"Hot" means ....? (More progress on the word "No")

In an earlier post I detailed our struggle with teaching Max the word "no".  I am pleased to announce that we have made some progress in this regard.  Mostly, we have been attempting to teach Max that the stove is no, because he has developed an interest in hanging from the oven door, which causes it to crash open.  Although this is relatively harmless when the oven is off, it has obvious negative consequences when the oven is on.  I'm all about letting Max learn natural consequences, but these seem a little harsh.

So the oven was no.  We explained to Max that it could be hot and he went on time out if he touched it.  At first this seemed to work very well.  He would run up to the oven and declare "HOT!" and then run off again.  He even generalized the concept to Grandma and Grandpa's oven and to the barbecue.  We were thrilled.   Not only did our son know to leave the oven alone, but he had also mastered a new word!

But our original assessment of Max's understanding may have been misguided.  As you rock him to bed at night he quietly repeats "hot, hot, hot".  When you give him a bite of your ice cream, he informs you that it is "hot".  And when he is happy to see you he dashes across the room with a big grin, open arms, and a barrage of "hots"

Max's understanding of the off limits oven seems to be headed in a similar direction.  Despite our early progress, Gus turned around yesterday to find that Max had not only touched the oven, but he had climbed into the oven drawer!  On second thought, it may not have been an example of exemplary parenting to delay time out while we took some pictures.....

Max's first words

Max awoke over an hour ago coughing and crying and unable to sleep.  I just put him back to bed now.  (It's 4:15am.)  He spent the last hour with me in the darkness of our living room talking up a storm, running through his repertoire of words over and over and over.  To date he can say the following words:

• mama
• dada
• Anne (Max's cousin, Sue & Jeff's new baby)
• hot
• no
• bottle
• birdie
• done
• nana (banana, also means "can I have some food?")
• up
• down

Tonight, sitting with me in the dark, he combined two words together for the first time.  I gave him a sip of water from his sippy-cup to soothe his cough.  He asked for his bottle, which always has soy milk.  (Apparently he wanted milk instead of water.)  I told him that his bottle's done and he repeated:

• bottle done

"That's right!" I cheered.  "All done," which he also repeated:

• all done

Of course, his pronunciation leaves much to be desired.  It's often difficult to tell what he's saying, though tonight his pronunciation of "done" was especially clear.

He has not yet said a word that contains "s", such as "sleep" or "soother".  I suspect this is no coincidence -- "s" is probably a harder sound to make at a young age.

He's also fond of making several sounds, such as:

• roar!  (like a lion or bear)
• meow!  (cat, in case it's not obvious)
• whooo!  (like an owl)
• blether-blether-blether (a fun sound made by sticking out the tongue)

It's too bad Greta and I are not equipped to teach Max any other languages.

Hailey the miraculous flying wonder dog

This morning our dog Hailey took a terrifying 5-meter plunge from the second story of a parking garage.  All I heard was a quick yelp.  I dashed to the ledge from which she leaped with my heart pounding.  By the time I got to look down over the ledge she was already milling around on the grass below, looking up at me and wondering what was taking me so long to take her on a walk.  She's totally fine.  I still can't believe it.  I forced Greta to wait while I took some pictures of the scene.

Haily took a Peter-Pan from the second floor.  As you can see, it's a good fifteen feet above the ground. 

The view from the ledge.  This is what Hailey saw as she plunged to the earth below.

The view from inside the parking garage.  I stood there watching dumbly while my dog ran full speed up to this ledge, leaped up on top and dove off without a care in the world.

New homemade sleeper from gramma G

Jean painstakingly sewed Max a brand new sleeper made out of fleece, complete with zipper and foot pads.  It's very well made and very warm.  Jean was afraid it wouldn't fit, but as you can see Max has room yet to fill.

Max meets cousin Anne for the first time

Greta, Max, and I made the trek to Ottawa this weekend.  We just returned home now and we're exhausted.  We spent the nights at Lee and Sandi's house.  They were gracious enough to feed us delicious meals and to dogsit for us while we visited Sue, Jeff, and twelve-day-old baby Anne during the days.  All they asked in return was a little Kaiser and some baby-in-a-hot-tub.  We were happy to oblige.

Sue and Jeff seem to be doing very well for new parents.  I can now corroborate other eye-witness accounts of Anne's perfection.  She's so TINY!  Compared to her, Max is HUGE!

I managed to snap some neat photos of Max using Sue's shiny whizz-bang camera, some of which are included below.  You should really view all 28 of the best photos by clicking this link.  Unfortunately, I failed to get any photos of the two babies together (or of anyone else, for that matter).

Baby Anne, pictured here in traditional Jedi robes.

Max with mom and aunt Sue.  Anne is in this picture -- she's inside that little green sack hanging from Sue's shoulders.

Max kissing a neighbourhood cat.  How cute is that?

Max "masters" potty at a young age

Gus and I have started potty training Max.  I just finished reading a book that suggests our society potty trains children way to late.  We've had Max on the potty from the very beginning, but we decided to take on the task with a little more determination.  The book recommends moving your child from diapers to underwear at age 1 and then making regular trips to the potty.    It offers a number of solutions to help your child enjoy time spent on the potty, including reading books and playing while you are using it.

In our case, the advice may be working too well.  Max loves the potty.  He sits on it happily and hands you book after book out of his book bin.  In most cases, he fails to actually let you read the book, unless it is the one where you make the chimpanzee noise.  Roughly 2/3rds of the time he bestows a pee upon the potty and everyone rejoices.  He is very interested in this event and stares intently between his legs into the depths of the potty to see if anything is there.  Much to our distress, if he cannot see well enough, he will reach in to see if he can feel anything.

The potty training book claims that your child will need to pee every 2 or 3 hours.  I don't know what 1-year olds she had, but ours goes roughly every 20 minutes.  I've become convinced that he is just rationing his pee for more potty opportunities.  Who knew potty training could work too well?

Now playing: Max walks

Some family members ( I will not point fingers, but some of them have alternative superhero identities) have demanded video proof that Max is walking.  Here it is.  I think this one will be a block buster.