Almost 5 whole months without a single post. Awful… Although I do think about blogging everyday, I don’t have much time to and right now it’s only going to be a few iPhone photos until I can properly sit down and blog.
Max in boots while on holiday in Escalante, Utah after his first birthday:
Check out these teeth:
His first painting:
With Mummy:
I’ll post more about his birthday, his walking (now running!!), his signs – we’ve been teaching him baby sign language and all his words! Stay tuned.
Max can say Mama and Dada now, and he seems to understand what they mean. He’ll crawl up to me going “dadadadadadadada” and then crawl back to George saying “mamamamamamama.”
Last weekend when the rain starting pouring, Max quickly crawled over to the window that looks over the pool to see what was going on. He’s such a curious kid and growing so fast!
Never in a million years would I have imagined myself writing about peanut butter cookies! But today, here I am – about to share with you my new found addiction to Uncle Eddie’s VEGAN (!) peanut butter chocolate chip cookies. Growing up in Hong Kong and England, we were never exposed to peanut butter sweets, let alone peanut butter cookies. When I moved to America, I didn’t understand why people were so addicted to Reese’s, Butterfinger, or peanut butter coated in any type of chocolate. It pretty much grossed me out. The taste to me seemed very fake – probably because I wasn’t used to it.
But last week, my friend Melissa and I met up for coffee and she turned me onto these cookies. She and I shared one and as I took a bite, I was pleasantly surprised. In fact, absolutely delighted! It was so delicious! The peanut flavor wasn’t over-powering and even though they are vegan, you wouldn’t think so! The chocolate chips were super chocolatey and the texture of the cookie itself was very pleasing. After each bite, I wanted another. Since then, I looked up their website and noticed the “Retail” portion of their site wasn’t updated yet. So I got pretty sad and realized the only way for me to get these cookies was to go back to where Melissa and I met or order them through Amazon — until I stumbled across them at Whole Foods. I wasn’t even looking for cookies! But as I walked into the store there was a display of all of the Uncle Eddie’s baked goods. Someone knew I was coming! Anyway, I grabbed a bag and I’m going to indulge later today with a lovely cup of steaming hot tea. Can’t wait!
(Yes – this logo is super lo res – this is also what it looks like on their website.)
A few weeks ago we finally got to hang out with our friends Junko and Jason and their baby girl, Emily. It was the first time we’d seen them since Emily was born and we had been wanting to get together for a while. The reason it took almost 3 months to see each other was because Max got sick, then I got sick, then we were off to Hong Kong so the timing really sucked. We didn’t want to expose our germs to the baby either, but we finally saw each other for a lovely lunch. Max was fascinated by Emily – wanting to touch her and kept smiling at her. Max also kept smiling a lot at Junko. It was pretty adorable. Here are some photos of the outing:
And with a new year, comes a new tooth! Max’s top front right tooth has pushed through. I don’t have a photo of it, but I here is a photo of Brad and Max at the Happy Valley race track in Hong Kong from Christmas break.
Just after thanksgiving, Max was kinda moving around a little on his own and before we left for Hong Kong, he started crawling. While in Hong Kong, he got really fast at it and he’s now pulling himself up and standing. It’s amazing how quickly he’s learning to do stuff. His most favorite thing to do is crawl into the kitchen and play with the water in the bowl we leave out for the cats. He’s not afraid of water – he gets excited for bath time and when we’re washing hands, he thinks it’s time to play. I wonder if he’ll like to swim?
On my way to work to work this morning, I was driving behind a pick-up truck on the freeway. I was keeping my usual distance – a good 2 or 3 cars length between us. And then what happened next felt like a scene from a movie. The metal ladder that was hanging out the back of his truck flew up and out into the air in front of me. It felt like everything was in slow motion. I quickly checked all around me and noticed a car behind me – also keeping a good distance and a car in the number 1 lane (I was in the number 2 lane) just a bit further back than the car behind me. I saw the ladder coming towards my windshield. I knew I wasn’t going to get into an accident. I wasn’t going to let it happen. I pushed on the brakes to slow a little and then swerved a bit to the left when the ladder hit the freeway and bounced into the air. The car to the left and behind me was getting a bit closer so I had to swerve back into my lane and slow a little more still. The car behind me moved over to the number 3 lane. And then I got closer to the ladder and it spun around and I swerved around it.The pick-up truck pulled over, but I don’t know for what. There was no way he was going to be able to go out and retrieve his ladder. I slowly moved over and headed to my exit.
Although I burst into tears immediately, I knew I was going to be able to go home tonight and see my baby – to hold him in my arms and tell him Mummy had a good day, even though it started off a bit scary.
I hope the ladder didn’t get anyone into an accident. I just checked the traffic on Google maps and it’s still green, so that’s a good sign.
November 22nd, 2009 at 10:04 pm
by george (Family)
Hi Dad! It’s me. Daughter number 2. Your Georgie Porgie. As today approached, I thought about so many things I wanted to share with you. The biggest, most important thing that I wanted to share with you is your grandson. My baby. My Max. Dad, I know you’d think he was just perfect. And he is. And it makes me so sad to think that he’ll never get to meet you. He was born back in April and when he was first born you could tell he was my son. He looked just like me, but as he’s gotten older he looks more and more like Brad. His eyes are the bluest blue. It still feels unreal that you’re not here and it’s been 4 years. Not a day goes by that I don’t think of you. Most of the time I smile when I think of you, but there are days that I still cry. I miss you and I don’t think I’ll ever stop missing you.
All day I shared stories of you with Max. I told him about the time I first went away to boarding school – the first time I saw you cry as we said goodbye at the airport. I told him about the many road trips we took and we used to call ourselves the Griswolds because there was always a funny incident or person we encountered. I told him how we used to look over those drawing books over and over together and how I practiced drawing all the pictures in those books and showed you my progress. I told him about how you used to read Mr. Men books to me when I was a little girl. I told him about the time we were sitting at the Clayton house having lunch and we were laughing at Mum’s hair and you decided to mess your hair up – I snapped that picture and I still laugh when I look at it. I told him about when we danced at my wedding. I told him about the “little bridge” in London. I told him about how excited I was when you gave me my first camera. I told him many things and although he didn’t know what I was saying, I promised him that I would keep telling him stories about his grandfather.
Dad, you’ll be a part of his life as you still are every day of mine. I love you. Always.
There is so much to blog about but right now I need to post this photo!
Max’s front left tooth started pushing through 2 weeks ago. And by the end of that same week his front right tooth had also pushed through. He’s been drooling non-stop since he was 3 months and now he has something to show! I’ve been trying to photograph his pearly whites but everytime I tried, he would put his tongue in the way.
Luckily today he was smiling and cracking up while eating his pears (Yes! He’s eating fruit and vegetables now! But that’s another post). Anyway, I captured this photo and though still super short, you can see his two front nubs! Too cute!
