11 months!

It's official, Max is walking! Not holding on to things (cruising), not sometimes crawling, completely and independently walking. Sometimes he tries to run but the weight of his head overpowers his center of balance and he falls. But he caterpillars his but up, stands up and keeps walking.

He seems to walk with a purpose--as much purpose as a baby has, but he does it. It's pretty cool to watch. When he speeds up, he raises his arms to shoulder height and claps his hands.

He's climbing too! Stairs, dirt hills, sofas, ramps... just about anything that can be climbed by a toddler gets climbed by Max. He doesn't gesture to be carried away from the car the way I've seen other toddlers do. He seems happy walking next to one of us all the way to the front door. I took him to Burger King this afternoon; he walked in and stood in line with me. He gets a little distracted and wanders off, and because he's still so little, I'm afraid that someone will run into him so we hang on.

He's not talking yet, he's still baby-babbling and I'm not sure that he knows his name yet. He might. Sometimes we try to get his attention by yelling his name, "Max!" when he looks like he's getting into trouble or about to stick something in his mouth other than food, like rocks, bark or a cat, but we haven't figured out if he's either ignoring us or he just doesn't know his name.

Max appears very inquisitive and likes opening and closing doors, cabinets, boxes and most anything that appears to be a container. He likes flipping pages in books, but he never tears the pages. He gets annoyed when Amy or I leave the room, and I understand (according to a book on child development) that this is a sign of maturity as it shows that he knows who his caretakers are and likes them around. He plays with Spike--our Chihuahua. He carries her little furry ball around and Spike chases him. Max and Spike get along very well, but he seems to favor cats. Max makes cooing sounds when he sees cats.

We're working on certain things with him like music and art. He has crayons and play-doh. He can't eat the crayons because they're toddler crayons, encased in huge, plastic balls with only the crayon tips poking out. The play-doh turned out to be just something else to stick in his mouth, so we'll have to wait on that one. Amy bought a recorder for him to blow into, but I don't think he gets it yet. He does, however, blow into a simple PVC pipe, go figure.

We're starting to see a personality in Max. So far he seems very persistent on getting what he wants but doesn't throw tantrums [yet?]. He's extremely curious and will sit quietly for a while and watch TV with us. He's fascinated by our laptops and shows preferences in kids' online shows.

His favorite shows are:

• Hopla, a little Dutch bunny
  
• Pocoyo, a kids' show from Spain
• Teletubbies from the UK
• the Wiggles, from Australia
• Choo Choo Soul from the US (Disney)

So we have Max's global awareness covered.

Religion. Well, obviously something that he's still too little to understand but there are adults that don't get it either so I don't know that Max is any worse off. Regardless, he's getting baptized next week at the St. Mary Church and reception will follow.

So next month will be it, he'll be one year old on August 29th, three days after my birthday. Back in October, his pediatrician confidently told me while wiggling Max's legs, "oh yea, he'll be walking before he's a year old". Good doctor!

It's hot, I'm tired from hiking, PICK ME UP!