Happy Third Birthday Max!

Our Max,

Happy Birthday Big Boy. These days that's the only name you're willing to accept.. Big Boy. And how! Last year at this time I couldn't imagine having a boy who could at once be a living tornado moving through the house (and life) at warp speed, wrestling, kicking, rolling, karate chopping and making all the requisite boy noises while on the other hand secretly asking Mama to "holsche me" or to complete the HUG!, KISS!, HIGH FIVE! ritual  every night before bed. You are everything I imagined little boys to be, loud, boisterous, not afraid to get dirty and always ready to burst out into a gun or sword fight. You are all those things but on the occasions that you are quiet and still  I can still see the little boy who loves to be cuddled, read to, and praised for being good. At the core you are good. Wonderful actually. And all that goodness shines through fully with that always charming (and mischievous) grin of yours. We are so proud of you Max.

Happy Birthday Maxinator

We love you, from age three until forever.

Mommy and Daddy

My boys are the middle child

Some time ago, 11 days to be exact, I started a "Happy 2nd Birthday" to Alex and Max post. I got as far as Alex, and although it was really quite touching and full of all the usual syrupy adoration I feel compelled to bestow on my children on their birthdays, I hit the proverbial writer's road block and never finished my "letter".

So you tell me, which is worse?

Not delivering a full on sloppy Mama kiss with the usual gushing of affection to each boy or hitting a "block" when writing said love infused proclamation. Does this mean my boys will grow up and think I only loved Sophia enough to write a letter on each of her birthdays? Does this mean that although we don't technically have a "baby" they will both grow up with "middle child" complex? Does this mean that I am getting lazy and a picture of their party with the boilerplate "I love you!" caption inserted under each picture will suffice? For shame!!!

Alright enough mama melodrama for one day. I'm starting over and getting it right this time.

Alex..  Even at the oh so very young age of two, your tenderness, warmth, caring and love for others shines through so brightly. You are a wonderful little person and I have no doubt that with your charm, outgoing nature and sharp wit, you will grow up to be nothing short of amazing. You remind me so much of your Daddy which despite his goofy sense of humor is a great thing.  Having you in our lives has been a blessing and we can't imagine a day without seeing your sweet smile and soft brown eyes. We love you Alexander. From age two until forever.

Max. Max. Max. You are a wildman my son. Just pure choo choo-lovin', dinosaur roarin' goodness bottled into one loud, crazy little boy. You are forever making us laugh and we have no doubt that you will one day be the class clown and later the consummate frat boy.  In fact one of the nicknames we've given you,  based on the way you down your bottles is The Chugerator, which will undoubtedly follow you into the future. Despite all your monster trucks and caveman grunts you still are a love and getting a quiet moment to just rock and sing to you is among the things I love most.  You are a blessing and a gift. We love you Max. From age two until forever.


Short. Sweet. Sappy. Just like a birthday love letter from Mama should be.

Oh and I almost forgot!! The requisite birthday photos!

A Proud Parenting Moment PLUS an Homage to One of My Favorite Bloggers

Bear with me on this one. I'm mentally and physically drained. The kids were sick all week with a stomach flu (always lovely to deal with) and then towards the latter part of the week I caught a nasty cold which has by now spread to all the kids. I swear we wash our hands RELIGIOUSLY but somehow we can't go more than a few weeks with someone getting sick!!

As it is for any family with three little kids there are times when both parents are present but otherwise occupied and not paying 100% attention to what each individual child is doing. This tiny fractional, fleeting moment of inattention is usually just enough time for little evil genius masterminds to plan, scheme and execute.

You can see where I'm going with the one, right?

Today, as is our routine after a grocery store run, Patrick and I took turns running out to unload the van while the other stayed inside restocking the fridge and pantry. Just as we were finishing up I spotted Max under table very happily playing with and rolling around in what appeared to be apple juice or water although I couldn't quite tell for certain.

Since I had banged the egg carton against the table on the way in my first thought was
"Oh crap! What if that's egg whites he's rolling around in!!"

I quickly yank him out from under the table and touch the floor to further examine the mystery liquid. Although the unidentified substance is a little sticky it definitely isn't egg whites.

Phew! What a relief. Imagine my baby rolling around in something that gross and potentially harmful!

I then turn to Patrick to ask if he might know what spilled or leaked. (At this point Max breaks away from me and happily returns back to his spot under the table.) Anyone spill a sippy cup? Na Uh. Did the water line in the refrigerator spring a leak. Nope. Did the apple juice bottle break? Not that either. (Max continues to contently splash around in the little puddle.)

After a few more moments of thinking aloud about other possibilities, Sophia chimes in "Mommy! (in her very "Oh, quit being so over dramatic mom" tone) That's just my PEE PEE!"

Yup. My daughter who has been potty trained for almost two years inexplicably decided that UNDER THE KITCHEN TABLE would be an entirely appropriate place to relieve herself.

And her sweet baby brother played in it.

Very, very proud parenting moment indeed.

So Jen (the purveyor of a very smart and hilarious blog that can be read here), as it turns out, the diagnosis was indeed urine.

It Could Be Worse....

