him to place a magnet on the number.

When we take walks, we look for numbers on fire hydrants (a favorite sidewalk attraction), license plates (hello, cars) and street signs (we've certainly seen enough real estate signs). There's something exciting to Max about seeing numbers "in the wild."

Recently, he has started to point to numbers and enthusiastically call each one out...but it usually goes something like this:

1 One

2 "S"

3 三

4 Cuatro

5 五

6 六

7 七

8 Ocho

9 九

Learning numbers has been a much greater challenge. It could be because unlike "A, B, C", he is learning "Yi, er, san" at home, but "One, two, three" and "Uno, dos, tres" at school.

I was trying to find a photo of Max and his number chart and this was the only one I seemed to have. Let it be known that this outburst was not related to numbers, but a plea for mac n cheese.

Yellow Binky for Baseball Mitt

Max surprised us again today. After his nap, Mommy and Max were having a conversation about cutting his hair. (We were scarred from the last SnipIt's experience, so we've been trying to find a way to approach the topic cautiously.) Anyway, Mommy was going through her quarterly review of Max's wardrobe (always a joy to discover the boy is actually growing into his cousins' hand-me-downs) and she discovered cousin Ian's baseball shirt with an emblem of a baseball bat and mitt embroidered onto it. Mommy excitedly showed Max the baseball shirt and said, "Max! If you let Mommy cut your hair this afternoon, maybe you can wear Ian Gege's baseball shirt afterwards!"

It seemed to spark something in him, because Max all of a sudden announced (in Chinese), "Max is going to throw away his yellow binky!" And then it dawned on us, a week ago (when Max threw out the blue binky in exchange for the baseball bat), Mommy promised Max that if he threw out his yellow (and last) binky, he would get a baseball mitt.

Mommy and Daddy were shocked by Max's announcement, and before we knew it, Max had thrown his yellow binky into the trash. Daddy nervously fished it out for fear of the repercussions at bed time. He did this without Max seeing, of course. But we stayed true to our word and immediately went to buy Max a new baseball mitt. Our little chef was pleased as punch coming out of the store, and he had it on for the rest of the afternoon.

Well, along came bedtime, and Max realized what he had done. It was like watching a heroin addict going through the stages of withdrawal. There was anger, sadness, trembling, and lots of snot. He even went so far as to go back to the garbage can into which he had thrown the binky. It was a good thing that Daddy took the binky out, after all. Mommy and Daddy (mostly Mommy) stayed strong and Max went to bed tonight without a binky.

Here's hoping that three days from now, our little chef will have forgotten about it entirely. But we're afraid that the sight of the baseball mitt will now trigger memories of his last binky. He might actually come to hold a grudge against baseball.

[aside] We recently discovered a green binky in the car from Max's infant days. It's in pristine condition (unlike the blue and yellow binky, which each had 20+ pinholes--another story for another time). Daddy wants to hold on to the green binky in case of dire emergency (ie, binky addict's conniptions/fits)...to which Mommy says, "not under my watch. no way." Stay tuned.

Blue Binky for Blue Baseball Bat

The binky has been a source of internal conflict in our household for some time now. Max gave it up when he was about 10 months old. Then when he had to have minor surgery on a sensitive area, we gave it back to him to use. That was when he was 15 months (and thankfully he only uses it when he sleeps). He's almost 30 months old now and his current passion is for baseball. So for the past month or so Mommy has been telling Max that if he throws away his binky, he'll be a big boy and Mommy will buy him a baseball bat because only big boys play with baseball bats. Max has a blue binky and a yellow binky. He uses the blue more often than the yellow. But this morning when he woke up, he specifically requested to throw away the blue binky.

We were not prepared for this.

In keeping to the deal, we went to Target and bought him a blue baseball bat with a very soft baseball. He was so excited to play when we got home. So, we practiced holding the bat, and swinging it, as well. Then it was time for his nap. He must have been dreaming about it because he normally sleeps for more than two hours. But today, he slept for one hour and was up and singing songs to himself. As soon as Daddy went in to pick him up, he immediately asked to go downstairs to play with the baseball and baseball bat. We spent the rest of the afternoon and evening swinging the bat with daddy and mommy taking turns to pitch. His batting average was probably around .333. We were excited with him, and surprised at how quickly he took to the concept of standing at home plate, taking a stance, and swinging at the ball. Clearly, as with all children, they learn fast when there's passion. Here are a few pics from the baseball "field" we set up. Did I mention it's been raining and hailing here for the past week?

Twinkle Twinkle (Chinese version)

Strapped in his car seat and nowhere to run, Max sings his favorite tune. This time, Chinesey-style.

Twinkle Twinkle

Introducing the Interpretive Chant-Yell Version of Twinkle Twinkle.

Mind the volume on your computer (but not so soft that you can't hear the musical burp midway through the tune).