19 months.

The image above shows Max checking out a finance page, he's not. I put the image together because I thought it looked funny. He's actually watching one of his favorite YouTube videos, Pocoyo. Much like Max, Pocoyo is a mischievous little toddler who ends up in trouble because he's either discovering things with his friends or getting in over his head, exactly like Max. Pocoyo always gets out of trouble end learns something new.

Amazingly, he's listening now! And I'm not just being optimistic or biased, he actually pays attention to what you tell him and makes an attempt at following through--as long you look at him, smile and use a lot of body language, finger pointing. Max has a habit of wandering off and he did so one day when we were outside working on a project. I quickly caught up to him and firmly told Max, "you can't be here without me. Go back and stay where I can watch you!". I spoke to him slowly, calmly. He pointed back in the direction that I wanted him to walk in and said something in baby-gibberish. It looked like he had a question or simply wanted to add commentary to what I asked him to do. Regardless, he collected himself and walked to where I wanted him to stay. It was cool!

So this only means one thing for us, the parents. Now we know that Max may not be talking or pronouncing words but he does understand and it seems like he understands a lot. He understands words in Spanish as well because he hears it with with his grandparents. Now that we know he understands, it's easier to sit and explain things to him. He won't turn away from you, he'll listen. It's really cute when he answers because I think that he actually feels like he's in a conversation.

But I learned something from watching Max mimic us. He sometimes holds the cell phone up to his ear and converses, like we do. But I notice that he says, "no" a lot but in a correcting tone of voice, not negative. It's as though someone said something and he's correcting them but the conversation continues. There he'll say, "umm..." then more words, then he'll politely laugh and continue his gibberish. I learned that Amy and I must do this when we talk on the cell. We correct callers and start by saying, "no, blah blah blah--oh, it's ok--ha ha ha". I guess I always knew that Max was watching but I didn't know that he was retaining everything we were doing even to mimic a mood.

He holds pencils, pens and crayons correctly but he's still at the scribble phase. I'm trying to teach him defined shapes like circles, squares, triangles--the basic shapes. Amy says that she's noticed Max be more deliberate about his scribbles, like he's actually trying to draw something. Amy and I scribble and write a lot, we both enjoy doodling. Maybe he'll catch this as well.

Sports! He can follow the soccer ball down the field more accurately now. I need to get him a T-ball set so he can start getting used to baseball. I don't think he understands what a football is for. I bought him one and we played catch for a little while but the fact that a football doesn't really roll the way a round ball normal does I think confuses him. I can't say that I blame him. Football to me has always been more of a social event rather than a sport. I know, I know, it's a sport. Max is going to be a big kid, it would be a shame if I didn't introduce the concept of football now so that he doesn't endure what I had to in jr. high--never getting picked for teams (long story).

Well, we're going to Wrightstown, Wisconsin this week, tomorrow in fact. The flight leaves too early, six am. I still have some things to pack and probably need to stop procrastinating and get Max's stuff ready as well. I'm excited about going, I always am. This will be Max's first time on a plane, two planes actually. One's a large jet and the other one's a puddle jumper. The last time I took one of these puddle jumpers was over Lake Michigan and it was, well... exciting's a good word for it. I'm looking forward to seeing how Max reacts to family in WI. The last time he was there was when he was four months old.

On to 20 months...