[caption id="attachment_775" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Eye Eye Captain Max"][/caption]

I love that he's not the slightest bit affected by the loss of one eye.

A Max No More

I'm generally a very decisive person. I know what I like fairly quickly on and rarely stop to reevaluate my choice once it's made. Actually I've always liked that about myself. Seems to be the quality of a good leader, a strong minded individual. This however was NOT the case when trying to determine names for the boys (at the time we had no idea what gender they would be).  From almost the time we found out we would be adding two extra plates at the table, Patrick and I worked to come up with good name combinations.  At one time our running names for girls were Allessandra and Daniella (which started to get on my nerves  about two months into it, sounded like names for Cinderella's wicked stepsisters) and Donovan and Desmond for boys (which later changed to Max and Mateo).  We went back and forth on countless possible combinations for weeks without really coming up with anything that struck both of us as names we'd like to call our children for the rest of thier lives (Yes, naming ones child is a big decision but for some reason it wasn't that complicated with Sophia.  We came up with "Sophia" very early on only to find out later that hundreds of  thousands other people loved that  name too. Sophia was ranked number 7 most popular name in 2005 and number 1 in 2007. Go figure!)

A couple of days before "D" day we finally had it narrowed down to Max and Alex (boys), Mia and Maggie (girls) or Mia and Max (Just in case).  LONG story, ummm long, we had ourselves a Max and an Alex. (By the way, as hard as it was coming up with final names I never really had problems deciding which twin would get which name. I KNEW baby A was Alex and baby B was Max. Baby B's interwomb personality just struck me as a "Max".  I was right. :) ) 

Our final naming dilema came in the form of "congruency" (is that a word). We knew Alex would formally be Alexander (just in case he ever wanted to go with a more serious, authoritative sounding name) but we couldn't decide on a longer form of Max. Should it be Maxwell, Maximilian, Maximiliano, Maximo, or even Maddox? We strugged with this for days and actually left the hospital with Max being "Baby B Nelson". A couple of days later an employee with hospital records called and actually gave me NO MORE THAN ten minutes to decide on a name before transmitting "Baby B" to the state as our sons given name. I called Patrick at work and under the threat of being the proud parents to Baby B indefinately we decided to settle with just Max.

Okay, fast forward to two months later and our choice started to weigh on us.  It seemed so strange to have one twin with long name like Alexander and the other with just three simple letters M-A-X.  What if as an adult he too yearned for a longer, more serious sounding name? What if he forever felt inferior to his older, more "sophistically"(again I'm making up words) named brother "Alexander , The Great?" The guilt was just too much for me so on thier two month birthday we visited with a very nice notary public and officially changed  Max to Maximilian. So there... guilt averted.  Nicely done.

Now we have what sound like two Roman warriors in the family... ALEXANDER VICTOR and MAXIMILIAN XAVIER. (Wow, very manly names, if I don't say so myself). 

ALEXANDER AND MAXIMILIAN.

Watch out world! The Nelson Twins have arrived.

The Little Things

A little over a week ago our boys started interacting with us in yet another exciting way. They are now endlessly charming us with their big toothless grins. I hadn't captured one on camera as of yet but this afternoon I spotted Max smiling in his sleep. I took the pic and then gently woke him up and true to his sweet easy going nature, he rewarded me with a genuine smile.  Ahhh... my melting heart.

Sweet Dreaming.....

Morning Mom!

Brotherly Love

Twin Evidence

While our boys may not be identical (actually, the jury is still out on that) there is plenty of evidence that they are indeed twins. Here are some examples...

• When sleeping they will make the exact same face (grimace, smile, frown etc) at almost the exact same moment. They also tend to yawn, sneeze, etc within seconds of each other.


• 
  
  They seem to communicate across the room to each other in a series of grunts and other similar noises. It sounds silly but listening to the back and forth that goes on between them makes me think they are really carrying on a conversation.
  
  


• 
  
  When one is crying the other will wait listening quietly. As soon as the crying brother is done, the quiet one jumps in. This "turn taking" can go on for quite a while which often makes for a non-stop cry-fest. Lots of fun!
  
  


• 
  
  If one brother is sleeping and the other brother is about to be fed, the sleeping brother will instantly wake up crying in indignation and anger the moment the eating sibling takes his first suck. This is true even if they are in different rooms.
  
  

I'm sure we'll see more evidence of how close twins are as the months pass and even more evidence of just how different and individual they are.  It's always exciting to see how a baby's personality unfolds. Having two just makes it twice as fun.

 

Here We Grow...

A couple of days after Sophia was born I snapped a picture of her sitting next to a teddy bear that was roughly her size.  That picture was used on her birth announcement and quickly became one of our favorites. As a result, we began the tradition of photographing her next to the bear on her "monthly birthday" to visually document how much she'd grown.  While life was too hectic to capture the boys in their first day's next to the bear, things finally did settle down enough to get the one month pic done. 

Here is a Growth Timeline of Sophia starting at Two Days Old (Every Six Mths to Age 2)

        

For comparisons sake here are Sophia, Alex and Max at One Month

   

 The Boys Side by Side



And Finally... All Three of Our Kiddoes with the Infamous "Birthday Bear"



(Yup, This was the best shot )